The Court of Appeals seating in a Kurdish understate capital will give judgement today on the case between the candidate of the all-progressive Congress, Governor Rotimi Akeridulu and the candidate of the People's Democratic Party, A. E. Tayo Jagade, in the October 2020 governorship election in the state. The judgement would be delivered virtually. The People's Democratic Party and its candidate, A. E. Tayo Jagade, had found a petition at the understate governorship election tribunal to challenge the declaration of Rotimi Akeridulu's winner of the election. The grounds of the petition are allegations that the election was marked by irregularities, violence and intimidation.


Here is an invention called the Jibo. This is the first intelligent robot. They call it the family robot. It was funded on Kickstarter or in the GoGo, I think. And they call it the first family social robot. And the founder says she envisions a day where every family has one. And then she moves on to say that they're not robots. They are partners. That makes you think about what the next step is with Jibo when it moves into the bedroom or something. So is this going to be the end of solitude? Never be bored again? Machines as partners? I would grant you it's interesting to have Jibo. Convenient. But a partner? That would worry me. So what we're going with this is that technology is now going inside of us with artificial intelligence. And we are going inside of technology. That's really what artificial intelligence means.  So the interfaces are now allowing us to go inside of machines, machines to go inside of us.


It's a real pleasure to be here for the Nebraska lecture and Jamie. Thank you to the University Research Council Your committee for the work that you put in and making selections for our Nebraska lecturers each of the semesters during the year and it's a real privilege today to have colleague Eileen habits as Our Nebraska lecturer for this afternoon Many of you know that Eileen is a professor in our school of biological sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences here on campus She's made numerous discoveries that have expanded scientific understanding about the evolution and function of animal signals Especially as they relate to I suspect what we're going to hear a lot about today Bracknitz in addition to her impressive research portfolio Eileen is a shining example of the important role that outreach plays in disseminating our faculty's knowledge throughout the state of Nebraska and around the world Although I probably should keep my true feelings about spiders to myself perhaps and I have a feeling many of you in the room Will relate to that. I'm excited for today's lecture because Eileen's taking us into What makes the scientific process exciting for so many of us discovery research? Engagement adventure memories and success and you might see that on the screen here behind me forming the acronym dream or a dream career and That's the message certainly that we want to send to our young people and to aspiring future scientists Thanks to her sense of adventure and willingness to persevere Eileen has a very impressive list of breakthroughs discovering the role of cannibalism in dark fishing spiders mating rituals Uncovering why arachnids native to the Florida Keys have such a sharp sense of smell and learning why certain species can breathe under water Overall her work has appeared in more than 100 Publications now those indeed are remarkable accomplishments in and of their own right But Eileen also has devoted her career to informal science education making discovery accessible to all And and also I would would relate from seeing Eileen in action Fun and I have a feeling you'll see some of that today as well She received funding from NSF to develop eight-legged encounters a set of activities and resources that help educators Caregivers and youth learn about the wonders of biology She's led summer camps science festivals classroom visits science communications courses and spider walks Hundreds of students across the state of Nebraska are more knowledgeable and curious because of her commitment Eileen has been here at UNL since 2005 She has a master's degree and a doctorate from the University of Arizona a master's degree from the University of Cincinnati and a bachelor's degree from Albion College and Most recently and I was able to be in the room when this award was presented this past year in 2017 Eileen receives the University of Nebraska's idea award standing for innovation development and engagement across the university system Recognizing her ability to do outreach and to reach so many people here and around the world So please join me in welcoming today's Nebraska lecturer. Dr. Eileen habits Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. I hope that I can live up to it I just want to say how excited I am to be this year's Nebraska lecture I want to thank the research council for choosing me and I believe Nathan Meyer Who's no longer here was the one who nominated me so I'd like to give a shout out to him as thanks And I want to say how honored I am ever since I've been here I've seen other people come up and give this lecture and to me They have just always been role models and I find it hard to believe that I'm actually that person up on stage today But what I'm going to talk to you about today is kind of my research history And I'm going to try and cover every facet of it and I want to start off by saying thank you Thank you all for being here for those of you who aren't here, but are watching and you've all told me that you're doing that So I know there are lots of you Including there's a women in STEM group at the science focus school at the zoo school who are together right now watching this Presentation, so thank you. I know there are some faculty that are home with their kids watching this presentation So thank you for being here and thank those of you who aren't able to be here But are watching and I also want to start off with a warning And I just want to say that some of the content and images of this presentation may make some viewers slightly uncomfortable And so because of that I want to start with a warm-up So I think you'd be hard-pressed to not say that this is adorable. It's so cute It's colorful. It has these big eyes just like most primates do But the rest of the pictures are not going to be like this so Well, this is our introduction to the rest of the talk and so the title of my talk is using arachnids to inspire dreams and I want to focus on this dream aspect and say that what I'm going to do today in my talk is I'm going to walk you through some discovery research engagement adventure memories and success that I have had with arachnids and Before we dive in I want to make sure that we're all on board with what we mean by arachnid So arthropods, these are these animals that are incredibly diverse. They're the most diverse group of animals They have a hard exoskeleton They have jointed appendages and the group that we are probably most familiar with that you are probably most familiar with Is the hexapods? So these are the insects They are closely related to the crustaceans the crabs and lobsters and then we have the myriapods These are centipedes and millipedes and then we have the calycerates So the calycerates are what we're going to focus on today and I want to start off just by asking who are the calycerates and Because it's after lunch. It's kind of late in the day This is when my energy level starts to kind of dive. I want some audience participation So I would like you to turn to the people next to you and come up with as many Calycerates as you can and count them and I'm going to give you about 30 seconds Okay, how many came up with at least three raise your hand? Excellent, how many came up with five fewer? How many came up with ten? All right, let's hear some of them I'm calling bluff All right crab spider, what are some others throughout some wolf spiders? Ticks scorpions Daddy long legs Ambulapigets tarantulas. All right horseshoe crabs excellent Colin. Yeah, so the calycerates are Actually the group that includes the horseshoe crabs this other group here They're called sea spiders, but then all in this kind of purplish pink color These are all the arachnids so they're actually 11 living orders of arachnids most people know maybe two or three scorpions spider, maybe ticks And the groups that we're going to focus on today are the Aranea, so these are the spiders and then the Ambulapigets and you're going to learn more than you probably want to know about Ambulapigets in today's talk, so these animals have two body parts. They have eight walking legs They have modified appendages up front that are called pedipelps and then they have modified mouth parts that are called Chalicerie and that's actually where the group gets its name Okay, so I'm going to start off with some stories about research and discovery Focusing on this group here the ambulapigets, so ambulapigets are tropical and subtropical They have eight legs you can actually count eight But if you notice this first pair of legs are really long and thin and they actually don't use these legs for Walking at all They're completely sensory structures and they're called antenna form legs because they use them in a similar way that insects use antennae So I knew about these animals because during my master's at Cincinnati I took an arachnology course and we learned about all the different groups and I saw animals Preserved in little vials like this of alcohol and they looked Interesting they looked okay, but they didn't really make any impression on me And then when I started my PhD, I took a tropical ecology course down in Costa Rica Through the organization for tropical studies and on my very first night on the course Several other students and I went out at night into the forest with our headlamps and I saw my first live Ambulapiget and it was It was almost a spiritual moment for me This animal was on a post about this high and it was big and it was sitting there just moving these legs in this Incredibly elegant seemingly purposeful way And I was just hooked I fell in love with them I started learning everything I could about them and it turns out there's not a whole lot known So it didn't take me all that long But what I did learn is that males when they are trying to court females they lay down this structure this stalked structure that's called a sperm metaphor and they lay sperm packets on to this structure and Try and guide a female over it or convince a female to walk over and I thought this is perfect I am interested in sexual selection This might be a system where males are really choosy because they're producing this structure The structure was thought to be costly and males couldn't build another one for another day or two So I thought great. This is what I'm going to study for my PhD So over Christmas break that year my parents were still living in Michigan And I went home for Christmas and I convinced my parents because I had no money as a grad student To hop in their RV and drive me down to Florida so that I could find these animals that I had never found before in North America So they're good sports and they we got in their RV and drove down to Florida Stopping along the side of the road flipping over logs or rocks I had no idea really what I was looking for But we finally made it to big pine key and I found my first amla-piget underneath a limestone rock literally on Christmas New Year's Eve. It was fantastic So I collected a bunch of animals I collected rocks and I drove back to Arizona where I was doing my PhD And I set up in the