Dr. George Lozano (Estonian Centre for Evolutionary Ecology) will be delivering a talk entitled “Immunoecology of ruffs, Philomachus pugnax, and related issues”.

Hosted by the Forbes Lab.

Friday September 12, 2014
1:00 p.m.
CTTC 4440Q
Coffee and tea available at 12:30 p.m.

Resources, time and energy can be allocated towards growth, reproduction, and
self-maintenance. Investment in immune function is essentially a choice of
self-maintenance over growth and reproduction, and as such, it ought to vary
predictably with the organism’s ecology and life history. Most species have only 2
main life history strategies, male and female, but some species have one or more
alternative morphs, usually male, that have unique morphological, ecological,
developmental, behavioural, life-history, and physiological profiles that shift the
balance between self-maintenance and other requirements.The ruff
(Philomachus pugnax), is unique among birds, in that there are 3 types of males;
independents, satelittes and female mimics (faeders). In this talk, I shall mostly
describe a series of immunoecological studies using the ruff as a model system.