The Seminar Research Series for Fall 2025 for the School of Natural Resources kicks off on September 3, 2025 with Emily Moore from UNL's School of Biological Sciences. Moore will discuss the topics of Fish Evolution and Ecology.
Seminars are on Wednesdays from 3:30-4:30 pm in 107 South Hardin Hall (Auditorium). Seminars are free and open to the public.
Seminars will also be stream via Zoom at https://go.unl.edu/viewsnrseminars and recordings can be found at https://snr.unl.edu/aboutus/when/seminars.aspx Updates to the semester schedule can also be found at that link.
Tentative schedule for the rest of the Fall 2025 semester are
9/10 - Barb Boustead (Climatologist | Meteorologist | Instructor | Writer) - Wilder Weather: Research, Communication, and Connection
9/17 - Eric Hunt, Deb Bathke and Ross Dixon (Nebraska State Climate Office and UNL -Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) - Climate Change in Nebraska
9/24 - Leon Higley (Insect Ecologist with SNR) - Crime Scene Ecology
10/1 - TBA
10/8 - Erin Schaefer (PhD candidate at Northern Illinois University) - Small mammal ecology/education
10/15 - Richard Berl (Computational social scientist with a background in evolutionary theory, behavior, and cultural change)
10/22 - Allie Mazurek (Engagement Climatologist with Colorado Climate Center)
10/29 - TBA
11/5 - TBA
11/12 - Anni Poetzl (Assistant Extension Instructor/Educator - Water Quality at UNL)
Emily Moore is an Assistant Professor in the UNL's School of Biological Sciences. Moore has a BS and a BA from the University of Colorado, Denver; MS from Colorado State University, and a PhD with Reade Roberts at North Carolina State. Postdoc at the University of Montana with Jeff Good and University of Denver with Erica Larson.
The title of the seminar is "Between species and sexes: the genetic basis of adaptive traits in African cichlid fishes."
The cichlid fishes of East Africa are an astounding “natural experiment” in adaptive evolution. The group rapidly diversified, with striking variation in functional traits such as jaw and body morphology, cryptic pigmentation, and exploratory behavior. My work examines the genetic basis of adaptive traits in the group, combining phenotyping, comparative genomics, and classical genetics to link genotype to phenotype to fitness. This talk will present work on the role of complex sex chromosome systems in shaping trait variation, as well as the functional genomic basis of variation in niche partitioning exploratory behaviors.