Short notice - talk on in half an hour!

Public Seminar – Entomology Lecture Theatre Room, Level 2, Bldg 101 Clunies Ross Street, Black Mountain.


Thursday 22nd July 3.00 pm

Speaker: Dr Jean-Baptiste Pichancourt, CSIRO Entomology (based in Brisbane)

Title: ‘Jack-and-Master’ species: when adaptive phenotypic plasticity maximizes geographic ranges and their transformations.

Abstract: Theories suggest that phenotypic plasticity may play an important role in invasiveness and in shaping species distributions and their transformations at large scales.

Here we confirm expectations on the invasive plant Parkinsonia aculeata, using a long-term, continental-scale field study across various climatic and habitat gradients.

Furthermore, we show that the trait of phenotypic plasticity is itself under natural selection thereby providing further flexibility in range expansions or shifts.