Dr. Anurag Agrawal – April 2025

7:00 pm, Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Online via Zoom, Free and open to the public
Registration required. Click here to register for the Zoom webinar.

Convergence and Divergence in the Diversity of Insects Feeding on a Toxic Plant

Dr. Agrawal will propose a framework in organismal biology for studying organismal strategies (or syndromes of traits) associated with specialization on a toxic resource. Using milkweed as a focal plant, fed upon by monarch butterflies, and a taxonomically diverse set of other insect herbivores, he will address how we should we interpret strong phenotypic convergence. Using crispr and comparative biology he will work towards some answers. Perhaps convergence and divergence both contribute to organismal diversity. He will briefly revisit the role of birds as predators on monarchs in this journey.

Anurag Agrawal is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Entomology at Cornell University. He is recognized for his innovative contributions to academic biology, especially through providing conceptual advances and rigorous experimental work the interactions between plants and the insects that eat them. He lives in Ithaca, New York, where he cultivates milkweed, watches monarchs, and studies their ecology.