lab and I thought okay. I'm gonna use these limestone rocks This is what they're found on. They're completely nocturnal So I was doing all my work at night in the lab. So I had a red light And I thought this is the night I had my video camera set up. I put a male on top of the rock I went to grab the female. I just wanted to observe these interactions and the male disappeared And it turns out he ran underneath the rock So you could see these are really dorso-ventually flattened animals and this is where they normally live is on the underside of rocks So I thought well, that's not gonna work because I can't see anything So I got duct tape regular tape hot glue trying to devise some way of Creating a barrier on this rock to keep the animal on top So it's like 1 30 in the morning at this point and I suddenly had this epiphany that I could create an island so what if I take the bigger container and fill it with water so that only the top of the rock is Available so that's exactly what I did at 2 in the morning I thought this was just a stroke of genius and I put the animal on top and he kind of walked around to the edge I went to get the female. I was watching him. He walked around He's reaching out for the outer edge and he slipped and he fell into the water and he flipped underneath and he ran under the rock And I said what on earth so he disappears under the rock and I did what any good curious scientist would do and I started a stopwatch and 35 minutes later this male came back up and the whole time he was walking around underneath the water So of course the next day I came in and I covered the lab in Containers with water and limestone rocks. I put amylo pigeons on I chased them under the water And I recorded how long they could stay under and it turns out they could stay underwater a really long time So I was there all night More than nine hours these animals would stay underwater moving around the entire time and what they looked like underwater Is there's this kind of silvery sheen that you could see on their body so through a series of experiments where I actually depleted the water of oxygen In combination with doing some microscopy work using a scanning electron microscope to look at the cuticle I was able to find that in these little slits So what we're looking at is the bottom side of this body segment and these slits here Open up into the respiratory system of these animals They're called book lungs and if you look at this little opening in the book lung You see that the cuticle is built into these buttressed structures And it turns out that this buttressed cuticle Actually traps a layer of air in it and that layer of air acts as a physical gill So it covers the openings and as the animal respires Oxygen just diffuses from that air into the animal and then from the water It just diffuses into the air packet and this is known in other animals. It's called plastron Plastron respiration so amylopigets can breathe underwater and the coolest thing is that had I discovered this You know maybe 20 years ago I could have discovered Gore-Tex because this is exactly what Gore-Tex is fashioned after so you hear it all the time Waterproof yet breathable and it turns out the Gore-Tex actually is fat fashioned after arthropod plastrons So I want to tell that story just to say that sometimes basic research Curiosity discovery about the natural world can lead you in directions that you never ever ever could have imagined That can be very translational Okay, so as I was doing these experiments I became more and more fascinated with these animals especially with these long legs and so when you look at just the very tip of these legs under a scanning Electron microscope what you see is that they're covered with hairs So they have big hairs at the tip that are called bristles and these hairs can feel as well as taste They have these little club shaped sencilla which similarly can taste and then they have these hairs That have holes all along the entire shaft and just based on the way these hairs look It was hypothesized that these animals can smell that these are actually airborne olfactory detectors So my first electrophysiology experiments actually demonstrated that indeed Amplipid's can smell they can smell a range of compounds and their sense of smell is Comparable to that of some of the best smelling insects that we know The insects that are the best smellers not the best smelling insects And so when you look at the kind of neural substrate for this Ability to smell what you see here in purple is this is all what we call olfactory glomeruli So these are brain regions that are dedicated to processing All factory information or smell this green area here These are mushroom body calices and the mushroom body of arthropods is a higher order brain processing region That an insect is thought to be involved in learning and memory in arachnids. We actually don't know its function So right now I have an NSF grant with some collaborators at Bowling Green State University Vern Bingman and Dan Wegman as well as Wolfie Gronenberg at the University of Arizona Where we're trying to understand how this complex brain Underlies potentially complex behavior, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that But I really want to drive home the insanity of this Amplipid brain So this is a 3d reconstruction done by a postdoc that's on our grant and what you're going to see is enormous mushroom bodies so this All this area here and kind of light purple and darker purple You can see how convoluted it is and just packed in these are the lobes of the mushroom bodies And then this green here are the calices So you might not be able to fully appreciate what this means without comparing it to something else but keep in mind this kind of convoluted massive structure and When we look at an Amplipid brain versus say a jumping spider brain And we look at how much of that brain is composed of mushroom body What you find is that the mushroom bodies of Amplipid's make up 40% of their brain whereas in jumping spiders they make up 9% and Again, this is a part of the brain that is hypothesized in insects to be involved in learning and memory Relative to their body size Amplipid's have the largest mushroom body of any arthropod So they should be brilliant right and everyone should be studying them So we're really interested in This both the kind of fact that they can smell and this neural processing for smell But what does that mean in terms of their daily life like how are they using smell or are they using smell? What's the function of this very seemingly elaborate brain region? So in order to really figure out what they're doing you need to go to the field and observe them and again Amplipid's are not very well studied. They Some might say are scary looking And they're completely nocturnal and I think that combination of things has made it such that they're not a group of animals That have received much research attention But I went into the field and decided I was going to figure out what Amplipid's do in their daily lives Which is really nighttime So I did a massive mercury capture study over a three month period down in Costa Rica Where I had three different 50 by 25 meter plots in the rainforest So I want you all to just take a moment and think about 50 by 25 meters It may not seem that big but then think about it in a dense tropical understory Off-trail and then think about the fact that you're going out to those 25 by 50 meter plots at night To survey them so every tree within these plots that was bigger than a certain size I would survey every three to four nights every Amplipid I find found I would collect I would give it an individual mark measure it sex it put it back and then I would keep monitoring collecting new individuals and marking them and Recording when I re-saw individuals So it was during one of these Evenings when typically I could find people to go out with me So I worked at a research station the salvo biological station that brought a lot of courses through and Visiting scientists and often people wanted to go out at night But they were a little hesitant to do so and so I would say well come along with me I do it all the time and I could kind of get free field assistants So I often had people going out with me but this particular night there someone had gone into San Jose and brought back a keg And so there was a big party at the field station. So of course nobody wanted to join me in the field So I was out by myself and imagine walking along and you have your flashlight shining on the ground You're constantly looking for things and sure enough. I saw a fair-to-lance Tercio payload is another name for it. It's a very venomous snake in Costa Rica It's very common at this field station and they're notorious for being aggressive So the snake is maybe kind of where that black box is and I'm here and I'm watching it and the tree I need to survey is over here and I'm making this kind of Decision of okay if I go around this way I can probably survey my tree But I'm going to lose sight of the snake and that makes me a little nervous and as I'm Kind of deciding what to do the snake is suddenly flying through the air a foot off the ground mouth open towards me So I jump backwards farther than I've ever jumped in my life I'm sure and took a couple steps and turned around and ran and so that's just To to fit in with our new Slogan at UNL. I also got stung by a bullet ants and I can attest to the fact that there's a reason that they call it bullet ants Okay, but I did find some really valuable information I found that amblypigets have high sight fidelity meaning that you can find them in the same place night after night They can also though when they leave their trees they can travel pretty far they can travel more than 30 meters They often return to their same tree and they seem to be territorial So this got me thinking about how are they actually finding their way through this dense Understory when I had a hard time finding my plots and I had flagging tape all along the way So how on earth are they able to to revisit these trees when they leave them? so I taught I Designed and taught two different organization for tropical study courses in 2014 and 2017 called the ecology and evolution of arachnids at the same field station and Through the course I was able to recruit a bunch of students Some of whom are in the room right now To help me with this project so with a lot of students We were able to go into the field and do kind of a massive study where we would collect individuals And I just want to say sometimes I don't know if you can tell this is someone on another student's shoulders To get the animals that were really high up in the trees But we would collect them give them an individual mark with paint and then we would manipulate them such that they either Could not smell or could not see because we were interested in the potential role of smell in navigation And it turns out that they can navigate using smell So when we deprive them of the ability to smell they were less likely to make it back to their tree We also put these nifty little neural transfer radio transmitters on them with some funding from the National Geographic Society and were able to monitor their movements and show that they didn't be lined back But they would actually go to different trees along the way Suggesting potentially that they have kind of a larger representation of the area over which they're walking So again with this NSF funding right now We're coupling this field work with really controlled laboratory studies where we're manipulating the cues that they can receive Looking at how