For more details and registration, please email Tatum Chan at chan.tatum@cityu.edu.hk.
Abstract:
The process of domestication has long captured the attention of evolutionary biologists, representing a model of diversification that has generated novel domestic phenotypes on the one hand (e.g. bulldog), and yet produced strikingly similar features among different species on the other hand. In this talk, I discuss several recent projects that have used morphological data to address outstanding research questions in the study of domestication, especially focusing on analytical frameworks that seek to assess morphological diversification in domestic mammals. I focus on the patterning and magnitude of ontogenetic allometry, fluctuating asymmetry (developmental instability) and modularity in domestic mammals, with comparison to their wild counterparts. I also discuss the extent to which morphological data may illuminate the debate on the neural crest hypothesis as an explanation for the ‘domestication syndrome’.
Speaker:
Dr Laura Wilson is a Senior Lecturer and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the Australian National University. She has previously held positions at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), Kyoto University (Japan) and the University of Zurich (Switzerland). Her research interests are centred on how the process of development has shaped morphological evolution on different time scales in mammals. She works in the fields of evolutionary biology and biological anthropology, united through the application of statistical shape analysis and 3D modelling of hard and soft tissues to address questions that relate to adaptation, ecology and function.