Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Experimental Ecology and Evolution in the Laboratory

Amitabh Joshi

JNCASR, Bangalore

It is often believed the ecological and evolutionary timescales are very different and that it is difficult to study ecological and evolutionary processes together in a rigorous and controlled manner. However, as the experience of the last few decades shows, experimental ecology and evolution studies in laboratory settings provide us with the ability to rigorously examine such phenomena and test hypotheses about evolutionary and ecological mechanisms, and their interactions, in a manner that is not possible in the wild. In this talk, I will discuss a few examples from work in my laboratory over the past twenty years to illustrate the power of this approach, and underscore the point that the evolutionary process is far more subtle and responsive to minor changes in ecology than is often thought to be the case.