KLI Colloquia are informal, public talks that are followed by extensive dissussions. Speakers are KLI fellows or visiting researchers who are interested in presenting their work to an interdisciplinary audience and discussing it in a wider research context. We offer three types of talks:
1. Current Research Talks. KLI fellows or visiting researchers present and discuss their most recent research with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
2. Future Research Talks. Visiting researchers present and discuss future projects and ideas togehter with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
3. Professional Developmental Talks. Experts about research grants and applications at the Austrian and European levels present career opportunities and strategies to late-PhD and post-doctoral researchers.
- The presentation language is English.
- If you are interested in presenting your current or future work at the KLI, please contact the Scientific Director or the Executive Manager.
Event Details
Topic description:
Miniaturization is a phylogenetic concept defined as the evolution of unusually small adult size in a lineage, reaching beyond a threshold at which dramatic changes in morphology, physiology, and ecology occur. Because extreme size reduction may trigger substantial morphological changes that represent a pool of alternative morphological designs available for subsequent evolutionary diversification, miniaturization has been proposed as a key factor for the phyletic diversification above the species level and the origin of several major tetrapod clades. In this talk I will argue that in most cases the causal relationship between miniaturization and radical morphological changes has not been satisfactory explained because of the disregard of ontogenetic and phylogenetic aspects, obscuring our knowledge of the impact of miniaturization at the macroevolutionary level. In this context, I will discuss the putative role of miniaturization in the origin of lissamphibians (i.e., salamanders, frogs, and caecilians) within a clade of dwarfed Paleozoic temnospondyls.
Biographical note:
Celeste Pérez Ben holds a Master’s degree in Biology from the University of Buenos Aires, where she is currently a PhD candidate under the supervision of Ana Báez and Rainer Schoch. She carried out most of her doctoral research at the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart and now she is finishing her dissertation at the KLI with a Writing-up fellowship.
