Seminar series
Second Semester 2011 (August to December)
Seminars will be held in the Department of Zoology, Seminar Room (Room 350, Biological Sciences 1, 3rd Floor) on Wednesdays from 12.05-1.00 pm unless otherwise stated.
Feel free to bring along your lunch for the lunchtime seminars. Light snacks and beverages will be provided after the afternoon seminars.
Enquiries: Dr Sarah Avitabile, Seminar Coordinator (sarah.avitabile@latrobe.edu.au)
Seminars
- Does teosinte, the ancestor of maize, benefit from recruiting parasitoid wasps?
Elvira de Lange, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
25 January 2012
Abstract: Parasitoid wasps that use insect herbivores as hosts for their offspring find these hosts with the use of volatiles emitted by plants under herbivore attack. It has therefore been proposed that the volatile emissions are part of an indirect plant defense strategy to recruit parasitoids and other natural enemies of the attackers. The first part of my talk will focus on plant-herbivore-natural enemy interactions in general. In the second part, I will address a field study performed to test whether or not teosinte, the ancestor of maize, benefits from recruiting parasitoid wasps.
Biography: Elvira obtained her masters from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where she specialized in phytopathology and chemical ecology. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Turlings.