This award will fund US participation in a Symposium entitled ""Mechanisms of Sexual Selection"" at the triennial International Congress of Invertebrate Reproduction and Development which will meet in August 2007 in Panama City, The Republic of Panama. This symposium will bring together workers from three continents for a cross-disciplinary discussion of the ways in which sexual selection works and the effects it has on invertebrate animals. Talks will cover approaches from physiology and sensory biology to ecology and evolution of a range of organisms from marine, terrestrial and freshwater environments. This symposium will promote the synthesis of the rigorous, analytical, theory-driven style of research current in the fields of behavioral and evolutionary ecology with the wealth of empirical information on diverse sexual systems in organisms that have remained largely unknown to those disciplines.
Broader Impacts: Participants will have the opportunity for interaction with international and particularly Latin American scientists. US participation in this symposium will provide opportunities for discussion and exchange of views with scientists from around the world. It will also allow a broad spectrum of scientists and biology students to hear and meet top US scientists. Three of the six US speakers are women and one of the male speakers from the US is Hispanic and a very recent Ph.D. Participation of these speakers in a high visibility symposium at an international meeting will provide strong positive role models to students and young scientists and thereby promote diversity in this field.
