Invited Speaker 11th Asia-Pacific Congress of the International Society on Toxinology 2021

Ecological and evolutionary trends of toxin resistance in animals (#40)

Rebecca Tarvin 1
  1. Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States

Toxins are entrenched components of ecosystems. Animals are often faced with the challenge to avoid or adapt, and whether they evolve resistance can be a key determinant of their evolutionary trajectory. In this talk I will provide an overview of the diversity of toxin resistance mechanisms present in animals that acquire toxins from their environment. I will then speculate about how toxin resistance, toxin sequestration, and toxin characteristics are interrelated from both ecological and evolutionary perspectives. Finally, I will provide a perspective on the future of toxin resistance research and how it fits in the broader field of toxinology.