ecology

Using Insect Systems to Study How Organisms Interact with Beneficial and Harmful Microbes

Microbial communities within animals greatly influence their hosts' ecology and evolution. These diverse microbial associates consist of commensals, pathogens and mutualists. In such systems, hosts would benefit substantially if they could selectively recognize and accept beneficial microbes while still being able to avoid or attenuate infection by microbial pathogens.

Spatial autocorrelation is a pervasive and biologically important component of ecological communities. Ecologists have typically viewed spatial autocorrelation as a nuisance, but in this talk I will outline two quantitative frameworks that harness the spatial signature of communities to infer which ecological processes are driving community assembly. These frameworks are unified by the concept of the community variogram which provides a useful tool for both describing community pattern and developing null hypotheses related to species associations.

Fall 2010 Environment and Ecology Seminar Series, sponsored by the Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology and the Institute for the Environment. These weekly seminars bring distinguished local and national speakers to UNC to present cutting edge research from across the Ecological Sciences. Seminars will be held on Thursdays at 4:00pm in Wilson Hall, Room 128. Light refreshments will be served prior to the seminar, and please join us afterwards for happy hour at Top of the Hill. http://www.cee.unc.edu/seminars.cfm