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COMM Colloquium: "Can Plants Speak? Investigations into Plant Communication" with Dr. Andy McCall
by
Thu, Sep 24, 2026
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM EDT (GMT-4)
Registration
Details
In this presentation, I’ll detail how plants behave and then focus on the specifics of plant communication. You will learn many ways I think plants communicate information with each other and with other organisms. I’ll end with my own work on these topics and consider what these findings mean for our own relationships with our green neighbors on Earth.
Food Provided (Small snacks will be available.)
Speakers
Dr. Andy McCall
Professor
Biology
I’m a plant evolutionary ecologist with special interests in pollination biology and plant-herbivore interactions. I also am interested in how insect phenology is affected by climate change. I am a big fan of field work and have study sites in Ohio, Arizona, and California. During the Ohio winters, I use manipulative experiments in the greenhouse to answer some of my questions (especially # 2 below).
Research
I am broadly interested in the interactions among plants and their environment and visitors. In particular, I investigate how mutualisms such as plant-pollinator systems can withstand interruptions by other insects. I do this in two main study systems, with opportunities to work both in the greenhouse and in field conditions.
Details
The first system is based on the plant Sacred Datura, which grows in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Both native beetles and introduced honeybees visit the plant, perhaps disrupting the action of the plant´s presumed major pollinator, a large hawkmoth. We are doing a series of experiments to see if these disruptions affect plant growth and fitness.
My second system involves mostly work in the greenhouse during the school year. We are trying to understand why some insects like to eat different colored petals versus others and whether this corresponds to what we see in the field. For these experiment we use introduced populations of wild radish in California.
My current research questions are:
- Does variability in herbivore pressure over time affect the evolution of induced resistance in wild radish?
- How and why do florivores (things that eat flowers) choose what flowers to eat?
- How does florivory affect pollination and fitness in sacred Datura, Datura wrightii, in Arizona?
- What factors are affecting butterfly species richness and diversity in Northern California?
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