This symposium will assemble, at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Conference, a group of researchers from the United States, Canada, and several European nations who have been addressing various problems in reproductive biology in hermaphroditic organisms. Dr. Leonard has included both young and established researchers, and a high proportion (40%) of the invited speakers are women. The goal of the symposium is to present both theory and data, to test theory, and to identify new generalizations by covering a wide range of organisms. Hermaphroditic organisms have not been the subject of a symposium of this nature before, and it is expected that many new ideas will be forthcoming and have significant impact on evolutionary and behavioral biology. Funding will be used to help defray the travel costs of U.S. participants, as well as several young participants from overseas who could not obtain travel support from their national scientific agencies. Most overseas participants will be providing their own travel support, however.
