Tuesday Colloquium11/05/19
The Ecological Consequences of Sending and Receiving Signals
Biology
University of Arizona, Tucson
Born in 1984 in Chicago, IL, USA
Studied Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with their environments, including other organisms. Evolution is the process by which a population of organisms changes across generations. Ecology can influence evolution because organisms will adapt to their environments. It was long assumed that evolution took place too slowly to have measurable effects on ecology. But this is not so - natural selection can produce large changes in just a few generations. Reciprocal effects between ecology and evolution are instead a more accurate way of depicting life. We must understand this dynamical feedback to accurately make predictions about ecosystems.
I study the evolution of deceptive mimicry - in other words, when organisms evolve to tell lies by "pretending" to be another kind of organism (which we call the "model"). They often do this to escape from their predators by mimicking prey that have defenses like venom or poison. Mimicry has yielded many insights into the process of evolution, yet it also has obvious potential to impact ecology. Because mimics are often good to eat, by resembling defended organisms they may not just gain protection for themselves - they may also increase attacks on their models! My project is to understand how the evolution of mimicry will affect the populations of both the mimic and its model. Possible outcomes include a population-level benefit to the mimic at the expense of the model, no effect on either population if their numbers are not limited by predators, or the collapse of the mimicry system through the extinction of the model.
Kikuchi, David W. (
Chicago, Ill. :,
2015)
Cost of learning and the evolution of mimetic signals
Kikuchi, David W. (
Chicago, Ill.,
2013)
Imperfect mimicry and the limits of natural selection
Tuesday Colloquium11/05/19
The Ecological Consequences of Sending and Receiving Signals