Biography:

Dr Giraldo Alayon Garca is a doctor in Biological Sciences. A researcher and curator at the Museum of Natural History in Havana, Cuba. Dr Alayon has published more than 100 articles about evolution and the biogeography of spiders in the Caribbean, as well as a book about the spiders of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (2007). He is also a full professor of anthropology at the University of Agricultural Studies in Havana. Dr Alayon was the president of the Cuban Zoology Society from 1995 to 2001. Dr Alayon has delivered conferences and taught international courses about biodiversity and evolution in Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain, Canada, US, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Dominican Republic and Cuba. He has carried out post-doctoral research at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Harvard, US; Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, US; Peabody Museum, Yale University, US; American Museum of Natural History, New York, US; Field Museum, Chicago, US; Gainsville University; Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia, US; Royal Ontario Museum,Toronto, Canada; Instituto de Biologa, UNAM, Mxico DF; INBIO, Costa Rica; Universidad de Costa Rica; Universidad Autnoma de Santo Domingo; Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Santo Domingo. He has been a visiting professor at several of these institutions. His conferences lately have a main theme: Darwin. Evolution, Charles Darwin in XXI century, impact of Darwinism on science, species in the Caribbean from a Darwinian perspective, etc. are the titles of his most recent conferences.

Abstract:

A Hypothesis of the allopatric speciation of Dolomedes (Araneae: Pisauridae) in Cuban Archipelago

The evolutionary radiation of colonist on archipelagos affords discernment into the mechanisms and modes of speciation. The spider genus Dolomedes have four endemics species in Cuba that live in the bodies of water (fast streams), these spiders occupy the neuston community of the principal massive mountains. Monophily of Cuban Dolomedes is supported, based on morphological characters and the paleogeography of the area, suggesting a single colonization of the archipelago followed by a diversification and also miocene geographical isolation is proposed as an additional cause of evolutionary divergence in this species. Similar mechanism on Galapagos mockingbirds (Nesomimus) motivated Darwins preliminary conceptions of adaptive radiation.