The Department of Biology welcomes students, faculty, and community members to an upcoming seminar with guest speaker, Dr. James Adelman, Associate Professor with The University of Memphis. Dr. Adelman’s talk, “Heterogenous Responses to Infection: Causes and Consequences in a Wildlife Disease System,” explores why animals vary so widely in their responses to infectious disease and offers an in-depth look at the mechanisms and evolutionary pressures that shape these differences within a real-world wildlife disease system.
Event Details
Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Time: 4:00 PM–5:00 PM
Location: Biology 136
Professor Adelman’s research investigates how species, populations, and individuals cope differently with infection, using house finches infected with the emerging bacterial pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum as a model system. His seminar will highlight variation in infection tolerance and examine the reproductive trade-offs that accompany illness, ultimately illustrating how these factors shape pathogen transmission and evolutionary dynamics in wildlife disease systems.
Students, researchers, and faculty at all levels are encouraged to attend. Whether you are early in your academic journey or pursuing advanced work in biology, this seminar provides a welcoming space to learn, ask questions, and engage with research at the intersection of physiology, evolution, and disease ecology.
Host: Anping Chen, Research Scientist, CSU’s Department of Biology
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Abstract
No two species, populations, or individuals respond to infection in precisely the same way. My lab seeks to uncover both mechanistic and evolutionary explanations for this pattern in a recently emerged wildlife disease system: house finches infected with the bacterial pathogen, Mycoplasma gallisepticum. This talk will focus on variation in tolerance of infection (minimizing costs, but not necessarily minimizing pathogen load) and reproductive trade-offs during infection, with the ultimate goal of understanding what these mean for pathogen transmission and evolution.


