Evolutionary Biologist Marlene Zuk to Deliver Sinauer/Oxford Lecture

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Marlene Zuk
Marlene Zuk

Evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk, a professor in the University of Minnesota’s department of ecology, evolution and behavior, will present the Sinauer Associates/Oxford University Press Distinguished Scientist Lecture “Rapid evolution in silence: adaptive signal loss in the Pacific field cricket,” at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 13 in 222 Morrill Science Center II.

The program is free and open to the public.

Her seminar will focus on evolution and acoustic communication in Hawaiian field crickets.

A major discovery from Zuk’s research group is that in some cricket populations, males seeking mates have evolved to be silent rather than to chirp. This radical evolutionary novelty is tied to a wing mutation called “flatwing” which impedes the standard mechanism crickets use to generate sound. While silent males should have a harder time attracting mates, the mutation is likely favored by how it helps males avoid detection by a deadly parasitoid fly. The seminar will synthesize research about the cricket system from ecological, genetic and evolutionary perspectives.

Zuk’s research interests include sexual selection and mate choice, animal communication, effects of parasites on host ecology, evolution and behavior, and conflicts between natural selection and sexual selection.