Graduate Speaker Series – Zachary Drum

Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/02/2020
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm


Description

Presented by Zachary Drum, PhD student in Biology

Title: The forbidden fruit: How Drosophila sechellia came to love Morinda citrifolia
Abstract: The fruit fly Drosophila sechellia is found only on the Seychelles islands off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, and unlike closely related Drosophila species has specialized to feed on a single host plant called Morinda citrifolia, also known as noni. Ripe noni fruit contains the fatty acid volatiles octanoic acid and hexanoic acid, which are poisonous to other Drosophila species. Previous work has found that several genes in the mysterious Osiris gene family are involved in the resistance of D. sechellia to its toxic host, but how these genes are involved in resistance to these fatty acids is unclear. The Coolon lab uses genetic and genomic tools to better understand this ecological interaction as it serves as a model for how insect crop pests evolve resistance to pesticides and may provide insight on how to combat this economically important problem.

 

Zoom Link included in poster.

Poster