Tuesday seminar November 13, 2012 at the Earl S. Tupper Conference Center
Announcing the STRI Tuesday afternoon seminar for November 13, 2012 at 4:00 pm in the Earl S. Tupper auditorium:
Speaker: Allen Herre, STRI
Title: The stability of the fig-wasp mutualism: from observation to inference to experiment to genomics and back
Abstract: Long term stability in mutualisms (and parasitisms) is a general, largely unresolved question in evolutionary ecology.
The fig - wasp pollination mutualism presents some of the clearest examples of conflicts of interest between mutualists are both quantifiable and available for experimental manipulation. I will outline hypotheses that have been proposed to explain why wasps do not exploit all fig seeds, and discuss the evidence that now supports the inference that some subset of flowers are essentially unavailable for wasps to exploit (The "Unbeatable Seeds" hypothesis).
Discussing the trajectory of research on this specific topic, I will attempt to draw general conclusions about factors that do or do
Upcoming seminars:
November 20: Edwin Lebrijas, STRI
Title to be announced
November 27: Richard Cooke, STRI
Depletion and accretion of the vertebrate fauna of the Pearl Islands, Panama, in Precolumbian times (6000-500 years ago)
December 4: Ken Feeley, Florida International University
Running from the heat: Can tropical trees shift their distributions to remain at equilibrium with climate?
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