Chuck Cannon presented the results of his recent publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.) entitled, “The current refugial rainforests of Sundaland are unrepresentative of their biogeographic past and highly vulnerable to disturbance” at the the 28th meeting of the Willi Hennig Society in Singapore. Dr. Cannon’s talk was part of a special symposium on Southeast Asian biogeography and evolution. Dr. David Lohman, a postdoc at the National University of Singapore, invited Dr. Cannon to speak.
[From the society's website]
“The Hennig Society was founded in 1980 with the expressed purpose of promoting the field of Phylogenetic Systematics. Hennig’s idea that groups of organisms, or taxa, should be recognized and formally named only in cases where they are evolutionarily real entities, that is “monophyletic”, at first was controversial. It is now the prevailing approach to modern systematics.” While not a member of the society, Dr. Cannon was highly entertained by the rowdy behavior of the cladists. Dr. Ward Wheeler gave a memorable banquet speech about the life and times of a rising scientist at the Museum of Unnatural History.
The meeting also coincided with the first celebration of Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the “Origin of Species” in Singapore.
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