ID: 613 / 133

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: FLORAL POLYMORPHISMS AS A RESEARCH TARGET FOR NATURAL SELECTION

Abstract: Phenotypic variation within populations is a basic requirement for natural selection, and provides the machinery for evolution to occur. The selection and maintenance of floral polymorphisms in plant populations, including discrete variation in colour, shape, phenology, sex expression, self-compatibility or the setting of sex organs, among others, may depend on relative morph fitness, mating patterns and the genetic architecture underlying these polymorphisms. Hence, floral polymorphisms provide plant biologists a unique opportunity to integrate the ecology and mechanics of natural selection to plant genomics. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning the evolution of floral polymorphisms will help us to understand the rise of plant diversity as well as its conservation. This symposium will facilitate communication among botanists and evolutionary biologists interested in the topic of floral and plant polymorphisms, a large and highly active community (11800 articles published since 2012). We aim to attract interdisciplinary researchers from different areas and with different interests, to discuss how plant and floral polymorphisms are maintained in natural populations. Evolution will be the core concept linking the symposium, providing a global view from and for all participants.

Speaker 1: Tanja Slotte (tanja.slotte@su.se) Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences (DEEP). Stockholm University. 106 91 Stockholm. Sweden. Tentative talk title: Distyly as a model for studying convergent evolution - insights from genomic studies

Speaker 2: John Pannell (john.pannell@unil.ch) Department of Ecology and Evolution. Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne. Rue du Bugnon 21 - CH-1011 Lausanne. Switzerland. Tentative talk title: Responses to natural selection on a gender polymorphism under field and experimental conditions

Speaker 3: Monserrat Arista (marista@us.es) Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología. Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla. Avda. Reina Mercedes sn. 41012. Sevilla. Spain. Tentative talk title: Flower colour polymorphism and plant speciation

Topics (Up to three): Reproductive Biology

Topic 2: Population Genetics

Topic 3: Plant, Animal, and Microbe Interactions

Justification: This symposium will focus on works interested in how plant variability and floral polymorphisms are the target for natural selection. This topic at the end represents a transversal topic including different and complementary areas of research which allow us to perform more ambitious and richer approximations in plant study. The topics related to this symposium would be: Comparative Genomics / Transcriptomics, Conservation Biology, Crops and Wild Relatives, Ecology and Plant Communities, Hybrids and Hybridization, Plant, Animal, and Microbe Interactions, Population Genetics and Reproductive Biology.