Event Description
Scott Powell, PhD, The George Washington University
How Ecology Shapes the Evolution of the Complex
Social-Phenotype: Insights From the Turtle Ants
Identifying
how ecology shapes adaptive phenotypic change within a diversifying lineage
remains one of the most enduring challenges of biodiversity research.
While a few well-studied systems have given us valuable insight into
general aspects of this process, what drives complex phenotypic change in many
taxa remains poorly understood. Of particular interest here are the
ecological drivers of phenotypic change in complex social lineages, and
especially the evolution of distinct functional forms, or "castes",
within insect societies. This talk will examine how integrative functional
and comparative approaches reveal the role of ecology in shaping
the extraordinary eco-morphological diversification seen in many social
insect lineages. The presented research will focus on the turtle ants
(genus Cephalotes), an iconic group with respect to morphological evolution in
ants, but with ecology that was previously obscured by their obligate
arboreal lifestyle. |
