Andrade

Canadian zoologist Maydianne Andrade knows a thing or two about courtshiprituals, and in the case of the Australian redback spider (a “cousin” of the North American black widow), has studied a very interesting form of reproduction that is efficient, effective and strategic. The male of the species is cannibalized during the mating process, which, it seems, increases the male spider’s chances of perpetuating his genes through a more bountiful crop of offspring.

The fifth annual James P. Holland Memorial Lecture is Monday, Oct. 11, in Whittenberger Auditorium of the Indiana Memorial Union on the Bloomington campus.

Andrade, assistant professor at the University of Toronto (Canada) at Scarborough, will discuss her research on the cannibalistic mating habits of the redback in a lecture titled “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Evolution of Self-Sacrificial Male Mating Strategies.” A reception will follow the lecture in the Georgian Room of the IMU.

Andrade received an Outstanding New Investigator designation in 2003 from the Animal Behavior Society and was given the Pitelka Award for Research Excellence by the International Society of Behavioral Ecologists. She also received a Premier’s Research Excellence Award, holds a University Faculty Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and is a research associate at the Royal Ontario Museum’s Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology

The Holland Lecture Series honors the memory of the gifted and skilled scientist who served as a professor at the IUB Department of Biology for more than three decades and worked throughout his career to address the needs of minority students.