Meeting: SICB 2014 Adaptation or developmental constraint? Uniting evolutionary theory and empirical studies of phenotypic plasticity in Austin, TX.

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On every set of genes in every individual (the genotype), the environment exerts its influence to shape observable traits (or phenotypes); this is phenotypic plasticity. Recently, the field of phenotypic plasticity has been split into two subfields: the first is a focus for evolutionary biologists whose goal is to understand how phenotypic plasticity evolved over time, and the other is a focus for physiologists whose goal is to identify the physiological mechanisms underlying the gene-environment interaction. This symposium has three goals aimed at bridging these two subfields. First, the meeting will bring together researchers from the two subfields who otherwise do not cross paths to discuss how their respective theoretical framework can be tested experimentally and how empirical data from one group can give insights to the other. This will help advance our understanding of the costs, benefits, and limitations of phenotypic plasticity and to identify future direction of this field. The second goal is to foster interaction and future collaboration between researchers from the two subfields to bring new approaches and define new directions. The third goal is to encourage participation from early career scientists (e.g., undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers) and scientists from underrepresented groups to provide them with an opportunity to receive feedback from senior scientists and identify future mentors. The sequence of talks, alternating between evolutionary biologists and physiologists, and inclusion of designated time for questions and discussion are designed to further cross-disciplinary interactions. Abstracts from all the talks and posters will be publicly available, and papers from the symposium talks will be published in the Integrative and Comparative Biology journal to ensure the dissemination of the symposium.