Dr. Susan Balenger from the Department of Biology at the University of Mississippi will present: "The Silence of the Crickets".

Charles Darwin was convinced that biological evolution only occurred over long geologic timespans. More recently, though, researchers have been watching and documenting evolutionary changes happening over human timescales. Dr. Balenger studies one particularly dramatic example of rapid evolution amongst wild populations of field crickets on the islands of Hawaii: following the introduction of a parasitic fly, local male crickets lost their ability to chirp. Unfortunately for these males, chirping is how they attract mates. And all of this happened in less than 5 years – the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Dr. Balenger will discuss h o w and why interactions between these species could produce silent crickets, the ways that cricket mating behaviors have subsequently changed, and what it is like to watch evolution in action.

Cost: Free!

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