they behave and then the idea is that we're going to link that with brain function Okay, so Ambulapigeds also have some really interesting behaviors when they interact this top left video here is two animals that are in a sparring contest So they're fighting with each other This is real time You can see on the side angle. They kind of lift up and lower down So they face off in this asymmetrical stance if they're really evenly mashed so they can often kind of Settle the dispute with just this ritualized display But if they're really evenly matched in size they sometimes will battle and this is where they will physically come together and engage each other And the reason these are kind of this greenish color is this is with an infrared camera because again They're nocturnal so this is taken in complete darkness So you can see they kind of try and push push each other over So we were really interested in what's going on during this display How are they actually communicating and how are they determining who is winning the outcome? So this is research that was done in collaboration with Roger Santor who was a postdoc in my lab a while ago now And from his research as well as some with Casey Fowler Finn We saw that 74% of these contests were Settled with just this antenna form leg vibration, which you saw during the sparring they sometimes engage in physical contact in the battle But most of the time it's this antenna form leg vibration And what we were able to find is that it's whoever does it for longer Wins, but how are they detecting it? So using high-speed videography? We were able to show that they're actually not touching each other So they're waving these legs at their opponents, but they're not coming into contact Again, these are done in complete darkness. So they're not using vision either When you look at where they're positioning these legs What you find is that they are positioning their legs Right over the patella of their opponent So we kind of noticed this and then took the animals to the scope and looked at the patella and sure enough There are two sensory hairs on the patella and these hairs are really long and really thin And we know that these are the types of hairs that can actually detect air particle movement So we hypothesize maybe they're actually using air particle movement during these contests Which is not a modality that is commonly attributed to communication in animals So we tested this by taking live animals Restraining them we got a wire that was the same diameter and length of an antenna form leg We hooked it up to a motor so that it would move at the same frequency as an antenna form leg Right above this restrained animal We put an electrode in and we recorded electrical responses and sure enough Every time the stimulus goes over the leg you get a firing of an action potential so these hairs are capable of detecting air particle displacement and They seem to be using air particle displacement during contests And this was actually the first time that these types of hairs were shown to be used in communication We actually think it's a lot more common across arthropods It's a modality that we're not very familiar with and so we think it's been overlooked But we actually have evidence in our lab that there are a lot of wolf spiders that may also use air particle displacement to communicate Okay, so and blue pigeons can breathe underwater They can smell they can find their way home and they do this using smell and they can communicate using air particle displacement And there are lots of other studies that I didn't tell you about but they can learn Tactile cues they can actually learn to discriminate two different grains of sandpaper. I'm not even sure I could do that And they can learn chemical cues. I Won't take it personally And so this is kind of where the glory comes from all of the grit that you put into especially field work So I'm just going to really briefly tell you about my wolf on my work on wolf spiders Because there's far too much of it to get into here and it gets rather dense quickly But a lot of my research in my lab studies the evolution of communication in wolf spiders So these are spiders that are about the size of a nickel you probably have them in your backyard here And each of these is a different species and you can see that these are all males You might not be able to see that but I'll tell you they're all males But what you can see is that they all differ in the degree of ornamentation they have on their four legs So there are some species here that don't have anything there are some that have just black pigment on Portions of their legs and then there are some down here that have these big brushes in addition to pigmentation So there's a lot of variation in the way males look and it turns out there's also a lot of variation in the way that males Try to entice females to mate with them. So not only do they have dynamic movements, but they also produce song so it may not be quite as elegant as some bird song, but it's still pretty impressive so these animals have Visual displays they have morphological traits. They have dynamic movements, and they also produce vibrations and it varies across species So there are some species with these brushes Who do lots of waving? They also produce this sub straight-born vibration This one is its closest relative. That's all it does There's no ornamentation. There's no leg waving. They just slam their body on the ground and Then there are others here That are maybe kind of an intermediate between the two So we're trying to understand what drives this diversity. What's the role of female preferences? What's the role of the mating environment that they're found in? And this is work that my postdoc Ron McGinley is kind of leading off of an NSF grant that we have right now Okay, but what I really want to talk to you about and and what Chancellor Green alluded to earlier is some of the crazy Mating systems that spiders have and I want to focus on this because both of these systems are right here in Nebraska So I have been talking about work in Costa Rica Work our wolf spider work takes us all over North America But both of these stories are right here in Lincoln, Nebraska So what I need to tell you first is a little bit. I need to give you a little tutorial about how spiders transfer sperm Something you may never have thought about before but so these spiders have these modified appendages that I told you about Upfront they're called pedipalps when a male matures they develop this big bulb like kind of teardrop structure and They're producing their sperm in their abdomen in the second body part here But what they do is they'll build a modified web it's called a sperm web and they ejaculate sperm onto the sperm web and then they turn around and they pick it up in these Pedipalps so they're carrying sperm around in these pedipalps and this is actually the organ that they're using to transfer sperm And that's going to be important So these are the pedipalps. This is where they're holding and this is the organ. They're using to transfer sperm Okay, so the first story I want to tell you is about spontaneous death in the dark fishing spider And this is work done by a previous PhD student Steve Schwartz Where he was looking for a local system and found that you could find these spiders all Over Lincoln if you go to Wilderness Park if you go in any creek bed and look on the banks And there are big roots kind of sticking out if you go at night You will see these spiders and again the females can be quite large So they're relatively common the species is Dolomites tenobrosis and what Steve found was that them these males die When they mate with a female So this is a male on top of a female going back and forth and back and forth and right there I don't know if you saw it his legs curl up. We're going to do it in slow motion again So here he's going back and forth with these pedipalps and look for his legs curling Right there as soon as he engages with the female his legs curl up So Steve thought this is crazy. I just want to make sure this is really happening He went out and collected lots and lots of spiders and it turns out all males die all the time so over 200 Males were used in this they transferred their genetic material though, so But they all died and it's not just a Nebraska thing. So we also made sure That this was happening in other parts of the country and indeed this species everywhere We've collected it as soon as a male transfers sperm He curls up and his heart eventually stops beating now. Keep in mind. They have two pedipalps These males still have sperm in the other pedipalp, but they're not using it They're dying as soon as they insert their first pedipalp and the curious thing about this is that do you see this big sack right here? So the way males transfer sperm is they have a sack that the sperm is carried in inside their pedipalp And when they go to transfer they push Hemolymph they push fluid in their body into the PELP it expands the sack and pushes the sperm out Most of the time this sack expands and it goes right back in and then they can use the PELP again So this is what the PELP looks like this is a micro CT scan and this green is that Hematodocle sack that is not inflated and you can see the little duct here where the sperm actually comes out So again, most of the time spiders inflate the sack and then it deflates and then they may use their other PELP and it inflates and deflates But in these oh, and this is a high-speed video of what that actually looks like So this is the sack inflating it eventually bursts, but that's about the extent it would be normally So here we we just wanted to see this so we actually dissected a PELP a fixed it to a syringe with water And inflated it manually under a high-speed camera Okay, so you can see the sack right here You can see that white inflated sack the male sack inflates any hangs So there must be some locking mechanism that keeps that sack inflated So other things to note is that females always eat the males So they hang from the females body But eventually she plucks him off hundred percent of the time and eats him Now males are smaller than females. They're about 14 times less in mass than females So how much are females getting from eating these males?  