O Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Conservação e Manejo da Vida Silvestre convida para os seminários:

What is life?

Simon Pierce, PhD
Departamento de Ciências da Agricultura e Meio-Ambiente
Universidade de Milão, Itália

Seminário 1
Common patterns of organism function and species survival
Data: 21/11/2016
Horário: 10h
Local: Sala E3-164, ICB/UFMG

Seminário 2
Spontaneous directional motion in the molecular storm
Data: 21/11/2016
Horário: 14h30
Local: Sala E3-164, ICB/UFMG

What is life?
Common patterns of organism function and species survival

The vast range of biological diversity evident on Earth masks a small number of essential ‘primary’ functions that determine survival: growth, maintenance and reproduction. Growth is linked with the ability to compete with other organisms, and may be maximized by large size and the monopolization of resources as part of an ‘acquisitive’ way of life. Maintenance of metabolic performance in response to environmental limitations (stress factors) may be optimized by a conservative way of life, depending on cellular protection/repair mechanisms and resource accumulation. Reproduction is central to the renewal of populations when individuals die, and thus the survival of the species despite the demise of the single organism. All species must perform these functions, but the importance of each one in any particular habitat depends on local conditions of productivity, stress and the occurrence of destructive disturbance events. The evolutionary trade-­‐off between primary functions forms the basis of the CSR theory of plant strategies. I shall discuss recent developments in the practical application of CSR theory world-­‐wide, born from a global collaborative effort lead by Italian and Brazilian research groups. Key examples from Brazilian and European ecosystems show how the method is starting to be used to investigate a range of plant community processes ranging from the co-­‐existence of species at centimetre scales to understanding of the persistence and conservation of vegetation types across changing landscapes. I shall also discuss how this research on plants is relevant to communities of animals and microorganisms as part of the more general Universal Adaptive Strategy Theory (UAST). 

What is life?
Spontaneous directional motion in the molecular storm

The process of life was described by physicist Erwin Schrödinger as the spontaneous creation of order in a universe characterized by increasing disorder – he referred to this as ‘negative entropy’. Recent knowledge of the molecular machines that perform work inside cells is revealing that disorderly ‘positive entropy’ is not inimical to life but is actually the force that sets life in motion: molecular machines perform unidirectional actions and create order driven partly by a storm of molecular movement resulting from thermal agitation. I will present details of these essential living processes and a modern definition of the word ‘life’. As entropy is a universal phenomenon and around 5% of the star systems so far examined host planets in a zone of thermal agitation suitable for organic life, I will present the case that life is almost certainly extremely common throughout the universe. I will present a realistic view of life on these worlds. By the end of the seminar participants will understand what it is exactly that makes them living beings, and they will appreciate how the vast timescales involved in the evolution of complex, multi-­cellular, sentient organisms makes them a particularly rare and special manifestation of life in the universe.