Cambridge Entomological Club Meeting, May 13
Matan Shelomi
Next Week, 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 he has provided of
his 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! 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/