Dr. Noriyuki Suzuki recently completed his PhD at Kyoto University, Japan, where his research focused mainly on ecology of host specialization in phytophagous and predatory insects. He is continuing his research at Tohoku University, Japan, and is currently a visiting researcher in the Jaenike lab from November 2012 to January 2013. For more information on Dr. Suzuki’s research, please visit his website!
Yasir Ahmed, a graduate student of the University of Rochester and member of the Orr Lab, is presenting the last EEB seminar for the semester entitled, “Genetics and Evolution of Interspecific Assortative Fertilization in Drosophila,” on Friday, December 7. Yasir received his B.S. and M.S. in Biology from the University of Iowa studying the evolution of reproductive incompatibilities in the virilis group of Drosophila in Bryant McAllister’s lab.
Cara Brand, a graduate student of the University of Rochester and member of the Presgraves Lab, is presenting a talk titled, “An investigation of recent adaptive introgression in Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia,” on Friday, November 30. Cara received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park. She then spent a year as research technician in Jerry Wilkinson’s lab, working on hybrid male sterility and meiotic drive in stalk-eyed flies. She is now studying the population genetics of interspecific introgression between Drosophila simulans clade species, and the evolution and genetics segregation distortion.
LeAnne Lovato, a graduate student of the University of Rochester and member of the Garrigan Lab, is presenting a talk titled, “The Evolution of Genes and Genomes in Caenorhabditis,” on Friday, November 16.
Dr. Roman Yukilevich, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Union College is presenting a talk titled, “The Evolution of Sexual Isolation in Drosophila: Why sympatry breeds contempt and who is to blame?” on Friday, November 9. This is what Dr. Yukilevich says about his research interests: “I am an evolutionary biologist interested in studying how reproductive isolation (speciation) evolves in nature. To achieve this goal I study natural populations of Drosophila that have recently undergone divergence and model the process of speciation on a computer to make further predictions about how species diverge in nature.”
Dr. Robert Raguso, Professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Behavior at Cornell University, is presenting a talk titled, “Do odors have dialects? Geographic variation in chemical signals,” on Friday, November 2.
Dr. Richard Meisel is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University, and is presenting a talk titled, “Faster-X Evolution of Gene Expression in Drosophila” on Friday, October 26. For more on his research, here is an excerpt from his website:
Image from Reed et al. (2011) optix drives the repeated convergent evolution of butterfly wing pattern mimicry. Science.
Dr. Robert Reed, Associate Professor in the EEB department at Cornell University, is presenting a talk titled, “Adaptation in technicolor! The developmental genetic basis of butterfly wing pattern evolution” on Friday, October 19. Regarding his research: “Most of my work aims to uncover the genes and developmental processes that govern the diversification of animal color patterns. I want to know how development influences the range of variation that arises and is maintained in natural populations. I also want to know how, in turn, natural selection drives the evolution of developmental processes. Butterfly wing patterns are my study system of choice because they permit a beautiful integration of population biology, phylogenetics, ecology, and developmental genetics. Developing butterfly wings are easy to work with in the lab and we have a good grasp of the evolutionary pressures driving wing pattern evolution.” For more information on Dr. Reed’s research, please go to his website at The Reed Lab.
On Nov. 8th at 5pm Peter Dear from Cornell University will be talking in the Welles-Brown Room of Rush Rhees Library on “Darwin’s Sleepwalkers: Naturalists and the Practices of Classification.” The Humanities Project provides the following blurb on this talk: “Ernst Mayr famously claimed that the practices of classification in natural history underwent no sharp change following the rapid acceptance among naturalists in the 1860s of Darwin’s transformist arguments in the *Origin of Species*. More recently, Polly Winsor has argued for the importance of taxonomy in the development of Darwin’s great theory, in effect, her argument similarly blends taxonomy before and after 1859. Broadly speaking, such positions are surely right: Darwin especially used arguments referring to varieties, species, and genera throughout his writings, and he could hardly have expected his use of these categories to carry any persuasive force if he had reinvented them wholesale. Darwin clearly recognized his reliance on the work of other, non-transformist taxonomists, and needed in effect to explain how their work could have produced just such groupings as his own theory explained through descent with modification. Since these groupings served in many cases as evidence for his theory, they could scarcely be accepted on its basis. Darwin wanted only to reinterpret their meaning, not to undermine the notion of an already achieved natural classification; he wanted to use accepted taxa as data for his theory when only his theory (he thought) could justify them. How could that be, without argumentative circularity? Darwin’s practical solution involved a wholesale naturalization of classification.”
Dr. Kurt McKean, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at the University at Albany, is presenting a talk titled, “The evolutionary ecology of pathogen host interactions: How do trade-offs in hosts and pathogens affect defense and virulence?” on Friday, October 5. For more information on Dr. McKean’s research, please go to his website: McKean Lab.
