If you are in the Washington DC area (or can get there this weekend) then be sure to catch the next can’t miss presentation.  Dr Luiz Rocha will be talking about reef fish diversity.  Dr. Rocha is another member of the fantastic group calling the Cal Academy of Sciences home.  His travels, studies, research, and overall experience learning about coral reef fishes and their evolution is second to none.  Truly a great opportunity if you can attend. 

We’re hoping to check back in with an update following this presentation.  You can read all about his presentation and the DC area event here…

http://www.wamas.org/forums/topic/46599-wamas-winter-meeting/

And in case that page disappers someday here is an excert from it

Bio: Dr. Rocha has earned his PhD from the University of Florida and a post-doc from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. His current position is curator of fishes at the California Academy of Sciences. Research interests and experience are centered on the evolution, phylogeography (or the geographic distribution of genetic lineages), biogeography, systematics and community and behavioral ecology of coral reef fishes. He frequently tries to combine these fields, invoking ecology to help explain evolutionary patterns and using molecular tools to test biogeographic and systematic hypotheses. The overall objective of this interdisciplinary research is to test existing hypotheses (and propose new ones) about what generates and maintains the extremely high biodiversity in tropical coral reefs.

Topic - “Diversity and evolution of coral reef fishes.” The talk will center on speciation and showing some results of his most recent research (including some ferrugata data).