Abstract

Many of the interesting questions in organismal biology, especially those involving the functional and adaptive significance of organismal characteristics, transcend levels of biological organization. Advances within subdisciplines of biology have led both to the opportunity and to the necessity to reintegrate knowledge into a new understanding of whole organisms. Snails in the genus Lacuna display phenotypic plasticity in tooth morphology when consuming different types of food, and the tooth shapes they produce are the mechanically best shapes for each food type. Several years of research have provided a lot of information on the biology of Lacuna as well as aspects of the plasticity, including important time lags that can limit the adaptive value of phenotypically plastic traits. The speaker will use this case study to illustrate ways in which questions about the evolution and ecology of organismal function intrinsically span all organizational levels. In this case, quantitative approaches that integrate across mechanisms and scales suggest new hypotheses about organismal function, and provide new tools to test those hypotheses. Integrative quantitative models also provide roadmaps for the large-scale collaborations among diverse disciplinary specialists that are needed to gain deeper insights into organismal function.

About the speaker

Prof Dianna K. Padilla received her PhD in Zoology from University of Alberta in 1987. She did postdoctoral research at Cornell University in 1987 to 1989 and then joined University of Wisconsin–Madison as Associate Professor. In 1997, she moved to Stony Brook University as Associate Professor and is currently Professor of Ecology and Evolution.

Prof Padilla’s major interests are (1) phenotypic plasticity, its relationship to morphology, and its significance in evolution; (2) plant herbivore functional ecology, especially the evolution of structural defenses of plants and the role of mode of feeding and morphological adaptations of herbivores, and (3) the patterns of spread and impacts of invading species in aquatic ecosystems. Her current research focuses on phenotypic plasticity of the marine snail family Littorinidae and ranges from determining the evolution of form and function of the radular feeding apparatus to studies of the phenotypic variation and function of littorinid radulae when snails are subjected to different foods or environments.

The lecture is free and open to all. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study
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