With: Prof. R. Ford Denison (University of Minnesota, U.S.A.)
Prof. Koos Boomsma (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Dr. Duur Aanen (Wageningen Universityand Research Center, NL). Dr. Toby Kiers (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, NL), Dr. Albano Beja-Pereira (University of Porto, Portugal), Prof. Mike Jeger (Imperial College London, U.K.), Prof. Dan Bradley (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland)
Convernors: Dr. Duur K. Aanen, Wageningen University; Prof. Rolf F. Hoekstra, Wageningen University; Prof. Thom W. Kuyper, Wageningen University.
Sponsored by: Graduate schools PE&RC, FE, WIMEK/SENSE, and NWO
Charles Darwin started The origin of species with a chapter about artificial selection, practiced by man, upon domesticated organisms. This is still the popular view of domestication, and agriculture in general: as a human ‘invention’, beneficial to the farmer. However, this opinion can be challenged for several reasons. First, not only humans profit from agriculture, but also the domesticated organisms themselves as they reach far higher population densities than their free-living ancestors (which in some cases even have gone extinct). Therefore, from a biological perspective, agriculture fulfills the definition of mutualistic symbiosis: a mutually beneficial association between different species. Second, genetic adaptations to the agricultural lifestyle are not limited to the domesticated organisms but have also occurred in humans. For example, lactose tolerance in adult humans has evolved independently in several human populations after the domestication of cattle. Finally, agriculture is not restricted to humans: other species, such as some groups of social insect, have independently evolved forms of agriculture.
This symposium will provide a broad overview of the evolution of agricultural symbiosis along three lines: i) the (co-)evolutionary history and future of human agriculture; ii) the (co-) evolutionary history of non-human forms of agriculture and iii) applied aspects of evolutionary insights for human agriculture. The speakers include Ford Denison (opportunities of artificial selection for future agricultural innovations), Albano Beja-Pereira (coevolution between cattle milk protein genes and human lactase genes) and Koos Boomsma (evolution of agriculture in fungus-growing ants).