Lab meeting: 21 April 2010 at 10:15am, Darwin room

Good morning everybody,

We will have a lab meeting this week. Two things are on the agenda:
1) Fabrice has been invited to give a seminar in Linköping and would like to get your feedback on his presentation. He will speak about

Joint effects of migration modification and assortative mating in the early stages of ecological speciation

Fabrice Eroukhmanoff, Anders Hargeby & Erik I. Svensson

ABSTRACT: The question of how diverging populations might become separate species by restraining gene flow is a central issue in evolutionary biology. Assortative mating might emerge early during divergence, but migration modification can also play an important role in speciation. We demonstrate that two recently diverged ecotypes of a freshwater isopod have rapidly developed pre-mating isolation. This is consistent with ecological speciation theory, which predicts that sexual isolation arises as a byproduct of ecological divergence. However, migration modification acts as the main barrier to gene flow, although the joint emergence of these two isolating mechanisms has facilitated adaptive divergence. These results underscore that migration modification might be as important as assortative mating in the early stages of ecological speciation.

2) Tina would like to get your input on some 'work in progress'. Please email me under Maren.wellenreuther@zooekol.lu.se to get the attachments - if you have not received them already.

Any fika volunteers for this week? See you all on Wednesday, Maren