Seminar: More Than a Mouth: Integrative Biology of Diet-Dependent Phenotypes

The Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center (AIMRC) will host Dr. Nick Levis, an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at the U of A, at 11:50 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in BELL 2269. Levis studies how environmental conditions influence development and drive evolutionary changes. In this seminar, he will highlight research on diet-dependent plasticity in nematodes and spadefoot toads, revealing how environmental cues shape organisms from genes to whole-animal traits.

Abstract: Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to alter development in response to environmental conditions. In extreme cases, these responses produce alternative phenotypes within a species that differ as dramatically as the phenotypes of separate species. In this seminar, Levis will share his lab's work on two examples of diet-dependent plasticity through the lenses of integration and modularity. In shark-tooth nematodes, he will highlight how genetic and environmental variation can couple—and sometimes decouple—morphology, behavior, performance and other components of the phenotype, and how selection acting on the whole organism can produce different evolutionary outcomes than selection on the mouth alone. Levis will then turn to spadefoot toad tadpoles and describe how comparative and transcriptomic studies reveal reorganization across tissues during the production and evolution of alternative forms. Together, these systems demonstrate that understanding plasticity and development requires connecting environmental cues and molecular mechanisms to organismal phenotypes, fitness and evolution.

Biography: Levis holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of North Carolina, an M.S. in biology from Western Kentucky University and a B.S. in zoology from Miami University. Prior to coming to the U of A, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University. Levis' research examines the ecological, evolutionary and developmental (eco-evo-devo) causes and consequences of environmentally induced phenotypes. Using shark-tooth nematodes and spadefoot toad tadpoles as model organisms, the Levis Lab employs a variety of tools, ranging from functional genetics to mesocosm communities, to understand if, when and how environmentally contingent development affects diversity and adaptation within and between generations.

This event is supported by NIGMS of the National Institutes of Health under award number 2P20GM139768. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Pizza and beverages will be served. Please contact Kimberley Fuller, fullerk@uark.edu, for more information.

For those unable to attend in person, this seminar will also be available via Zoom.