So this is offspring number cannibalism nothing cricket They produce heavier offspring. So they're offspring way more and Their offspring are more likely to survive for longer So there are clearly benefits to females and males of eating these males But we don't really know why so right now. There are lots of questions What's the locking mechanism? How and why are males dying? How is the consumption of the male influencing offspring size and number? We have lots of research going on to address these But if any of you are interested or have ideas Contact me because there are so many directions that we could go and these are systems These are questions where I think actually expertise from different areas not even of science But even engineering fluid mechanics Could be really useful to try to really understand what's going on in the system from the mechanistic point of view From the comparative point of view. I have two undergrads that have been working on Dolomites tenobrosis as well as Dolomites scriptus. So Bridget Bickner is Graduating in December Dan Schoenberg just graduated But they have both been looking at sperm numbers and the role of hydraulics in sperm transfer in both of these species So this is the species where males die This is another local species where males don't die But what Dan found is that when a male mounts a female he inserts once and then he jumps off and He often gets eaten and it's really rare for a male to actually get two Different insertions to be able to use both of his petapults in this other species So what they've found so far again, this is the self-sacrificing species These are data. This is from our lab and the others are from previously published work If we look at the proportion of sperm that's transferred during a mating We see that tenobrosis is right in the mix with everybody else nothing Particularly spectacular about that, but when we look at how many sperm are transferred 782,000 sperm in one single insertion If we compare that to these species who are getting multiple insertions It still is nowhere near so we look at this close relative even with two insertions Tenobrosis is getting 16 times more sperm transferred So we're in the process of doing some experiments where we're trying to manipulate the hydrostatic pressure and Look at the role of that in sperm transfer. So this is all very much ongoing work, but a fascinating system Okay, so I'm going to tell you about another system the nursery web spiders and This this is work done by Alyssa Anderson who is my most recent PhD student these spiders are also found in Lincoln, Nebraska And these spiders do a very different thing. So instead of dying Facilitating their own death these males actually tie females up when they mate with them So this is a male here laying silk down on top of a female. You can see she kind of pulls her legs in What this looks like in the end is you can see silk strands on the female you can really clearly see them Hopefully here as the female pulls her legs in So males when the female is tied up they insert this is that hematodontal sac expansion Showing that males are transferring sperm. They do it twice when they can wrap a female but when you plug the Spinnerettes with dental resin which Alyssa did so that males can no longer produce silk and they can't wrap females What happens is that males that can't wrap only get one insertion and They are more likely to get cannibalized When we look at this one insertion She did a series of experiments to show that if you get two insertions you get more sperm transferred And you get higher fertilization success So these males avoid death by wrapping females with silk They transfer more sperm by wrapping females with silk and they benefit by surviving the mate again And these are data I didn't show you but she actually went out and looked at movement patterns and density and demographics of these spiders and In collaboration with Colton lots who is a current PhD student They developed a model showing that it's likely for males to encounter multiple females and females and males will mate multiply So here we have two very different systems where in one males sacrifice themselves They get more offspring heavier offspring and offspring that survive longer in the other males tie females up with silk They avoid cannibalism they transfer more sperm and they live on to mate with more females So I hope that this convinces you that spiders are a great system to study the evolution of mating systems Because in closely related species you get not only bizarre Mating systems, but very divergent and so understanding processes that are driving divergence in mating systems I think spiders are one of the best systems that you can work with Okay, so I want to move on to engagement now and talk just a little bit About the eight-legged encounters program that I put together and as Chancellor Green mentioned this was funded by NSF It started as a Sunday with the scientist at Morrill Hall And it involves leveraging art and science art and Arachnids for informal science learning and I want to say that Paul Tisdale is my partner in all of this He is a local artist and I really wanted to incorporate art into everything that I did here So all of the graphics all of the images all of the artwork that you see out on the table that is all Paul's doing So we made more at this point more than 40 hands-on modules that cover topics from classification and taxonomy spiders and silk the path of predators actually walks you through the 11 living arachnid orders and you learn about each and Then there's lots of hands-on science one of which was we actually let the participants engage in a in an experiment that they collected data for So I recently was able to pull all of this together in a publication that included evaluation It's one of my publication. I'm kind of most proud of because it was so far out of my wheelhouse But it's a great resource for anyone interested in any of these activities and instead of walking you through all of them I wanted to show just a couple images But I also wanted to actually show you what one looks like so we are going to have a little audience participation And if willing I'm going to ask Chancellor Green And and Bob Wilhelm to come up on stage and I'll need two other volunteers, but before actually wait before you do This the audience gets to decide what we're going to do So there are three different options We can forage like a bowl of spider or they can They can engage in an amyloid pigeon contest or they can be trapped or spiders trying to find prey So look at those and I'm going to do a ray a hand raise. How many want a? How many want B? Okay, B it is Okay, can I have two other volunteers too, please? I'll pick you if not. All right, Elijah and Miranda perfect Okay, so if you guys could come on stage Basically, you are going to re-enact the amyloid pigeon battles and so remember we talked about those sensory hairs These are your sensory hairs and these are your opponents. We're going to move the opponents away from each other a little bit So we'll have one opponent here one here. These are your antenna form legs so you get one and You get one and the rules of the game are that and I'll tell you guys what you're going to do in a minute The way these animals move is that they actually the movement is all in the shoulder So you can't flick your wrist So you need to kind of move your shoulder and the goal is to wave over this hair as many times as you can in 10 seconds Now you are each going to have a counter Where you guys are going to whoops, let me set this you guys are going to count how many times? But the additional trick is that I told you these animals couldn't see very well Yeah, well, so we'll have you guys come here and stand in front and You guys can stand on this side to observe and I will give you the option You can either put blindfolds on or you could just close your eyes That's what I figured Okay, so line yourself up and I will tell you when to go ready Go all right, what are we at? Oh, he's not supposed to hit it. He's supposed to go over top Okay 14 all right Thank you guys Thank you for being good sports So That's just one of many activities That's kind of the type of thing that we do There are a lot of other activities that are actually out on a table there There's one you can be a palpigrade and try and get through a maze with your eyes closed And there's a lot of the trading cards that are available to take home to your kids or for yourselves So when you leave, please, please grab some Okay, so we took this event to the butterfly pavilion outside of Denver to the Denver Museum of Natural History to Morrill Hall twice to the Toledo Zoo and We were even invited by NSF to bring modules to the USA science and engineering festival Which required us to develop new materials and I just again want to give a shout out to Paul So for the rest of the places we use three by five foam boards that he created for each arachnid order For this we couldn't travel to DC with three by five foam boards So he actually painted hand painted six by eight foot canvases of Four of these arachnid orders and they are works of art and we could just roll them up and put them in ski bags to take with us Okay, so we actually did some evaluation on this and we were able to show that art was successful at engaging the public Volunteers were successful at each of these stations We had someone running it who had been trained with the material Participants increased their interest in science and they increased their interest in spiders Interestingly, we had a question about how much more or less likely they were to kill a spider in their house It turns out only 40% of people were more were less likely to kill a spider in their house But I like to think that they the people who came to this already liked spiders and it was just a poorly worded question Um, so in terms of adventure when we're on our dreams list here I this my research has taken me to caves in Puerto Rico Costa Rica where you know, I came in close contact with a boa constrictor that was hanging at a cave entrance trying to catch bats as they were Exiting for the beginning of the night I've gone to Costa Rica and Panama sometimes with little ones in tow and then worked in Brazil, California Florida and Nebraska, Mississippi, etc Memories I have had so many fantastic people through my lab I have met so many amazing friends and colleagues from UNL from across the country from across the world We've had fantastic pumpkin carving parties throughout the years and just lots of great people and along with all these great people has been tremendous Success so in addition to my own successes with lots of papers that my students were also part of and lots of grants and things Like that all of my students have gone on to wonderful places So I've graduated seven PhD students one master student He's the one who's a now a science teacher at North Star and Five postdocs who have all gone on to great institutions So I hope that I've convinced you that arachnids can inspire dreams And that nature provides untapped opportunities for discovery And I just want to make a plug that I told you about my research But spiders produce silk that has all kinds of properties and venom scorpions have venom and just the biomedical and biomaterial potential of these animals is astounding and again if anyone is interested I think a lot of Progress progress has been hindered in those realms because of a lack of information about the natural organismal biology of these animals So there are lots of people I would like to thank I thank you all for being here, and I'm happy to take questions Good afternoon. I am dr. Jamie Reimer, and it is my pleasure to serve as chair of the research council Thank you so much dr. Hebbits for a very engaging and informative presentation And we have some moderators that are walking around the room with portable microphones And we'll be happy to take any questions that you might have for dr. Hebbits at this point Your minds are blown. Yeah, Daniel So do you have any thoughts or ideas of why their brain looks like our intestines? Well, so I think that you know It's kind of like the mammalian brain that is so convoluted that you know there's clearly something about getting a lot of of Material into a small space and so I think a lot of those lobes is just the need for a lot of Processing just jammed into a small space and so I think that that you know That's what we're going off of and why we think that clearly there's something Some special selective pressure that's acting on this part of the brain. That's really important for these animals So there's the two lobes Connect up to the calices and they kind of intertwine around each other And one of the reasons that isn't published yet is because this postdoc has had a really hard time actually mapping This because they're so convoluted and kind of intertwined in different areas Yeah Well, I have two different kinds of questions one is when you were