Exit Seminar
Graduating PhDs present the culmination of their doctoral research
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Microbes cause numerous life-threatening human diseases and drive significant agricultural yield losses worldwide. Although we have developed antimicrobial drugs and bred disease-resistant crop lineages, microbial populations can rapidly evolve to overcome these barriers, rendering treatments ineffective and leaving previously resistant crops vulnerable once more. Unraveling these evolutionary dynamics proves critical to mitigating the threats posed by pathogenic microbes. In his thesis, Agarwal investigated key mechanisms of microbial evolution and host-pathogen specificity. Altogether, this research advances our understanding of pathogen evolution by characterizing how microbes diverge to infect different hosts, identifying genes that contribute to virulence evolution and evaluating the contribution of […]
More information: https://eeb.utoronto.ca/event/investigations-into-the-mechanisms-of-novel-disease-emergence-through-adaptations-in-critical-pathogen-virulence-genes-viplav-agarwal-exit-seminar/
Access event online: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC38VxtMZaIMKzhRNGg62ZnA/live
Most plants lose a large fraction of captured carbon dioxide (CO2) to photorespiration, particularly in hot, dry conditions. C2 photosynthesis recaptures photorespired CO2 by directingits release into specialized, gas-tight leaf cells (the bundle sheath), where released CO2 can then be recycled. Ancestral plants likely possessed a nascent form of this system: glycine moves tothe bundle sheath, albeit at low rates, and the bundle sheath contained the enzymes needed to process it. In Leung’s PhD thesis, he asked whether C2 photosynthesis is assembled by amplifying this nascent physiology, whether stress can induce it, and whether it can be switched off. First, a […]
More information: https://eeb.utoronto.ca/event/nascent-physiologies-in-the-evolutionary-assembly-of-c2-photosynthesis-arthur-leung-exit-seminar/
Access event online: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC38VxtMZaIMKzhRNGg62ZnA/live
Plant reproduction is foundational to plant ecology and evolution. A central component of reproduction is mate selection, the process by which plants choose among potential mates. Ferne Kotlyar’s thesis explores the mechanisms of plant-mate selection in the hummingbird-pollinated plant Heliconia tortuosa. The thesisuses a combination of experimental and observational field studies to unveil a multitude of mechanisms that H. tortuosa employs to interact with its pollinators and distinguish among potential mates. Overall, Kotlyar’s research helps complete the picture of pollination in Heliconia tortuosa, a remarkably complex system that has sparked curiosity for generations. This system serves as a microcosm of complexity […]
More information: https://eeb.utoronto.ca/event/mechanisms-of-mate-selection-in-a-hummingbird-pollinated-plant-ferne-kotlyar-exit-seminar/