Alex Smith, University of Guelph
Associate Professor
Guelph, Ontario
salex@uoguelph.ca
Office:
(519) 824-4120 ext. 52007
Expert In
Bio/Research
Work in Dr. Smith's program has already allowed a more accurate direct understanding of patterns of host-specialization amongst several families of parasitoid insects. Smith's program is now in a position to examine co-evolutionary relationships amongst the hosts, the parasitoids, their own paras...
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Bio/Research
Work in Dr. Smith's program has already allowed a more accurate direct understanding of patterns of host-specialization amongst several families of parasitoid insects. Smith's program is now in a position to examine co-evolutionary relationships amongst the hosts, the parasitoids, their own parasites (hyperparasitoids - Taeniogonalos sp.) and bacterial symbionts (Wolbachia). The program discovered several cases where parasitoids expected to be host generalists were, in fact, morphologically cryptic specialists. The inverse of this discovery is a unique capability to more precisely examine the causes and consequences of those remaining truly generalist parasitoids - prior work on these taxa and in this tropical area regarding host-generalist parasitoids dealt with a bad data due to the inclusion of morphologically cryptic specialists! Smith has conducted highly collaborative work with Dan Janzen, Winnie Hallwachs (collections and ecology), Monty Wood, Norm Woodley, Jim Whitfield, Josephine Rodriguez, Michael Sharkey, David Smith and Andy Dean (taxonomy, ecology and phylogeny).
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