starting What caused you to be to sort of choose to to focus on spiders versus a Scorpions and then the other one that I have is the example the one type of experiments you were showing with the two closely you said closely related species that had very different mating patterns You have anything to say about like what you know, how long it might have taken for that the evolution to you know To separate those two out, right great question. So your first question Is is complete serendipity? So I was an undergrad and an institution in the honors program needed to do an honors thesis and There was an arachnologist there who studied wolf spiders And she had just taught an invert zoe course that I took that I loved And so I approached her and asked her if she would be my mentor for my honors thesis and her answer was Yes, if you work on spiders and I said that's I have no idea what I want to work on so that sounds good to me and once I started working with them I You know, it was one of those moments as an undergraduate where you realize how Little is actually known kind of up to that point in my life. I thought we knew most everything And so at that point I realized the potential for discovery and have just taken off But I'm not opposed to working with scorpions. I mean, I think all of the arachnid groups I am fascinated by so so the second question those two the mating systems of those two fishing spiders Unfortunately, we know so little so there are nine species in the genus that are in North America One other species is thought to be highly dimorphic Just like the one where there's spontaneous male death Sexual size dimorphism is a trait that tends to be correlated over evolutionary time with these terminal investment strategies by males at least in spiders And so my dream is my next big grant is actually going to be a comparative study Trying to get the basic natural history information from these other systems But one of the things that I think is driving it is Female aggression and I think that in some species it may get to a point where females are so aggressive And you're likely to not make it to the second mating anyway And so maybe if you then can invest in sperm transfer And not future matings that may be kind of a successful evolutionary trajectory But we don't know the evolutionary relationships of these species yet And we don't know how long ago they diverged, but it's definitely a direction that I hope to go Have you counted the sperm in the packet that's not delivered? Yeah, so the way that we calculate how Much the proportion of sperm is transferred is we first do the preliminary analysis where we take males that don't mate And we count sperm in both palps and we make sure that they're tightly correlated and they are it's like point nine You know our our squared value So once we have that information we work under the assumption that when a male does mate the amount that is in his Unused palp is the same amount or a similar amount to what was in his used palp And so we actually use that difference to to estimate the amount of sperm transferred Good question. I didn't explain that at all right So in in Steve's work, he was he's he's a very meticulous rigorous kind of OCD type Scientist, so he was incredibly kind of immaculate and careful about his raising Environments and some of his spiders had up to 800 spiderlings We have not been able to replicate that and with that same species since he's left the lab for whatever reason But a lot of babies. I mean obviously nowhere near the 782,000 but still 800 offspring is a lot Yeah, right so Could we have you repeat your question into a microphone for our web stream audience can also hear. Thank you Sorry, so the question was That We're kind of looking at hypotheses of olfaction and is there evidence of using olfaction of the production of pheromones or Using olfactory cues in other aspects of their life So we don't know of any production of olfactory or chemical cues part of my early work. I actually Sat and mapped trees made a grid on trees in the tropics of where animal I knew animals were and sat for nine hours a night and mapped their movements as they came out of their crevices and went back in To look for some kind of trailing or something like that There was no evidence that I found that they are producing anything at least on the substrate When animals are in the field and they are disturbed some species will do this kind of Raising and lowering behavior that could be it's it's similar to kind of pheromone production and release in insects You can't smell anything and we have not done headspace analysis of that yet So it doesn't look like they're marking anything in terms of an olfactory space that they are creating In terms of foraging we have some well There's some evidence that they that they might use olfaction In foraging, but it certainly doesn't seem to be a dominant modality I get the male self-sacrifice to get those genes in the next generation But what's in it for the female to let herself be tied up? Yeah, that's a great question And so the interesting thing with that system is initially when males approach the females they As you saw they kind of pull their legs in and they're very passive and they do very much Let the males tie them up. They're never fighting as soon as the male gets his first Insertion she starts trying to break out of that silk and so it's at that point that the silk seems to be important So we're actually we've done some work collecting hemolymph at various stages looking at potential hormone changes where Females are becoming more aggressive at kind of, you know, very discreet points in the process But as to why they're doing why they why they're complicit in the first place You know, it could be that females are just wanting to get some sperm and then once they have some then maybe they can be choosier and We don't know anything about sperm priority patterns in this species But we're actually collaborating with Kristi Montuth and some students in her lab to do paternity analysis to see If a male is a second male or a third male that mates with a female How much of those offspring does he get to fertilize and how much of it might be? Dictated by the order of the male versus maybe the female can control some of that So if there's female control then it may just be a bet hedging strategy for females to say I'm going to get some sperm because I know later I can kind of manipulate it and decide who's to use But it's far too early in the system now to kind of figure that out But it is true that after the females get the first insertion That's when they start fighting and trying to get the males off Did that kind of answer your question So you mentioned that when the female eats a species of its own Kind of kind the male is of the same species Right fact on the progeny is much higher than if the female it's a cricket or a cookie or something like this, right? So what's your hypothesis? What could? You know this male from the same species bring on to the right, you know It's it's tempting to come up with all sorts of interesting hypotheses But I think I'm hesitant to do that yet because there's kind of a fundamental flaw In that design in the experiment that we did which we didn't realize at the time But all of these spiders are being fed crickets in the lab and so then Under this experiment, they're either fed a male or a cricket Which is the same food. They've been fed or nothing and it Kind of the most the simplest explanation is that a heterogeneous diet is helpful And it has nothing to do with the fact that it's a conspecific male It's just something different than what they've been eating and I think before I go too far thinking about potential hypotheses of What could be in the male or maybe there are genes that are turned on or something like that? I think we really want to confirm that it is indeed the male and not just a diverse diet So there's actually an undergrad in my lab right now who's planning on writing his u-care project To explore that further just at the feeding level so feeding them a conspecific female feeding them You know a male that's that died in some other way Because maybe there's something about the way that the male died that might be Yeah, changing something but I think at this point there's some more basic information I want before I Go too far out on a limb with hypotheses, but with that said I'm happy to hear other people's ideas So you've invested an enormous amount of time and money in public outreach and done some really amazing things And I think probably many of us should be doing a lot more public outreach as as scientists But maybe we don't have as much time and money as you've had to invest in this How how how do we make public outreach a more common part of faculty's Job and expectations and just um ability to to work on that It's a great question And I think the way that I started before I got the money Is is a good approach at least it worked well for me and and that approach was to actually incorporate it into my classes so I Taught an arachnology class and as the final exam instead of A final exam. It was an upper level class. I would have the students work together To develop a hands-on interactive learning module using arachnids to teach some evolutionary concept And I partnered with local high schools And they would actually go into the high schools And take an hour of time and present their materials in these local high schools And so I think that if you can incorporate it in creative ways into your teaching It's a way that you're kind of you know killing two birds with one stone And then you start to develop it was actually because of that that I learned about this funding opportunity at nsf Because someone from nsf said hey, that's the type of thing we fund Have you heard about this opportunity and I hadn't And so as soon as you start building up A history and and demonstration of success Then more doors start to open and it becomes a lot easier But I would say doing it in a strategic way that doesn't require more time But are automatically Builds into what you have to do anyway is the best way to start Where should you start if you want to learn about arachnids? Oh, there are so many places Um coming to this presentation is an excellent first start I think that depending on what type of arachnid there are different resources available There is an excellent book called arachnids by um beccalone is the name and it's written for Kind of a general audience And it's a really good overview of the different arachnid orders and some of it may be Using a lot of words that may kind of not be overly familiar But there are certainly parts of it that are quite accessible And so that's a book if you're just wanting to learn about kind of the natural history and behavior I think that that's a fantastic place to start Um, but in addition, you know, my lab has a slew of graduate and undergraduate students and postdocs Who love nothing more than to talk about arachnids? Um, and so I think that don't be shy to look if you live in Lincoln, you know, look on the web find some Email addresses and see if you can come visit the lab and meet with some folks We have time for one more question if there are any Seeing none. I think that was a very fitting conclusion to the q&a So if you would please help me welcome vice chancellor Wilhelm back to the stage great, so I want to thank uh Dr. Raymer first of all and and also the research council for both bringing such an accomplished and interesting speaker and also honoring such an accomplished and interesting speaker for the Nebraska lecture And uh, dr. Hebbits. I'm going to have to ask you to come back one more time Of course, it's our custom It's only a small token, but we have a small recognition for you and This is all sealed up, but I can tell you it's no secret. It's a it's a framed Copy of the of what we used to the poster we used to to publicize this Of course, there's been a I think a lot of buzz About the this this lecture we heard all through Lincoln about it So I hope that you'll take this and uh and think well of us and the Nebraska lecture. So thank you very much again For being our lecturer this year


