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- Apoidea (1)
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- Community ecology (1)
- Dung beetles, species diversity, West and Central Africa, phylogeography, elevational gradient, intraspecific variation (1)
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- Triadica sebifera, Chinese tallow, invasive species, pollination, arthropods, Longleaf pine savanna (1)
Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Documenting West And Central African Dung Beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) Community Structures And Their Vulnerability To Climate Change, Christie A. Sukhdeo
Documenting West And Central African Dung Beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) Community Structures And Their Vulnerability To Climate Change, Christie A. Sukhdeo
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
The Guineo-Congolian (GC) region of West and Central Africa contains high levels of species richness (SR) and endemism. Within the GC region, the Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL) is an important biodiversity hotspot in part due to montane habitats that constitute important ‘sky islands’ refugia during warm periods of the Pleistocene glacial cycles. However, little is known about the diversity of many taxa in the GC region, especially for insects. The main goals of this dissertation are to: 1) document dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) species diversity across the GC region and assess the potential impacts of future climate change on species …
Hind Wing Eyespots Of Brassolini Butterflies (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae): Evolutionary Diversification And Functions In Anti-Predator Defense And Mating Behavior, Logan Crees
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Ventral hind wing eyespots are prominent pattern elements in Brassolini butterflies, likely functioning in predator-prey interactions and reproductive activities. Caligo and Opsiphanes differ in male mate-seeking behaviors and it has been suggested that Caligo females use the male cua1 eyespot as a mate-locating cue, but Opsiphanes females do not seem to do so. We predict Caligo males should have larger eyespots than congeneric females, but the sexes would not differ in eyespot size in Opsiphanes. Our analyses supported both these predictions. Displacing the eyespot to the center of the wing makes eyespots more conspicuous, we asked if eyespot position …
A Transcriptomic Exploration Of Hawaiian Drosophilid Development And Evolution, Madeline M. Chenevert
A Transcriptomic Exploration Of Hawaiian Drosophilid Development And Evolution, Madeline M. Chenevert
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
One in four known species of fruit flies inhabit the Hawaiian Islands. From a small number of colonizing flies, a wide range of species evolved, some of which managed to reverse-colonize other continental environments. In order to explore the developmental pathways, which separate the Hawaiian Drosophila proper and the Scaptomyza group that contains reverse-colonized species, the transcriptomes of two better-known species in each group, Scaptomyza anomala and Drosophila grimshawi, were analyzed to find changes in gene expression between the two groups. This study describes a novel transcriptome for S. anomala studies as well as unusual changes in gene expression …
A Change In Grain? Diet Induced Plasticity In The Generalist Grasshopper Melanoplus Differentialis, Austin M. Culotta
A Change In Grain? Diet Induced Plasticity In The Generalist Grasshopper Melanoplus Differentialis, Austin M. Culotta
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Phenotypic plasticity is favored in heterogeneous environments in which alternative phenotypes can exploit alternative resources. However, it’s not clear whether phenotypic plasticity is useful in environments that become more homogenous over an organism’s life cycle. I studied a population of grasshopper Melanoplus differentialis that experiences high resource diversity as nymphs but low resource diversity as adults to determine if individuals can undergo diet-induced morphological plasticity in head shape to increase biting ability and ingestion of hard diets. Insects on a soft diet were larger and had greater bite force than those on a hard diet. Head structures related to chewing …
The Effects Of Forest Age And Management On Bee Communities Of Production Forests In The Southern United States, Robinson Sudan
The Effects Of Forest Age And Management On Bee Communities Of Production Forests In The Southern United States, Robinson Sudan
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Processes structuring bee communities in agricultural landscapes are well-documented compared to those in other anthropogenic landscapes, like production forests. Forests across the temperate zone have historically been under-sampled, in part due to the perception that they provide little habitat to support diverse bee communities. While research suggests that early successional habitats support high levels of bee species richness and abundance, little empirical evidence exists to support the notion that forests, in turn, do not. To understand the relationship between forest successional age and major elements of the bee community, I sampled bees in a southern production pine forest in Hancock …
Determining The Pollination Mechanism Of A Problematic Invasive Species In The Gulf South: Triadica Sebifera, Jennifer Wester Clark
Determining The Pollination Mechanism Of A Problematic Invasive Species In The Gulf South: Triadica Sebifera, Jennifer Wester Clark
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Understanding the ecology of invasive species is vital to curb the homogenizing of ecosystems, yet the pollination mechanisms of the Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera) in its introduced habitat remain ambiguous. This study examines self-pollination, wind pollination, and flower-visiting insects of tallow in a bottomland hardwood forest and Longleaf pine savannah in the U.S. Gulf South. These data suggest that self-pollination and airborne pollination are possible, but likely rare occurrences, although the possibility of apoxisis was not investigated. Seed production in exclusion experiments was significantly less than in open-pollinated flowers, and wind dispersal of tallow pollen dropped to …
Host Specificity And Ectoparasite Load Of Bat Flies In Utila, Honduras, Courtney Miller
Host Specificity And Ectoparasite Load Of Bat Flies In Utila, Honduras, Courtney Miller
Senior Honors Theses
Bat flies (Streblidae) are obligate blood-feeding ectoparasites of bats that display varying degrees of host specificity. A total of 265 streblid bat flies were collected from 122 bats belonging to the families Phyllostomidae and Natalidae from Utila, the smallest bay island of Honduras. Out of four host-parasite associations, three were considered primary. Out of the three bat species analyzed, one had significantly lower parasite prevalence and another had significantly higher parasite load and intensity. Both male and female bats were equally likely to be infested and variables of parasite density did not differ amongst host sex for any species. However, …
Phylogenetic Relationships And Character Evolution Of The Neotropical Butterfly Genus Hamadryas (Nymphalidae: Biblidinae), Ivonne J. Garzon
Phylogenetic Relationships And Character Evolution Of The Neotropical Butterfly Genus Hamadryas (Nymphalidae: Biblidinae), Ivonne J. Garzon
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
The butterflies in the genus Hamadryas are popular and noticeable representatives of the Neotropical Lepidoptera fauna. After a thorough taxonomic revision, 20 species were acknowledged within the genus, however no hypothesis of their phylogenetic relationship was proposed. The present dissertation provides a step further into the understanding of this fascinating group of butterflies not only by proposing the first phylogenetic hypothesis for the genus based on morphological and molecular data, but also by exploring for the first time in a group of butterflies the potential effect of venation associated with an specific behaviour on wing shape. Furthermore, this dissertation provides …