Workshop on New Mathematical Theory to Understand the Effects of Evolution on Range Expansion

Many biological species exhibit range shifts: some spread after being introduced into new environments, others follow their preferred climatic conditions under global change. Recent theoretical and empirical results highlight the importance of evolutionary change in these ecological processes. Specifically, they show that evolution can be the driving mechanism behind the range expansion of plants and animals, and that scientists may be underestimating how quickly species can move. However, the ecological and evolutionary processes involved in range expansions have mostly been studied separately, and despite recent advances in theory and experiments, making predictions about the speed of expansion is inherently difficult. The goal of this workshop is to convene mathematicians, modellers, and empiricists to exchange recent results on eco-evolutionary dynamics in species' range expansions and to develop novel mathematical frameworks to address important questions such as the relative contributions of ecological processes, evolutionary processes and environmental conditions on the speed and the variation in speed of range expansion.