So, time has come. Before I now go on with my concluding remarks, let me just say that we had a pre-conference event with Anne Pritchett. After my comments here, we're also going to have a post-conference event. So Tony, now I have remembered it. There will be a book launch, an IMF study, that will be launched at Nordia just across the hall. So if you're interested in that, if you're interested in the topic of commodity price volatility and inclusive growth in low-income countries, Robert is going to launch that. Okay, we've seen a number of years in the global economy that have been sort of quite impressive. The globe has been in turmoil. I mean, we developed here at wider, we developed what we referred to as our triple crisis work program in 2009, and we were thinking at that point in time about three large-scale global phenomena. Issues of finance, issues of food, and issues of climate change. And we went at quite some lengths to think through about how these issues are interlinked. We did that because we had a deep sense that somehow we as a research institution need to try to respond. And then of course, at the same time, we were very concerned about maintaining a focus on our traditional, often referred to as foundational issues of poverty, inequality, human development, and so on. So this sort of, at least where we kind of began three years ago. And where are we now, three years later? Well, certainly the financial crisis lingers on, and the future of development finance remains extremely unclear. The global food system is still clearly under pressure, and climate scientists have become even more pessimistic about the future of global warming. We could sort of pretend three, four years ago that we were talking about maybe two percent, but now we're talking about four degrees increases. What has also become very clear is the importance of extreme events. It's become clearer and clearer that we need to recognize those. And one can certainly say that recent experiences have heightened uncertainty surrounding development policy formulation. So that does suggest to me that we were not completely off in sort of identifying some of these topics as the core of a work program. And certainly what it does mean is that it means that the twin climate challenges do remain. The area of mitigation policy, how do we arrive at lower greenhouse gas emissions, and how do we curb climate warming? How do we reduce the climate uncertainty that complicates development policy? That on the one hand, the mitigation area. And then turning to adaptation strategy, well, it's obvious that we do need to try to find trajectories that reduce vulnerability to climate shocks and do not inhibit the achievement of development goals. So how do we sort of move from the area of climate policy to development policy? Well, climate research is advancing. It's certainly clear, and there is now a strong consensus that climate change is a reality. We've heard from people from very many different nationalities, I happen to be Danish, and certainly one fellow Dane for a long time played what I call the Strauss game of saying, oh no, there's no problem. I think it's fair to say that that has fortunately changed. We do recognize that climate change is going on, it's a reality, and we need to deal with it. And researchers need to address the challenge of trying to identify relevant policy responses. Participate in that process. But there is one important observation, which is that whichever policies in terms of mitigation or adaptation that we might identify, propose, come up with, they do need to be designed and implemented at country level. The action will have to be taken there. We can then talk about the national level or we can go further down, which has been characteristic in quite a number of the presentation discussions at this conference. We're sort of both the national and the local level have kind of been referred to. And we should probably be careful in not always sort of assuming that the national and the local are saying the same things. There are different pieces of information, there are different concerns at national and at local level. There's different knowledge residing at these different levels. But what's pretty evident is that it is time, as it was said very precisely in the opening plenary, it is time to focus on embedding climate change within development policy. Now, this is a challenge for us as researchers. I mean, when we want to try to think about generating new policy relevant evidence, well, with this kind of frame, with this kind of situation, I mean, it's sort of uncomfortable. Because we need to step out of our traditional silos or if you wish comfort zones. I'm a relatively traditional development economist. I mean, I've sort of been for years doing certain things and I kind of thought that I was reasonably okay with it. But then when I sort of start thinking about traditional economic issues that I've sort of been working on, and then I start thinking about, gee, the climate. I mean, what happens is that I'm forced to confront the fact that there are lots of things that I don't know. That there are issues related to science that I have to start grappling with. Not that I need to understand everything, but I need to try to master a curiosity that's actually quite challenging. And I can't get to the insights by being sort of business as usual or semi-lazy or it's going to come to me or I can just rely on my old stuff. It actually forces me to get concentrated and that's challenging, of course. It does mean that we cannot avoid trying to address multidisciplinary, multi-sectoral approaches. Because if we don't do it, as was very precisely and elegantly explained in this closing plenary, we just won't get it right. And that will in many cases mean that we have to sort of go back to school, so to speak. And we do need to try to evaluate climate change implications for our regular policy prescriptions. We've been used to draw policy prescriptions that may well show up to be wrong or at least not optimal. Now, one thing that has also been referred to repeatedly in this conference is the need for communication. We as researchers, we do have an obligation to really take the challenge serious of trying to seriously document what it is that we are doing. But we need to take one more step. We need really also to try not just to document it in thick technical documentations that can really only be read by the specialist. We actually need, even if it's uncomfortable, we do need sometimes to go out on the limb. And it's tricky and it's uncomfortable because you're forced to kind of get into a world where, well, are you then getting it right? Are you getting all the dimensions and so on? But I would suggest that we won't manage to actually bridge that gap between our research and the value of evidence that we do generate. If we don't take that step, if we don't try to bridge that gap, however uncomfortable it may be. So yes, the challenge of learning to communicate is critical in this process. And I think in hearing what I said just a minute ago, we need to learn to communicate both among a broad group of researchers, but also to communicate with policymakers, but then also do remember that there are different levels when we are at the country level. There is the national level, there are informed people as people we've seen on plenaries here. But as we start discussing with people who are facing different daily challenges, but also who have different knowledge, different information, we somehow need to bring that together and be able to communicate with each other. So what was sort of the response, if you wish, from the UNU wider side over these past sort of two, three years? Well, we've been concerned about trying to provide new policy relevant research. We've tried to take the challenge that I mentioned or referred to in the Development Our Work program series. We started a quite ambitious program which we referred to as Development Under Climate Change, DUCC. And I can assure you that the decisions were not that easy. Because, you know, we were engaging, trying to get economists and climate scientists to speak with each other. And I can always assure you that while it was fun, it was not always easy. We've also tried to work within social sciences with different dimensions of this. But we tried to do it in the Southern Africa, many regions, as well as in Ghana and as well as in Vietnam. And I do believe that there is now a set of outputs that sort of documents what we have come up with. And some of these general results that were referred to in the closing plenary, you can certainly find those kinds of results in these reports and studies. Let's take the case of Vietnam which I personally have been quite deeply involved in. I learned that one needs to be really careful in a variety of ways. One needs to be really careful in making a distinction between the fact that peasants, they are living with the environment and they've done that for a long time. And there are Vietnamese peasants whose feet are often in water. But that observation is different from thinking about what climate change will do in the coming years. I also learned things like that there are windows of opportunity that should actually be actively used. Because the growth impacts are not necessarily as dramatic as sometimes said. And I learned that policy can actually make quite a substantial difference. If we do approach the challenge, if we actually do try to get going, then policy can make a difference. Now I mentioned that I was sort of am I guess still a slightly traditional development economist. There's one thing that sort of I learned when I went to school. And that was something about that you need to make a distinguish between uncertainty and risk. I mean that's sort of part of my bringing up. Where uncertainty is this kind of generic uncertainty, you just have absolutely no idea about what's going to happen. But on the other side risk, which is that life can change. Things can change, but that you are in a situation where you can assign probabilities to the different outcomes. That's pretty fundamental. And I think it's fair to say that the challenge that I have been pushing, at least that challenge has been taken up by the DUCC team, is to try to translate uncertainty into risk. Because when we have pushed the translation of the uncertainty into risk, you know what? Then I as an economist, I can start getting my battery into operation of thinking about things. When it's just generic uncertainty, I mean I'm much more lost. And I think that that's one element of the challenge that we will continue to have. We've come part of the way. We've certainly taken a step. But that's exactly why continued research evidence need to be brought on the table. We need to make sure that as much as possible that generic uncertainty is translated into risk so that we can make assessment of policy alternatives. I believe that that's sort of at the core of it. And that's why I'm pleased that there were calls for continued insistence on generating that research-based evidence, which