Séminaire : Nikolai Tatarnic et Luc Holman

 

Nikolai Tatarnic / Luc Holman

     donneront 1 conférence intitulée:

Sex in sympatry: possible inter-species gender mimicry in two Tahitian bugs

Résumé :

Competition for resources and reproductive interference often preclude closely related species from living together. In Tahiti, two sister species of plant bugs live together on the same host plants, which is remarkable because they appear to have trouble telling each other apart, and often attempt to mate with individuals belonging to the other species. Such cross-specific mating is particularly worrisome because males of these species use hypodermic genitalia to inseminate females through their body wall.
Through a grant from the National Geographic Society, Drs Nikolai Tatarnic, Luke Holman and Jean-Yves Meyer are trying to find out how these species manage to survive in sympatry. First, Nik will discuss how we are using behavioural experiments to test whether this species pair represents a unique case of inter-species sexual mimicry, in which females mimic males to avoid costly sexual harassment from both conspecific and allospecific males. Luke will then talk about how we are investigating the chemical communication system of these species, and also summarise some of his work on the queen pheromones of ants, bees and wasps.

Pour en savoir plus :

Originally from Canada, Nik Tatarnic completed his PhD at the University of Sydney, Australia, in 2008. Following post-doctoral positions at UNSW and Macquarie University, he began his job as Curator of Entomology at the Western Australian Museum. Nik studies the ecology and evolution of insects, with particular interest in the role of sexual selection in driving male and female morphology and behaviour, and how this translates into evolution across species.

https://sites.google.com/site/niktatarnic/

Luke Holman completed his PhD on insect sperm competition at the University of Sheffield in 2007. After that, he worked on chemical communication in social insects at the University of Copenhagen. He is currently based at Australian National University in Canberra, where he uses theoretical models and experiments to study the evolution of sex, communication, genomic imprinting and various other things.

For further information, please visit his website: https://sites.google.com/site/lukeholman/home.