Seminars

Summer Seminar Series

Research seminars and other talks are presented most Tuesday and Thursday evenings during the summer, usually at 8:00pm in the Ruth Patrick Hall Auditorium. These lectures are open to the public! We just ask that visitors please email in advance to confirm the schedule.

►2025 Seminar Series- TBA

► Previous seminar series - 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019,  2018,  2017,  2016,  2015,  2014,  2013,  2012,  2011,  2010,  2009,  2008,  2007,  2006,  2005,  2004,  2003,  2002,  2001,  2000,  1999,  1998,  1997 

Walton Lecture Series

In most summers a prominent biologist is invited to the station for several days of discussion and interaction with students and researchers. The visit is highlighted by the evening Walton Lecture and its festive reception. The series was initiated and supported by a gift to the Station from Miles and Ruth Horton of Giles County in honor of the well remembered and loved Walton sisters, who contributed so much to Station life, learning, and science in their many years here. After the passing of Ruth Horton in 2012, the lecture series has been supported by the generous support of friends of the Station.

Walton Lectures:
 

Year Speaker Institution Department Lecture Title
2019 Andrew Sih University of California, Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy Implications of animal personalities for social and ecological dynamics
2018 Regina Baucom University of Michigan Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology The evolution of resistance in an agricultural weed: Convergence, costs, and the mating system
2017 Joseph Travis Florida State University Biological Science The ecological context of local adaptation: Deciphering cause and effect
2016 Ellen Ketterson Indiana University Department of Biology What evolution, ecology and behavior have in common: The organism in the middle
2014 David Queller Washington University Department of Biology Cooperation and conflict in social amoebae
2014 Joan Strassman Washington University Department of Biology Guns and butter in microbial farming interactions
2012 Fred Janzen Iowa State University Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology Effects of climate change on temperature-dependent sex determination in turtles.
2011 Ingrid Parker UC Santa Cruz Plant Ecology and Evolution  The Ecology and Evolution of Novel Plant-Pathogen Interactions.
2011 Greg Gilbert UC Santa Cruz Department of Environmental Studies Phylogenetic signal in the host range of plant pathogenic fungi.
2010 Lynda Delph Indiana University Department of Biology Plant traits link insect community structure to phylogenetic trends. 
2010 Curt Lively Indiana University Department of Biology Through the looking glass: host-parasite coevolution and sex.
2009 Anurag Agrawal Cornell University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Plant traits link insect community structure to phylogenetic trends. 
2008 Tia-Lynn Ashman University of Pittsburgh Department of Biological Sciences The ecological context for a major transition in flowering plant evolution.
2007   Allen Moore University of Exeter Centre for Ecology and Conservation What good are parents?
2006    Norm Christensen Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences Old field succession as a model for ecosystem change -- or maybe not?
2005    David Pfennig  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Biology Ecology, developmental plasticity, and the origins of diversity.
2004   Jeff Conner Michigan State University W. K. Kellogg Biological Station The roles of integration and constraint in adaptive evolution: a floral case study.
2003   Joel G. Kingsolver University of North Carolina The strength of natural and sexual selection in natural populations.
2002    Kelly Zamudio  Cornell Univeristy    
2002 Harry Greene Cornell Univeristy    
2001   Jonathan Losos Washington University   Ecological and evolutionary determinants of  species richness in Caribbean anolis lizards.
2000  Doug Futuyma     Insect Speciation in Three Acts.
1999   Mark McPeek Dartmouth College   Assembling ecological communities the old fashioned way -by evolution.
1998 David N. Resnick University of California-Riverside Life history evolution is guppies: empirical studies of adaptation in natural populations.
1997 Robert Paine University of Washington Experimental community ecology new questions and insights from a marine rocky shore ecosystem.
1995  Naomi Pierce Harvard University    
1994 Jane Brockman University of Florida    
1993  Stevan Arnold University of Chicago    
1992 H. Frederick Nijhout Duke University    
1991 Hampton L. Carson University of Hawaii at Manoa Evolution of drosophila on the newer Hawaiian volcanoes.
1990 John A. Endler University of California-Santa Barbara Effects of ambient light and vision on sexual election in guppies.
1989 David Sloan Wilson  SUNY Binghamton   Evolution in multiple niche environments.
1988 Bryan C. Clarke Nottingham University   The selective theory of molecular evolution.
1987 Daniel Simberloff Florida State University   The contribution of population biology to conservation science.
1986 Sir Richard Southwood Oxford University, UK Department of Zoology Determinants of insect community structure of plants.
1985 John Alcock Arizona State University Department of Zoology Sexual selection and insect behavior.
1984 Timothy H. Clutton-Brock University of Cambridge, UK Large animal Research Group The fragile male: Sexual selection, differential mortality and parental investment in birds and mammals.
1983 Paul P. Feeny Cornell University Department of Biology Chemical defenses of plants.
1982 Valerius Geist University of Calgary, Alberta Department of Environmental Science Evolution of ice age mammals and its significance to an understanding of speciations.
1981 Lincoln P. Brower  University of florida Department of Zoology Saga of the monarch butterfly.
  Dian Fossey Cornell University  Division of Biological Sciences Social behavior of the mountain gorilla.
1980 Paul Colvineaux  Ohio Staet University Department of Zoology An ecologist's view of the fates of nations.
  Eugene Odum University of GA  Institute of Ecology

The revival of non-laboratory science.