Chasing the Red Queen: The Evolutionary Race between Pests and Poisons

Andy Dyer, PhD, Associate Professor of Biology, University of South Carolina, Aiken

Location: Arnold Arboretum: Hunnewell Building

In Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen tells Alice she must run as fast as she can just to stay in place. Modern agriculture, with its almost total dependence on chemical pesticides, is the Alice of today. Try as we might, our every attempt to control insects and weeds is met with an evolutionary response: they adapt and become resistant to the poisons. We fight back with new, improved chemicals—they respond by adapting again, and on it goes, over and over, as it has for the past sixty years. But Andy Dyer believes that if we use the principles of evolutionary biology, we stand a good chance of taking control of our food supply and weaning our agricultural system from chemical dependence. Join us for a biological perspective on securing foods of our future.
Fee $5 Arboretum member, $10 nonmember; Students Free