Free Public Lecture

John Bates: The wonders and tribulations of Africa's Albertine Rift: Biodiversity, science and people in a war zone

Tuesday, November 17, 2015
7:00 PM
H.F. Deluca Forum
Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
330 N Orchard St (map)

The Albertine Rift in central Africa possesses some of the richest biodiversity and highest endemism on the continent and yet it is still poorly known. It is has also been a region of tremendous human conflict. Despite these issues, life goes on and John Bates and his Field Museum colleagues have, for the last 10 years, worked with Congolese scientists to increase knowledge and understanding of biodiversity in the region and build regional capacity to study and conserve that biodiversity. Bates will introduce this incredible region and the dedicated people who live there, along with some of the discoveries that are coming out of his research.

John Bates is an Associate Curator of Birds and head of the Life Sciences section of Integrated Research at the Field Museum in Chicago. Bates grew up in Tucson, Arizona, the son of university professor (with a University of Wisconsin Ph.D.), who was also a birder. He fell in love with the tropics at an early age and has worked extensively in both Africa and South America. He did his doctorate at Louisiana State University and was a post doctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History. Over the last twenty years in Chicago, he and his students have studied genetic structure in the tropics to understand the patterns and processes underlying diversification at the tips of the tree of life: the realm of species and populations.

THIS LECTURE IS PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MADISON AUDUBON SOCIETY