“Evolution in Iowa Backyards: What the Insects Eating Apples and Sunflowers Tell Us About Origins of Species” is the subject of a lecture by University of Iowa biology professor Andrew Forbes at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 22, in the Biosphere Discovery Hub of the UI Museum of Natural History.

The lecture, the latest in the museum's Spring 2012 Explorers Seminar Series, is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

Forbes will discuss why are there so many insect species — estimates range from 1.5 million to 80 million species — and why the vast majority of these are parasites of plants or other insects. Forbes will discuss what the study of such unassuming organisms such as the apple maggot and the sunflower fly can tell us about how new species originate, sometimes right in our own backyards.

The Department of Biology is a unit of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.