TSVP Talk: "Understanding Ecological Dynamics with Incomplete Information" by Chuliang Song

Title: Understanding ecological dynamics with incomplete information

Abstract: A central quest in ecological research is to understand the ecological dynamics maintaining biodiversity. However, when making strong and robust assessments of ecological dynamics, a fundamental challenge is that we very rarely possess complete information about the entire ecological system. To address this challenge, my talk will focus on three major questions. First, given that an ecological community only assembles once, how can we understand if the order of species arrivals influence community stability? Second, given that we can only measure a subset of species, how can we quantify the stability of the whole ecological community from measures of the subset? Third, given that an ecological system harbors many interactions, how can we detect which interactions are evolving on ecological timescales? In sum, my talk shows how carefully designed theory allows rigorous extrapolation and prediction from limited data.

Profile: Chuliang Song is a quantitative ecologist and is currently an assistant professor at Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCLA. His work aims to develop rigorous theory through interdisciplinary tools, devise monitoring-applicable metrics, and validate these approaches with empirical data from a broad range of ecosystems. Personal website

Language: English

Target audience: General audience/everyone at OIST and beyond.
Freely accessible to all OIST members and guests without registration.

This talk will also be broadcast online via Zoom:

Meeting ID: 987 7422 2639
Passcode: 813054

※ Please note that this event may be recorded and the videos uploaded. In addition, photos may be taken during the event. These are intended for publication online (the OIST website, social media, etc.)※