Additional Calendars
Calendar Views
All
Athletics
Conferences and Meetings
Law School
Special Events

Biology Department Seminar, Nick Dorian, "Do bees hedge their bets?"

When: Friday, November 12, 2021
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Where: > See description for location
Description: Location: LARTS 108
Abstract: Many organisms, from copepods to plants to bees, hedge their bets through prolonged dormancy, spreading offspring emergence across multiple years instead of just one. At first, though, its puzzling why prolonged dormancy is so widespread since the short-term costs of foregoing reproduction can be high. Only in sufficiently variable environments are the benefits of reduced variance in fitness outweighed by costs of lower short-term reproduction. These predictions arise from a vast body of bet-hedging theory, but only a few examples from desert annual plants demonstrate the adaptive value of prolonged dormancy in the real world. In this talk, I examine whether solitary bees (important pollinators in ecological and agricultural systems) also hedge their bets via prolonged dormancy. I use a combination of field data, mathematical simulations, and lab experiments to understand the adaptive value of prolonged dormancy in wild bees and the environmental factors that give rise to dormant offspring. My work gives us a glimpse into how a group of declining insect pollinators will fare under future environmental conditions and helps to resolve the extent to which ecological theory reflects the real world.
Contact: Biology Seminar Series 508.999.8248
Topical Areas: Faculty, Students, Graduate, Students, Undergraduate, Biology