Rosalind Murray's Seminar

You are invited to Dr. Rosalind Murray's Seminar on “Sex differences in insects: behaviour, morphology and life history traits in an ecological context"

When: August 18, 2020

Time: 1pm

Zoom link - check out poster

Brief Biography: I am an evolutionary ecologist interested in what drives sex differences in insects. After an undergraduate degree at Queen’s University, I completed an MSc at the University of Toronto (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology). I then went on to pursue my PhD at the University of Stirling in Scotland (Biological and Environmental Sciences). I came to the University of Toronto in 2016 for a post-doctoral fellowship with Shannon McCauley (Biology Dept. UTM) and Locke Rowe (Dept. EEB, St George). I am currently an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto (EEB) working with Locke Rowe.

Abstract:

Sexual dimorphism, including sex differences in morphology, behaviour and physiology, is widespread across all of biology. Some of the most charismatic examples of sexual dimorphism include sexually selected ornamental traits. However, many sexually dimorphic traits arise from complex life history strategies, in which the two sexes differ drastically. These strategies often evolve in response to ecological conditions including the quality and availability of food, access to mates, and abiotic environmental stressors. In my talk I will describe various lines of research in which I explore how complex ecological conditions can drive the evolution of sexual dimorphism in insects. I will present my recent work on the evolution of sex-biased resource investment within and between insect species, including female ornamentation, sexual size dimorphism and sex-biased immune expression.