Mutualisms are species interactions that are mutually beneficial, including cleaning mutualisms, seed dispersal, and pollination among many others. In nature, most mutualistic interactions are generalized, with any given species interacting with many other partner species. The interactions between pairs of species scale up to form networks, which have a characteristic set of structural properties that are widely consistent across different species, interaction types, and ecosystems.

Our ability to study brain and behavior has long proceeded in lock-step with advances in technology. At the same time, understanding of neurobiological principles has continuously driven technological innovations, including serving as the inspiration for most of the major advances in artificial intelligence. Even so, engineered systems still struggle to achieve flexible behaviors that require interaction with the physics of the world. All animals excel at such sensorimotor behaviors within their natural contexts.

Join us for our final event in the Autumn 2022 Bio Grad Seminar Series! This December, Hayden Davis (Leaché Lab), Kavya Pradhan (Hille Ris Lambers Lab), and Jack Litle (Carrington Lab) will be presenting their research reports. Hosted by Andy Hempton.

Join us for our Autumn 2022 Bio Grad Seminar Series! This November, Erik Johansson (Abrahms Lab), Fiona Boardman (Ruesink Lab), and Christine Nolan (Imaizumi Lab) will be presenting their research reports. Hosted by Robin Fales.

Join us for our Autumn 2022 Bio Grad Seminar Series! This October, Robin Fales (Carrington Lab), Fiona Boardman (Ruesink Lab), and Alex Lowe (Strömberg Lab) will be presenting their research reports.

Crickets use sound to find mates. The louder their sound is the further it reaches. The textbooks say that they increase their acoustic space using just morphology and mechanics. Song producing wings and females ears resonate at the same frequency enhancing the size of their acoustic space. But some crickets didn’t read the textbook. In this talk, I will present some research on the Oecanthines, beautiful insects called tree crickets. Males tree crickets use a behavioural strategy to make themselves louder. They manufacture a baffle, a tool that makes them louder.

In this talk, Dr. Canning will discuss her recent research on cultivating growth mindset cultures in the classroom—the idea that anyone can develop their abilities over time with good strategies, hard work, and seeking help. Three empirical studies suggest that growth mindset messages from instructors inspire motivation and promote performance for people excluded due to their ethnicity/race, women in STEM, and first-generation college students.