Dr. Vince Martinson, a post-doc in the Jaenike Lab, is presenting an EEB seminar entitled “The gut microbiota of bees and wild drosophilids.” Vince completed his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona under Nancy Moran, where his research centered on the gut bacteria of honey bees.

Dr. James Fry will be hosting Dr. Timothy Connallon’s visit on Friday, November 1.  Dr. Connallon is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University.  He is presenting a talk titled, “Population genetics of adaptation in species with separate sexes.”

Dr. Connallon completed his Ph.D. in the lab of Dr. Lacey Knowles at the University of Michigan, where he studied the evolutionary consequences of X-linked inheritance and sex-specific natural and sexual selection in fruit flies.  Since joining the Clark lab at Cornell in September 2009, Tim has been working to develop theoretical models of adaptation on the X and Y-chromosomes, and autosomes, with the specific goal of generating predictions to be tested using comparative genomics and gene expression data.

Dr. Daven Presgraves is host to Dr. Howard Rundle, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa. He is presenting a talk titled, “Sexual selection, condition-dependence and adaptation (in Drosophila).” Please see below for information on his research:

“While I am interested in diverse topics in evolutionary ecology, the main focus of research in my lab currently addresses how natural and sexual selection interact during adaptation, and how both processes contribute to phenotypic divergence and speciation. Addressing such questions requires a comprehensive understanding of how sexual selection operates within populations and how it varies in different environments (e.g., social, geographical, natural). Our approach is primarily empirical and utilizes experimental evolution and behavioral assays to conduct manipulative, direct tests of various key evolutionary hypotheses. Because the majority of sexual selection theory has quantitative genetic foundations, much of our work is also conducted within a quantitative genetic framework.”