Check out the new PhD course in Tropical biodiversity at http://www.life.science.gu.se/. This course consists of an introductory part with lectures and exercises, and a field part in Ecuador, during October 2012. It is co-arranged by the Life Science programme at University of Gothenburg and ForBio – Research School in Biosystematics.

Roger and Claes

Teamet från Natural History Museum i London kommer att ge två endagskurser i Scratchpads på Naturhistoriska riksmuseet 7 och 8 juni 2012. Kursen 7 juni är en nybörjarkurs, och den 8 juni ges en mer avancerad kurs.

Scratchpads är ett EU-finansierat verktyg för att publicera och dela taxonomiska data.

Ett exempel på en Scratchpad:  http://acoela.myspecies.info

Kurserna är avgiftsfria och anmälningssidan hittar man här: http://scratchpads.eu/scratchpad-training-courses

Tag med egen bärbar dator!

Ulf Jondelius

Havforskningsinstituttet og Universitetet i Bergen vil med dette invitere dere til en workshop i cumacea-morfologi. Workshopen vil finne sted på Espegrend Marinbiologiske Stasjon (UiB) utenfor Bergen fra 3-7 desember 2012, og er en del av Artsdatabanken sin satsing på marin biodiversitet.

Materialet for denne workshopen har blitt samlet inn på MAREANO-programmet av
Havforskningsinstitutet, og kommer fra områdene utenfor Nordland og Finnmark. Det vil
være fokus på morfologisk identifikasjon, men prøvene vil også brukes videre til molekylære studier, det vil bli lagt opp til at både “barcoding” og annet molekylært arbeid vil bli utført i etterkant av workshopen. MAREANO vil benytte resultatene av den morfologiske identifiseringen i sitt arbeid og sine rapporter.
Vi har invitert Sarah Gherken fra University of Alaska til å være ekspert-lærer.

Workshopen vil være gratis å delta på (mat og losji er inkludert), men deltagerne må dekke egen reise og ta med eget disseksjonsutstyr. Påmeldingsfrist er 15 april 2012, send epost til Anne Helene Tandberg (annehelene.tandberg@imr.no), Havforskningsinstituttet, Tromsø.

Spørsmål kan også stilles till Henrik Glenner / Kenneth Meland, Institutt for Biologi, Marin biodiversitet, Universitetet i Bergen (henrik.glenner@bio.uib.no, kennet.meland@bio.uib.no)

Vi ser frem til å være med deg på Espegrend og se på cumacea!
vennlig hilsen,
Anne

The new Nordic Masters Program in Biodiversity and Systematics invites students from all over the world to join our 2-year study curriculum. We aim at providing you with the taxonomic skills needed to work on biodiversity and its conservation in the future.

Deadline for application: April 15th!

http://www.nabismaster.org/

Ikväll kl 20:00 svensk tid anordnar phyloseminar.org en intressant videokonferens om RevBayes. Om du vill ta del av seminariet bör du så snart som möjligt följa instruktionerna på deras hemsida för att ansluta (man behöver bl a skaffa ett konto och installera en java-klient). Mer info om föredraget:

”RevBayes: An R like Environment for Bayesian phylogenetic inference”
John P. Huelsenbeck and Sebastian Höhna (UC Berkeley and Stockholm University)

Description:

RevBayes is a computer program that uses directed acyclic graphs
(DAG’s) to specify any type of model, to hold the model and data in
memory, and to compute the likelihood of the parameters of the model.
DAG’s provide a framework for the construction of modular models.
Models can easily be extended and/or parts of the model exchanged
(e.g., the substitution process and clock model) and several models
can be combined. The design of RevBayes should allow the
implementation of any extension to existing models. RevBayes is mainly
developed for Bayesian phylogenetic analyses, but it can be extended
to any inference on probabilistic models.

In this talk, I will give a brief introduction to the concept of DAG’s
and how they are used to construct a model. Once the model is
specified, I will show how to simulate new observations under the
model and how to estimate its parameters. I will demonstrate this in
the RevLanguage, which is an R-like language for building DAG’s for
phylogenetic problems. The RevLanguage is used interactively to
specify the model, as done with R. I will show how a full phylogenetic
model is specified, step-by-step. I will mainly focus on various
standard substitution models, relaxed clock models, and divergence
times priors. Specifically, I will show a new birth-death model with
speciation and extinction rates varying over time and use this in a
integrative analysis. In the integrative analysis I condition only on
the alignment (only the alignment is considered to be known) and
estimate the tree and divergence times simultaneously as well as the
speciation and extinction rates.

West Coast USA:         11:00 (11:00 AM) on Wednesday, February 29
East Coast USA:         14:00 (02:00 PM) on Wednesday, February 29
England:        19:00 (07:00 PM) on Wednesday, February 29
France:         20:00 (08:00 PM) on Wednesday, February 29
Japan:  04:00 (04:00 AM) on Thursday, March 01
New Zealand:    08:00 (08:00 AM) on Thursday, March 01

We are pleased to announce the fourth offering of
HYM Course (http://hymcourse.org/), scheduled for
August 5–12, 2012 at Tovetorp Zoological
Research Station, Sweden
(http://www.zoologi.su.se/tovetorp/).

The main objective of HYM Course is to provide
participants with knowledge and experience in
identifying parasitic and predatory wasps,
sawflies, wood wasps, bees, and ants. Information
on natural history is also presented, and that
information is reinforced with fieldwork.
Techniques used to collect, rear, preserve, and
curate specimens are presented in a hands-on
manner to allow participants to learn directly by
doing.

The course is limited to 25 participants.
Applications are due March 2, 2012. Students in
Sweden are eligible for financial aid through the
Swedish Taxonomy Initiative. Please visit the HYM
Course website (http://hymcourse.org/) for
details, including information on how to apply,
costs for taking the course, and logistics of
travel to and within Sweden.

We look forward to seeing you in Sweden!

Instructors, HYM Course 2012

The Distributed European School of Taxonomy is offering a five day training course on BIOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE at the MNHN in Paris. This training will provide an overview of the history and epistemology of biological nomenclature, and a discussion of the relationships between phylogeny, taxonomy and nomenclature. The zoological and botanical codes will be presented in detail, the other codes more briefly. Recent problems and projects of nomenclature, including alternative systems, will be discussed. The training will combine lectures with practical exercises on zoological and botanical nomenclature and on transforming phylogenetic data into a taxonomy and a nomenclature.

Deadline for registration is approaching: 1 March 2012

Course dates: 28 May – 1 June 2012

Course venue: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, France 

Tutor: Prof. Alain Dubois

Target audience: MSc students, PhD students, early career researchers; from Europe as well as outside of Europe

Detailed information and registration at:

http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/biological-nomenclature-0

Furthermore, several new training courses within the Expert-in-training programme are open for registration:

http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/expert-training-traineeships-2011-2012

Training courses within this programme last between one and four weeks, and aim at enhancing practical research skills (morphological and molecular techniques, bio-informatics, etc.) through on-the-job-training. The programme includes a wide variety of subjects, from insects and lizards up to primates.

Have a look now as registration deadlines are getting near.

New training providers are most welcome to participate in training delivery within the Distributed European School of Taxonomy. For more information, please mail us at dest-training@naturalsciences.be or have a look at:

http://www.taxonomytraining.eu/content/interested-training-delivery

Thank you for spreading the word,

Hendrik Gheerardyn

Isabella Van de Velde

—

DEST Training

www.taxonomytraining.eu

dest-training@naturalsciences.be

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

Vautierstraat 29, B-1000 Brussel

Tel. 32 2 627 43 34 (336)

http://www.naturalsciences.be