Of Monarchs and Milkweed

Save the date!  We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Anurag Agrawal will be speaking at the VIC as part of our fall speaker series on Saturday the 14th of October from 2-3pm. Dr. Agrawal holds the James Perkins Endowed Chair in Environmental Studies at Cornell University. He obtained both a bachelors (Biology) and masters (Conservation Biology) degree from the University of Pennsylvania and worked with the renowned tropical ecologist, Daniel Janzen. In 1999 he earned a PhD in Population Biology from the University of California, Davis.  Anurag lectures widely to professionals and the public and has won numerous awards including the highest honors from several academic societies focused on biology, plant science, entomology, and ecology. In 2021 he was elected to the US National academy of Sciences. His research melds questions on the ecology and evolution of interactions between wild plants and their insect pests, including aspects of community interactions, chemical ecology, coevolution, and the entire monarch life-cycle.  Anurag takes us on a deep dive into monarch biology in his book, Monarchs and Milkweed, (available at the VIC bookstore), from internal flight guidance to their coevolution with milkweed (a competitive “arms race”).  Suggested donation,  $5