retreat talk

Adventures of a biologist: one year in IPEM

IPEM facilitated adventures

International conference

I was able to attend the Jacques Monod Conference: Evolutionary Genetics of Host-Parasite Relationships.  While there I presented a poster on my dissertation research.  The focus of my poster was: Does a coevolutionary interaction between a host and parasite lead to selection for increased or decreased migration?

1. Understanding the genetic interactions between hosts and parasites
2. Host and parasite evolution and the maintenance of sexual reproduction
3. The evolutionary genetics of immune defense

• Opportunity to present my thesis research to a community of experts
  • Provided a unique chance for feedback of ways to improve my work
  • Intimate, so there were ample opportunities to interact with a large number of the participants
• Much like the goals of the IPEM where an integrated mode of learning is encouraged, the diverse backgrounds of the other scientists here facilitated my own research
• Network with others to develop potential post-doc mentors

Fieldwork

I traveled to the south island of New Zealand to conduct fieldwork as part of the empirical portion of my dissertation research. I spent about a month traveling across the south island to various freshwater streams and lakes to collect samples of Potamopyrgus antipodarum (snail host) and Microphallus sp..

Why?

• Parasites are implicated as mechanisms of generating biodiversity. Can we find evidence of host diversity driving divergence in a host-specific parasite?

Objective:

• Compare performance of parasites across host clades from sympatric and allopatric host populations to determine the importance of clade-specific tradeoffs.

The working hypothesis is that parasites adapted to a population with a single clade should infect hosts in their source clade in an allopatric population more than they infect other allopatric clades. 
 

Interdisciplinary workshop

I attended the Santa Fe Insitute Complex Systems Summer School (CSSS 2008). More information can be found at: http://www.santafe.edu/education/schools-complex-systems-summer-schools.php

Summer School lasted 4 weeks

• 5 days (Mon-Fri) of scheduled lectures
  • Usually 4-5 lectures per day with breaks or meal in between
• Most weeks had a theme
  • Modeling/nonlinear dynamics
  • Ecology/Evolution/Molecular Biology/Disordered Systems 
  • Finance/Economics/AI 
• Spent 1 day a week was at SFI headquarters
• Evenings were filled with spontaneous lectures from classmates or group discussions

Group Project is major component (and required)

• Chance to explore risky and diverse areas of research
• Learn new skills and take advantage of new sources of data
• Participants worked on more than one
• Ability to approach questions with a top down agenda

CSSS Wiki: http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/CSSS_2008_Santa_Fe