Cambridge Entomological Club Meeting, Tonight!
Matan Shelomi
Tonight, on Tuesday the 13th, there will be a club meeting at MCZ 101
(26 Oxford Street at Harvard University) at 7:30pm, preceded by a dinner
at the law school cafeteria (second floor of Harkness Commons) at 6:15.
The speaker of the night will be Prof. Emma Vitikainen of the University
of Helsinki, who will be giving a short talk entitled "Studying
inbreeding in a natural population of the ant Formica exsecta." Here is
a description she has provided of her topic:
"Human induced habitat destruction and fragmentation may lead to loss of
genetic diversity and increase inbreeding. While inbreeding depression
reduces the viability of most studied organisms, data from natural
populations remain scarce particularly in groups such as insects, where
measures of fitness are hard to obtain in the field. Ant colonies,
however, offer a tractable system for long-term field studies.
Furthermore, due to their sociality, inbreeding effects in ants may
differ from those seen in solitary organisms. We study the effects of
inbreeding in the narrow-headed ant Formica exsecta, in a natural
population located in the coast of Finland. Results show that inbreeding
affects colonies both through queens and workers. In my talk, I will
also discuss inbreeding effects on the immune defence of ants, and the
relationship between inbreeding and dispersal behavior."
Be sure to tell friends, lab groups, and coworkers about our events! We
are currently working on ensuring all members receive our emails, but
word of mouth is always useful. Also, if you believe that you or someone
you know is not signed up on the ent-club announce list, send or have
them send their email address to
entclub-anno...@entclub.org
We hope to see you there!
-Matan Shelomi
President of the Cambridge Entomological Club
http://entclub.org/