I do believe can play a key role in policymaking without being naive about it, without overlooking that there are also political economy dimensions of the decision-making around these issues. And why do we also, in the midst of implementing a so-called research and communication initiative, the NIDA and CIDA were so kind that they thought we could implement a major program on foreign aid, what works, what could work, what's scalable and so on. And obviously there are clear links between the climate change area, which is one of the recon areas as well. And we do know, of course, that adaptation can complement development. But what interventions will work? When and where? And what can be scaled up? Well, we heard here in this conference, at least a suggestion, that maybe one initiative that could be taken are related to issues of how much wood do you actually need to use to produce a meal. Now that's not a completely new suggestion. It was made by myself more than 25 years ago, and I still wonder about why it is that it's not implemented. But there are potential low-hanging fruits in this area, and we should try to go for them, and we should try to scale them up. And how can one sort of try to encourage climate action, but at the same time avoid straight-jacketing national development policy? I tend to be a little bit worried sometimes in this area, because I genuinely believe that it's very important that we embed climate change in our discussions about development policy. I don't think we're going to get it right if we don't do it. But at the same time, when I'm looking at how the development aid process is moving forward and being discussed and so on and so forth, I am speculating a little bit about whether there is a risk that because of the climate change concern, that we are then sort of imposing or risking imposing new conditionality. We need to make absolutely sure that we don't end up in that trap and that we're not misunderstood. We need to make absolutely sure that the actions that we are promoting actually make sense at local level, that they are meaningful, and they actually make people's lives better, not just because they help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because the poor at the end of the day were not the ones responsible for the problem. So there is a fairness discussion there that we do need to be serious about. That does not mean that we should not at the same time try to be very clear about when it is that poorer nations, poorer people would benefit from mitigation initiatives even in their own economies, because they are also there. It's very clear that it would not be in the interest of a number of developing countries just close their eyes and just go on with business without paying attention. But we do have a relation issue here. And if we, rich and poorer countries, if we don't get that communication right, we will continue to misunderstand each other. So, I mean, there's really something here where I think communication can be pretty critical. We've also collaborated from the side of UNU wider on trying to build capacity for multidisciplinary climate research in developing countries, in particular with ARC, but certainly also with a number of universities and national governments and policy think tanks. We're proud of that initiative and we are hoping, quite frankly, that that can gradually now be taken over such that it can have a much broader impact than this sort of first stimulus that we have tried to give. And we've tried, as was laid out in excruciating detail is in our logical framework for what we were going to do for five years to engage with the IPCC process, and we are now trying to engage with the process of developing sustainable development goals and what's going to happen with the 2015 development agenda, because it's probably going to be a focus of attention where some of these discussions that we've had these past couple of days somehow are going to be materializing. And then we have an AR trying to learn and communicate through conferences such as this one. We do see it as a task of ours to try to bring together researchers and policymakers from across the world. It's important, and it relates back to the point I mentioned before, it is important that we bring researchers and policymakers together from rich, from poor, from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west, trying to discuss issues together such that hopefully that can help to that process of mutual understanding without which we will not be able to address both the development and the climate change challenge. I hope that you have enjoyed these two days. I hope that you have learned as much as I have, because then it can't be completely wrong what we have been trying to do. I would also suggest I would be very happy and I hope we can keep in touch. There is a website. All the videos of all conference sessions will be available. Urs will all of the PowerPoint slide. So if there were some of the equations you didn't quite get, you will actually have a possibility of sitting and studying them. And I'm absolutely sure that even if you, when you have studied them, then you can't understand them. I'm sure that James and others will be ready to explain what they actually mean. So use this Urs communication tool among us, but also vis-à-vis your colleagues in your offices, in your institutions, when you do get back home. And then there's also a website here for downloadable research and information on our activities. And also please do take a look at the newsletter. We've actually made a major effort to make that an exciting newsletter every month, where you can actually see not only how the weather changes here in Helsinki, it will soon be completely white outside and the ferries will only move very slowly. But you would also get insights and articles from a really broad range of people in our global network. So, final concluding words. And then I need, and I'm pleased to first of all acknowledge the participation of all of you. Some of you have travelled very far to come here, and we do appreciate it highly. I think this has been absolutely great. I mean, I'm encouraged by the level of participation we've seen. This suggests to me that we are moving forward on learning how to communicate. Let me also express my appreciation for all of the speakers. You have been surprisingly disciplined in terms of sticking to time. And the only point in the whole conference where I was worried was when we were sort of, when the next was sort of being pulled, you've been concise. You've actually tried to bring out your points in a way which was understandable. And moderators have kept orders for that. I would like to express my appreciation. Conferences such as this one, they can only be done if you have an organizing team. And I would like to say thank you very much to the organizing team. Emed, where are you? James, where are you? Yongfu, where are you? Channing, where are you? Thank you guys. Well done. Now, may I also say that very often with these sort of types of events like this one, maybe some of us sort of floating up there, not always having our feet on the ground, sometimes we tend to forget that there is a lot of hard work behind organizing it. Getting you here, making sure you get your tickets, making sure that when you change your plans for whatever reason, et cetera, et cetera. All of those organizing project assistant type work, I would like to express my appreciation on this occasion to Anne and Anna in particular. You really did it. And then I'm sure that it's okay that I now simply just say, and then of course there is a wider crew in general that has worked on and behind the scenes. And I would like to say thank you. You did it once again. And for that I'm really grateful. And may I also just say thank you very much to our Finnish hosts. Can you imagine a better environment? I mean, I love the Finns. And thank you also to DFID, to Danide, to Sida for continuing to provide financial support without which neither the research that I have been referring to on the UNU wider side nor events such as this one would have been possible. Thank you. And travel safety back home.


members statements I recognize the member for Niagara Falls. Thank you Mr. Speaker on April 6th the government released a list of postal codes across Ontario which were deemed hotspots. These hotspots were designated based on transmission records hospitalization. These postal codes has seen so much death and suffering on account of this virus. One of those postal codes is L2G postal code in Niagara Falls. Yet that community in Niagara was not given access to priority lists for vaccines. This is another failure of this government to provide vaccines we need in Niagara. In fact this postal code may not have been needed at all if this government didn't divert over 5,000 life-saving Moderna vaccines from us in January. Something the government now claims is a myth despite all the evidence that this happened. Time and time again this government failure to get Niagara vaccines it needs is making this pandemic worse. The people in Niagara want an end to this cycle of lockdowns and viruses. We can end that cycle by following the guidelines set out and giving vaccine priorities to more postal codes in Niagara. Especially the L2G code as identified by your own government as a hotspot.  Paid time off to get vaccines. We also need more vaccination dates available in Fort Erie. We also need a minute Niagara in the lake to serve our elderly population. Enough failures. Get this right. Get these vaccines into these postal codes in Niagara immediately and let's save lives. Thank you. Member statements. The member for Mississauga East Cooksville. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The holy month of Ramadan has arrived and Muslims across Ontario and around the world will observe 30 days of fasting, prayer and self reflection in commitment to the religious values and traditions of their faith. Just like last year Muslims in our province continue to demonstrate their willingness to adopt to the current restriction by practicing social distancing and wearing a mask to stop the spread of COVID-19. Across Ontario the Muslim community has found ways to practice their faith in these uncertain times and for this I thank them for their diligence in keeping one another and all of us safe.  