AN INTERESTING CASE OF (POSIBLE) SPECIATION IN SNAILS II

Dr. David Rutschman

Department of Mathematics

Northeastern Illinois University

Sympatric speciation, put simply, is the formation of a new species within an existing one. Certain snails have shells that coil either left or right, and in some cases, this coiling prevents certain reproductive combinations. To make matters more interesting, a snail's coiling depends on its mother's genes. We will look at a mathematical model that describes this situation. The model is a four dimensional discrete non-linear dynamical system. The analysis of this model is far from complete, so this is an interesting research topic (both analytical and numerical approaches can be used).

Dr. Rutschman's Talk