On Tuesday, June 4, Náyade Álvarez, predoctoral researcher of the Animal Ecology Group (GEA, CIM-UVigo), will present, in a new session of the Café con Sal lecture series, the talk “Costes del aprendizaje en juveniles del pez espinoso“, in which she will present one of the experiments conducted as part of her doctoral thesis.
The Behavioural Ecology Lab, part of the Animal Ecology Group, focuses primarily on understanding how natural selection shapes the life history and behavior of animals, mainly in seabirds and fish. Among fish, their studies are primarily centered on the stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus), as it is a species used worldwide as a model organism, mainly due to the knowledge of its genome and the ease of its maintenance.
Náyade Álvarez, supervised by Alberto Velando, is carrying out her doctoral thesis with the aim of understanding the responses of the stickleback fish at the behavioral and life-history strategy level (including growth rates, maturation, reproductive rate, and lifespan) to changes in environmental conditions, as well as the factors that determine these responses.
During her lecture, Náyade will present the study of the species’ phenotypic plasticity in response to these changes, in which she experimentally assessed whether learning entails costs and whether it influences cognitive ability and life-history traits, such as growth, reproduction, and survival, while also exploring its effect on the brain.
The lecture will take place at 11.00h in the ECIMAT auditorium and will be broadcast live at http://tv.uvigo.es/es/directo/1.html, later being available on UVigoTV and on our website.