For this I say thank you to all of my Muslim brothers and sisters for your continuous generosity and support towards those in need during these unprecedented times. On behalf of my family and the people of Ontario I wish the Muslim community a Ramadan Mubarak. Thank you. Member statements, the member for Parkdale High Park. Thank you Speaker. As a working parent of two children with one in elementary school I have a question for the Ford government. A question I know parents across Ontario has as well, have as well. Why do you feel the need to surprise people? For weeks on end you kept saying that schools were safe and that in-person learning was going to continue only to have it changed on us last minute. Think about the panic you create. Parents don't know what to do. Everyone is left scrambling. It's stressful. We have to make big changes again on very short notice because this government can't be bothered to share with everyone what is actually going on. Be transparent. Provide a clear strategy and line of thought. Show some leadership. People understand that we're in the midst of a pandemic and tough decisions need to be made. What we get from this government instead are press conferences announcing that there is an update but that update can only be shared tomorrow. Don't keep us guessing what it may be. Just tell us what you know. Tell us what you want to tell us tomorrow today. Now is as good a time. Better in fact. You know Speaker if people did this at work if people did at their jobs what this government is doing they would be told you don't know what you're doing. They would be fired. So do you know what you're doing or do you not know what you're doing. I understand these are unprecedented times tough times. And if you don't know what you're doing maybe leave it to someone else that can do it better. Thank you. I say to the Minister of Natural Resources the time is 10 20 this morning. Member statements. The member for flamborough glamour. Thank you and good morning Mr. Speaker. I rise in the house this morning to express my gratitude to farmers not only in my riding a flamborough glamour but of course right across the province of Ontario for their efforts to keep us fed throughout this pandemic. Farmers have faced incredible challenges because of COVID-19. They've been dealing with a shortage of migrant workers. Farmers are at the mercy of the weather. They need adequate workers to plant to maintain and to harvest their crops at the right time. Without these workers consumers would see empty shelves in our grocery stores. But to compensate farmers and their workers have been toiling long hours in the fields in our orchards and in our vineyards. Farmers have not only been losing workers but they have also been losing money. Over the past year they've lost a large share of the restaurant and hospitality business. Restaurants aren't able to buy products like tomato sauce by the gallon with movie theaters closed butters and being delivered by the pail. But farmers have figured out different ways to sell their products. They've effectively shifted to online sales and roadside operations. Farmers are selling chicken, beef and pork to consumers at roadside stands right across the province. Some dairy farmers are now selling online and delivering milk to your door just like the old days. Because of their efforts grocery store shelves, coolers and freezers are fully stocked. This past year has been a struggle for farmers and at the start of the pandemic the food system did bend but due to their ingenuity, industrious nature it didn't break. We thank them. Member statements. The member for London North Senate. Speaker, it's no secret that our small businesses in Ontario are struggling more than ever right now. The Ontario small business support grant was supposed to be a lifeline. But for too many small business owners the process was made impossibly complicated. Danny is a small business owner in London and she is one of many in my writing having issues accessing this grant. She first applied for this grant in January, but after her application sat under review for months. Finally in April after the deadline had passed, she found out her application was denied. She was not given a reason why and there's no appeal process in place for her to challenge this decision. Danny told me she has called the helpline 20 times and left nine escalation tickets without any follower. It's infuriating, she told me, that some businesses received funds within two weeks while businesses like mine are on the brink of bankruptcy. Speaker, after the year they've had our small businesses deserve clarity and support from this government. Each day their grant requests go unanswered is another day of anxiety and uncertainty. I'm asking the Premier to take immediate action provide our small business owners with the answers and information they deserve and get these grants to London's small businesses today. Member statements. The member for Cambridge. Good morning. Earlier this week, the British Journal of Sports Medicine released a study which looked at almost 50,000 adults with COVID-19. The objective of this study was to compare hospitalization rates, ICU admissions and mortality for patients with COVID-19 who were consistently inactive doing some activity or consistently meeting physical activity guidelines. The conclusion, Mr Speaker, was that other than advanced age and a history of organ transplant, lack of physical activity was the strongest risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes. Those who engaged in at least 150 minutes of physical activity a week had quote lower incidence, intensity of symptoms and mortality from various viral infections and quote. So not just COVID-19. A fact that I'm sure many gym going Ontarians and gym owners have known for a very long time. Physical activity is good for your cardiovascular and pulmonary health. It boosts immune function and improves mental health. So why has this progressive conservative government shuttered gyms across Ontario for extended periods of time on three separate occasions? Why have children across this province been denied access to sports, dance and other forms of physical activity? This government has continued to implement draconian measures on the people of Ontario for over a year and has failed to educate Ontarians on modifiable risk factors such as the benefits of physical activity and vitamin D supplementation. I am asking this government to open gyms now and to let our children return to play. Thank you. Member statements. The member for Peterborough Gortha. Thank you speaker. I'd like to share a snapshot of the excellent work being done at the by the health care heroes at cable regional health center. Most people in Ontario won't know about PRHC but my regional hospital has performed in truly incredible ways during COVID-19.  Since January, PRHC has accepted more than 40 transfer patients from GTA hospitals. This week they've increased their critical care capacity to 48 ICU beds standing ready to save more lives. Their vaccine clinic for some of the highest risk populations has been described as the happiest place on earth by those who've come. And that's not normally a phrase you hear when someone jabs you in the arm with a needle. Speaker, I have to share this story from Tuesday. A person waiting to take someone home from the vaccination clinic experienced a life threatening event. The nurses in the clinic responded immediately and saved that individual's life then went on to vaccinate more than 500 people so that no appointments were cancelled. The staff and physicians at PRHC are passionate about what they do about the people they care for and have been absolute heroes throughout this pandemic. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you to all the staff at PRHC. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Brampton North. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'd like to talk about the negative impacts of the Highway Traffic Act on the dump truck industry. The owner operators and small business owners are facing illogical and unreasonable costs from $25,000 to $40,000 in the dump truck industry. The industry is mostly comprised of owner operators and small businesses and this issue affects the whole industry. It does not make sense for these dump truck drivers to retrofit their 15 year old plus trucks that are on the end of their life spans with such high costs to only get a few more years out of them. This would lead to these trucks being decommissioned and would result in more harm for the environment. Instead, Mr Speaker, we should allow them to operate especially when our construction industry and economy need more dump trucks to continue operating in the midst of a pandemic. The other truck industries like concrete trucks and bulk fuel trailers have received extensions of 20 to 25 years from the MTO, that the MTO is ignoring these dump truck drivers, not even providing adequate reasoning for this. I'm once again asking, as we have before, to allow tri-axial dump trucks manufactured before July 2011 to operate their lifespan without these restrictions. This would allow the owner operators and small business operators without paying $40,000 to retrofit their old trucks. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Member Statements, the Member for Milton. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, season of the Great Canadian Baking Show has wrapped up and although I wouldn't usually be following this show so intently, this year was extra special for my great writing of Milton. This year, we watched as Milton's own Rufficott beat out nine other bakers for the title of Canada's best baker. Rufficott put forward some of the most mouthwatering dishes I've ever seen during the eight-week competition. Speaker, I'm proud to represent a community that has such a flourishing talent and although in the middle of a pandemic have been able to cheer on Miltonians like Rufficott while they achieve new heights. Mr Speaker, in one of her interviews during the competition, Rufficott credited her unique and award-winning flavors to her mother's kitchen back in Nigeria. This achievement was made possible through hundreds of hours of dedication and support and I imagine a few taste tests along the way. Speaker, I would like to congratulate Rufficott and all of those who support her throughout this competition. Milton is proud of you and we look forward to watching you as you continue to succeed in years to come. I know my colleagues will join me today in congratulating Rufficott. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Next member statement, the member for Niagara West. Thank you very much Speaker and I rise today to acknowledge and thank the hardworking members of the Niagara Regional Public Health Unit as well as Niagara Health for the incredible work that they have been doing to ensure that residents in Niagara are able to access COVID-19 vaccines. From Dr. Mustafa Hurji to Linguero of Niagara Health, we've seen the incredible commitment of the healthcare workers across Niagara. Speaker, we've seen over 119,000 vaccinations given in Niagara. That's over 22 and a half percent of the population, a percentage that is above the provincial average. Speaker, it's so important that we continue to encourage people to be able to go out, get their vaccines at many of the locations that are across Niagara. Just last week I had the opportunity to announce an additional 19 pharmacies that are rolling out across the region. That's in addition to the 22 pharmacies that were rolled out the week prior. That's 41 locations to access a COVID-19 vaccine in the region of Niagara Speaker. That, of course, is in addition to the 11 sites that we're seeing rolling out across the region as well as the Seymour Hanna site, which of course the Premier visited to thank the remarkable frontline work who are doing important work there. Speaker, as we await more supply from the federal government, our government is committed to ensure that each and every community in Ontario receives equitable access to important vaccinations. That's why in Niagara I'm proud to say that we have an average that is above the provincial average of our vaccinations rollout. That's over 22 and a half percent, 119,000 vaccinations, and more are coming very soon. Thank you, Speaker. Thank you very much. That concludes our member statements, and I've been informed that the Leader of the Opposition has a point of order she wishes to raise. Thanks very much, Speaker. I seek unanimous consent for the House to observe a moment of silence for the 221 Ontarians who have succumbed to COVID-19 since April the 1st. Opposition is seeking unanimous consent of the House to observe a moment of silence for the 221 Ontarians who succumbed to COVID-19 since April 1st. Agreed? Agreed. Agreed. I'll ask members to please that. Thank you very much. Members may take