The Department of Biology is excited to invite you to a seminar entitled "Study of pollinator syndrome switches through evolution experiment with Mimulus" by Dr. Foen Peng (彭佛恩), Assistant Professor of Biology at Haverford College on Monday, October 12th at 3pm in BL234. We kindly ask you to make every effort to attend.

Host: Dr. Rachel Spigler

More information about the speaker here: https://www.haverford.edu/users/fpeng

Abstract: Flowering plants attracting different pollinators, e.g. birds vs. bees, often have different suites of floral traits, so called pollinator syndrome. Switches between pollinator syndromes are presumably difficult as they require concerted polygenic adaptation, but these switches are frequently documented in nature. To understand how this process could occur, my lab experimentally evolved a hybrid Mimulus population with abundant floral variation towards a new pollinator which they have never been exposed to. In the early generations of this experiment, we have witnessed rapid phenotypic and genomic changes.