Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 4:15 p.m.

McCreary Room 115, Bowen Auditorium

Refreshments begin at 4:00 p.m.

 CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON

Visiting Assistant Professor, Oberlin College

 Agonistic character displacement in rubyspot damselflies

Aggression between species is common but its ecological and evolutionary effects have historically been understudied compared to most other interspecific interactions. Fighting between species is a maladaptive trait in species that hold non-resource based mating territories, like damselflies in the genus Hetaerina (aka “Rubyspots”). Here, I describe an investigation into multiple species pairs in Hetaerina and demonstrate alternative solutions to avoid this maladaptive behavior.