INS 23 - When the Window Is a Mirror: How Do Dominant Theories Limit Our Understanding of Nature?

Organizer(s)

• 

  Aubrie James

  Postdoctoral Fellow
  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States

Co-Organizer(s)

• AS

  Anita Simha

  PhD candidate
  Duke University
  Durham, NC, United States
• GK

  Gaurav Kandlikar

  University of Missouri, Columbia, United States

Ecologists are well aware of the messiness of natural systems. Over the last century, we have developed methods in modeling and experimentation that manage variation in natural systems to understand observed patterns. Due to the potential for generalizable insights, modern ecological practice celebrates work that takes mathematical models (e.g., Lotka-Volterra models and competitive exclusion) built from ecological first principles and parameterizes them with empirical data to understand ecological processes and patterns. However, natural ecological assemblages resist applications of ecological theory in multifarious ways. From positive interactions when we expect antagonism, to transience when we expect equilibrium, to maintained polymorphism when we expect directional selection, apparent discrepancies between natural systems and mathematical models can unsettle theoretical expectations. When and where does model-nature correspondence break down, and what could it mean for the development of ecological theory?

Our Inspire session will ask about situations when theoretical expectations limit our understanding of nature or our ability to talk about the natural world. In this session, speakers will address observed phenomena from their research that have challenged expectations of what “should'' happen in nature. By exploring case studies of theory-observation mismatch, we hope to lay the groundwork for a broader conversation: what can we do when we are faced with this sort of limitation? What ought we do? What alternatives do we have and what alternatives are yet to be formed?

Presentations:

• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  What we talk about when we teach about theory
  

  Presenting Author: Gaurav Sunil Kandlikar – University of Missouri, Columbia
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  Reframing the Lenses Through Which We Study Same-Sex Sexual Behavior
  

  Presenting Author: Julia D. Monk – University of California Berkeley

  Co-author: Erin Giglio – University of Minnesota

  Co-author: Ambika Kamath – University of Colorado Boulder

  Co-author: Max Lambert – Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

  Co-author: Caitlin McDonough-Goldstein – University of Vienna
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  It's about time: Bridging theory and practice of priority effects
  

  Presenting Author: Hengxing Zou – Rice University

  Co-author: Volker H.W. Rudolf – Rice University
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  Exploring the temporal dimensions of plant-soil microbe interactions
  

  Presenting Author: Po-Ju Ke – National Taiwan University
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  Interdependence is common: living plants affect microclimates
  

  Presenting Author: Alexandra Wright – California State University, Los Angeles
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  Must all plants compete? Evidence of self-facilitation challenges our understanding of how plant diversity is maintained in complex systems
  

  Presenting Author: Malyon D. Bimler – University of Melbourne

  Co-author: Margie M. Mayfield – University of Melbourne

  Co-author: Trace Elizabeth Martyn – Yale School of the Environment

  Co-author: Hao Ran Lai – University of Canterbury

  Co-author: Daniel B. Stouffer – University of Canterbury
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  The need to re-source the way we think about resources in mutualism
  

  Presenting Author: Christopher Moore – Colby College
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  Geology and Greed: Long and short-term drivers of plant community assemblage
  

  Presenting Author: Suzanne Pierre, Ph.D. – Critical Ecology Lab
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  The "puzzle" of polymorphism: an evolutionary ecologist's perspective
  

  Presenting Author: Lauren N. Carley – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM PDT

  Discussion (until session ends)