Dr. Jaroslav Čepl Seminar - Biological Patterns & Genetic Variation

Join us on October 21st, 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM at LWSN 3102AB, in attending "Biological Patterns & Genetic Variation," a seminar from Dr. Jaroslav Čepl, an assistant professor in forestry and wood sciences at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. Refreshments begin at 9:30 AM.

From bacterial colonies to forest trees, living systems grow into patterns, with similar forms of organization recurring across scales. Examining how macroscopic bacterial colonies grow or visualizing properties beyond ordinary perception provides insight into underlying processes and uncovers variation that offers clues to genetic ancestry and physiological state. What can growing microbial colonies teach us about how spatial patterns develop as organisms expand into new space? Can we infer the provenance of forest trees from their form? Can the shape of a forest tree reveal a memory of past stresses? This and other topics will be discussed.

Dr. Čepl has combined experiments and simulation modeling to study genetic variation in forest trees and its implications for adaptation and breeding. His work focuses on optical traits, particularly spectral reflectance and chlorophyll fluorescence. He earned first prize in the Czech Minister of Agriculture's Award for Young Scientists for his research on optical traits in Scots Pine.

This seminar is presented by the Department of Computer Science, CS Computational Vegetation Lab and the Institute for Digital Forestry. For more information, email Bedrich Benes at bbenes@purdue.edu.