Workshop

Workshop on Ecology and Evolution of Plant Reproduction

 

The main goal of the workshop is to address a general lack of expertise in many approaches central to future progress in plant evolutionary biology, by teaching techniques for problem solving and new skill sets used in innovative research in evolutionary ecology, genomics and applied ecology and evolution.

Five distinguished faculty with diverse backgrounds in plant ecology and evolutionary biology will teach the workshop:

Professor John R. Pannell (University of Lausanne)

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=gg_nW5gAAAAJ&hl=en

Professor Lawrence D. Harder (University of Calgary)

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=8PWpj6cAAAAJ&hl=en

Professor Marcelo A. Aizen (CONICET & University Nacional del Comahue)

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=PlIGRS0AAAAJ&hl=en

Professor Spencer C.H. Barrett (University of Toronto)

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=nKFMS08AAAAJ&hl=en

Professor Stephen I. Wright (University of Toronto)

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=F0y5eqgAAAAJ&hl=en

 

Please see below a short description of the workshop

 

The four-day workshop will occur between April 26 to 30, 2017. In the first day, trainees will have the opportunity to experience natural history walks in which instructors will identify interesting problems and trainees will be encouraged to make observations of plant diversity and look for promising study systems. During the workshop, trainees will be put into groups and begin the process of formulating questions that will form the basis of small projects to be developed in the following days.

For the next four days, roughly the same schedule will be followed. After breakfast, trainees will go into the field in groups and begin to focus on a specific project. Mornings will be devoted to this activity when the weather is likely to be best for studies of plant-animal interactions, flowering phenology and field work in general. Instructors will circulate among groups and provide advice where it is needed.

 

During the afternoons, the international speakers will lead sessions concerning their respective field of expertise. Please see below the proposed sessions:

Lawrence Harder will lead a 3hr session on “Pollen dispersal and floral evolution” which will demonstrate why consideration of male function in plants is critically important for understanding the evolution of floral design and display.

John Pannell will lead a 3hr session on “Evolution of sex allocation and sexual systems”. Topics will include how to measure and interpret fitness gains curves, models for the evolution of combined versus separate sexes, and evolution in metapopulations

Marcelo Aizen will lead a 3-hr session on “Pollination services and the conservation of plant pollinator interactions”. Topics will include how to study pollination networks, pollen limitation of plant reproductive success, and applied pollination biology and the impact of invasive bees on agriculture.

Stephen Wright will lead a 3hr session on “Molecular population genetics and genomics”. Topics will include the uses and abuses of genomic data, coalescence models and demographic inference, inferring selection from genomic data, and the genetic architecture of adaptive traits

 

In the first night session, Spencer Barrett will give a lecture on “Why mating systems matter in evolutionary biology” which will cover the ecological, genetic and demographic consequences of plant mating, how mating systems are measured and why they have been such a focus of research since Darwin’s seminal contributions

The following daily evening sessions will be devoted to trainee groups doing presentations on progress on their projects with discussion input from faculty and students.