SEMINARI: The ecology and evolution of feeding innovations

Louis Lefebvre, Professor at McGill University , impartirá un seminario el próximo 20 de marzo sobre la ecología y la evolución de la búsqueda de alimento. 

DÍA: 20 de març

HORA: 15:00

LUGAR: Sala de Graus II

TÍTULO:

The ecology and evolution of feeding innovations

AUTOR:

Louis Lefebvre, Professor at McGill University (Quebec, Canada)

RESUMEN

Feeding innovations are a quantitative index of opportunism, behavioural flexibility and general intelligence now available for close to 900 species of birds. I will present comparative analyses showing that ecological generalism (estimated with a new method) is an important co-variate of innovation rate. I will also present results of fieldwork, experiments in captivity, and molecular neurobiology on species of finches in Barbados that differ sharply in their opportunism and problem-solving, presenting candidate neurotransmitters that might be involved in evolutionary divergence of flexible versus conservative species.