Virtual Lunch With Friends and Strangers: Karin Pfennig

Friday, Nov. 13 | 12:00 p.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Wherever You Are
Price:  Complimentary

Sign up today.

Click in with Carolina Public Humanities for this series, Lunch With Friends and Strangers: Conversations With UNC’s Faculty. This virtual lunch talk features a discussion of Joseph Leidy, the first person to ever use a microscope to solve a murder mystery, during a conversation with Karin Pfennig.

Karin Pfennig, Biology

The overarching goal of Karen’s research is to understand how behavior facilitates population and evolutionary diversification. Because mate choice is a potent selective force that can be critical in the formation of novel phenotypes and new species, she focuses on the evolution of mating behavior and its role in ecological and evolutionary processes.

In particular, she seeks to understand why individuals choose the mates they do and evaluate how individual mate choice decisions promote trait divergence within and between species. In addressing these issues, she examines the selective dynamics affecting the evolution of mating behaviors in hybrid zones and the role mating behavior plays in the speciation process.