May 4, 2020 The Washington Ornithological Society will once again conduct its monthly meeting on-line (see link below).

"Drinking and Fighting (no alcohol needed!): Behavioral Ecophysics of Hummingbirds"
Alejandro Rico-Guevara, Curator of Ornithology, Burke Museum. Assistant Professor, Biology University of Washington.

"Energetically constrained animals have evolved adaptations to enhance caloric intake. On the other hand, animal competition sometimes turns into physical combat, and particular weaponry evolves.
In this talk, Alejandro will present theoretical and empirical findings on each of these fronts, along with a case study of their intersection, namely, hummingbird bill weapons.
These discoveries revive questions about how these birds budget energy gain and expenditure to enable hovering, the most expensive form of locomotion, establishing coevolutionary relationships with the plants they pollinate.
These novel perspectives of a data-rich mutualistic system open the door to quantitative and comparative assessments of trade-offs between energy optimality and fighting proficiency.
All of this, contextualized in a behavioral eco-physics framework, aim to help us understand how organismal mechanisms (e.g. biomechanics, physiology) affect and are affected by biotic and abiotic interactions."

Please join WOS members and friends on Monday May 4 for this unique opportunity to (virtually) meet the Burke's Curator of Ornithology and learn about his research on the evolutionary biology of hummingbirds.

This meeting will be on-line only
Date: Monday May 4
Time: log-in 7:15pm, meeting begins at 7:30PM
Link: http://wos.org/about-wos/monthly-meetings/