Collective Behaviour - Winter Seminar Series
A behavioural ecologist meets meta-analysis and falls in love…
Shinichi Nakagawa, University of New South Wales
Shinichi Nakagawa is Professor of Evolutionary Ecology and Synthesis at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He works on a brand range of topics, with an emphasis on rigorous statistical and computational modelling.
Researchers are drowning in the sea of information and publications. Therefore, itis not surprising that research synthesis has become an essential part of science now morethan ever. In this talk, I will explain how studying on house sparrows on a small island in UKled me to a powerful research synthesis tool, i.e. meta-analysis. This fateful encounterallowed me not only to synthesize but also to generate new hypotheses for many topics inecology and evolution. Furthermore, our group uniquely started using (bio)medical literatureto ask evolutionary questions. As examples of the use of biomedical data, I will share mymeta-analytic research on two topics: 1) aging, or how to live long, and 2) the effect ofmaternal diets on offspring phenotypes. Then, I will finish by introducing “research weaving”, a new research synthesis concept, which we have recently proposed (another byproduct of the encounter).
Datum: 2019-09-30