Afternoon sessions

Evolutionary Ecology of butterflies – a symposium honoring the work of Christer Wiklund

Organized by

Karl Gotthard and Klaus Fischer

Christer Wiklund retired from his professorship at Stockholm University in 2011 and although he is still working full time as Professor emeritus we think it is timely to devote a symposium at the ICBB to highlight his contribution to the biology of butterflies in general, and the evolutionary ecology of butterflies in particular. During his long and productive career he has made seminal contributions to central questions within butterfly biology, such as insect-host relationship, sexual selection, life history biology, behavior as well as the evolution of aposematic coloration and eyespots. This research has almost invariably been empirical and experimental using a wide range of butterfly systems with a strong focus on testing general theory. In addition Christer Wiklund has been very successful as Ph.D supervisor and many of his students have subsequently had successful academic careers. He is also one among the few people that have attended all ICBB meetings since the first one in 1981 in London!

We propose to arrange symposium where we will invite researchers that have inspired, and that have been inspired by Christer Wiklunds research in evolutionary ecology in various ways. This includes people that he has interacted with without being in direct collaborations, as well as collaborators and former students and post-docs. The idea is to highlight research that in different ways is related to, and inspired of, the scientific achievements of Christer Wiklund, rather than recapitulating the work done by him. Given the wide range of subjects that Christer Wiklund have been studying we believe that this symposium might give an interesting insight into the scientific history of several important fields of butterfly biology as well as disseminating the state-of-art in these fields.


Oral presentations

Only presenting author shown

13:30-14:10 Keynote presentation
Extreme adaptations to social parasitism by Maculinea butterflies and their myrmecophilous parasitoids
Jeremy Thomas

14:10-14:30
Range dynamics, climate change and the pace of life syndrome in a butterfly under niche expansion
Hans Van Dyck

14:30-14:50
Dealing with climate change: limitations to plastic and genetic responses
Klaus Fischer

15:20-15:40
Butterflies tumble down adaptive peak
Michael C. Singer

15:40-16:00
Decoupling of female host plant preference and offspring performance in relative specialist and generalist butterflies
Magne Friberg

16:00-16:20
Genetic benefits may underlie female polyandry even if material benefits are involved
Panu Välimäki

16:20-16:40
What prolongs a butterfly's life? Trade-offs between dormancy, fecundity and body size
Andrea Grill

17:00-17:20
The hunger games: Aging, energetics and life history under stressful conditions
Kristjan Niitepõld

17:20-17:40
Introducing a female-limited polymorphic mimicry system in North American checkerspots
Elizabeth Long

17:40-18:00
Between-generation size differences in butterflies are not caused by environmental effects on larval growth performance
Toomas Esperk