[Mitarbeiter.zoologie] Reminder: Zoology seminar this Thursday

[Michael Gerth]

Dear all,

this is a reminder for our seminar by Wolfgang Miller in Hoher Weg 8 
(see below). In case you'd rather join online, we will set the talk up 
here: 
https://uni-halle.webex.com/uni-halle-en/j.php?MTID=mce24395b63aed062a09a29bab161170b

Looking forward to seeing many of you!

Best,
Michael




On 07/05/2024 08:53, Michael Gerth wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> it is my pleasure to invite you to a spontaneous zoology seminar next 
> week. Our speaker is Wolfgang Miller from the Medical University of 
> Vienna, and he will talk about
> 
> "Sex & Germs & Speciation: The Wonderful World of Neotropical Wolbachia".
> 
> The talk will be held next Thursday, *May 16, 4pm at Hoher Weg 8, 
> Seminar Room 2.07*. All interested are very welcome - please feel free 
> to share this invite with your groups. Wolfgang's talk will be followed 
> by drinks & dinner at a location tba.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Michael
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Talk abstract
> 
> 
> Sex & Germs & Speciation: The Wonderful World of Neotropical Wolbachia
> 
> Selfish genetic elements (SGEs) like transposons, viruses, bacteria, 
> archaea and protists are universal life entities with the capacity to 
> replicate faster than the host and to coevolve tightly by fluctuating 
> waves of conflict and cooperation. In the light of the Holobiome 
> concept, the phenotype of an organism is formed not only by its nuclear 
> and organelle genomic compounds but also by the genomic entities of its 
> cohabitating SGE symbionts. Thereby, SGEs are now considered as 
> important factors to drive along the genetic diversity and speciation of 
> their hosts, even within short evolutionary periods of time. As shown by 
> the latitudinal diversity gradient, tropical organisms have a much 
> higher diversification and speciation rate than temperate ones, and 
> thereby are ideal systems for studying the tempo and mode of SGE-driven 
> host speciation under experimental conditions.
> Drosophila paulistorum spp. is a neotropical species complex that became 
> famous since the 1960s by Dobzhansky and Ehrman as a reference model 
> system to study the causes and consequences of incipient speciation in 
> nature, but also under lab-controlled conditions. We show that the 
> maternally-transmitted endosymbiotic Wolbachia bacteria are fixed 
> mutualistic entity of all D. paulistorum flies, which are restricted to 
> defined functional host tissues by autophagy, and importantly, direct 
> sexual mating behavior of both sexes and hence drive reproductive 
> isolation between closely related neotropical fly species.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Michael Gerth
Head of Junior Research Group "Symbiont Evolution"
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research
(iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Junior Professor for Evolution and Biodiversity
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg

Office: Puschstraße 4, 04103 Leipzig, B.01.23
Phone: +49 341 9739145
Web: https://www.idiv.de/en/symbiont-evolution.html
Twitter: @gerth_micha