Entomology Commons^™

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 Evolution Of Diet Breadth In Melissodes Bees (Apidae: Eucerini), Karen W. Wright

Biology ETDs

The relationship between phytophagous insects and their host plants has interested scientists since Darwinian times. Using modern phylogenetic inference, we are able to investigate these patterns using, not only the phylogenies of the insects, but the evolutionary relationships among the plants they feed on as well. The relationships between bees and the plants they pollinate were traditionally seen as mutualistic and were treated separately from the research investigating the antagonistic relationships between phytophagous insects and their host plants. However, recent phylogenetic studies have made great progress including bee-host relationships in with the larger body of work on phytophagous insects.

The …

Spatial And Temporal Patterns Of Neutral And Adaptive Genetic Variation In The Alpine Butterfly, Parnassius Smintheus, Maryam Jangjoo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Understanding how much genetic diversity exists in populations, and the processes that maintain that diversity, has been a central focus of population genetics. The evolutionary processes that determine patterns of genetic diversity depend on underlying ecological processes such as dispersal and changes in population size. In this thesis, I examine the influence of dispersal and population dynamics on neutral and adaptive genetic variation in a naturally occurring network of populations of the alpine butterfly, Parnassius smintheus.

My first objective was to determine the combined consequences of demographic bottlenecks and dispersal on neutral genetic variation within and among populations. Using …

Confirming World-Wide Distribution Of An Agriculturally Important Lacewing, Chrysoperla Zastrowi Sillemi, Using Songs, Morphology, Mitochondrial Gene Sequencing, And Phylogenetic Reconstruction, Zoe Mandese

Honors Scholar Theses

The Chrysoperla carnea-group of green lacewings is a cryptic species complex. Species within the group are morphologically similar, yet isolated from one another via reproductive mating song. Chrysoperla zastrowi, a species within the carnea-group, is currently described with a distribution ranging from South Africa to the Middle East and India. However, recent collections of carnea-group lacewings from Guatemala and California were preliminarily identified as Chrysoperla zastrowi based upon similarities in their vibrational courtship songs. This analysis aims to place six specimens, collected by collaborators in Guatemala, Armenia, Iran, and California, into a pre-existing phylogeny of the …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Effects Of Floral Phytochemicals On Growth And Evolution Of A Parasite Of Bumble Bees, Evan Palmer-Young

Doctoral Dissertations

Background: Nectar and pollen are rich in phytochemicals, some of which can reduce disease in pollinators, including agriculturally important honey and bumble bees. Floral phytochemicals could influence the ecological and evolutionary relationships between plants, their pollinators, and parasites that cause pollinator disease. Antiparasitic effects of phytochemicals could be exploited to ameliorate pollinator disease and decline, and thereby sustain pollinator-dependent agricultural production. However, prior studies showed variable effects of phytochemicals on infection in live bees, where differences in bee genotype, abiotic conditions, and parasite strain could influence results. Approach: I used cell cultures of the intestinal trypanosome parasite of bumble bees, …

Advancing Behavioural Genomics By Considering Timescale, Clare C. Rittschof, Kimberly A. Hughes

Entomology Faculty Publications

Animal behavioural traits often covary with gene expression, pointing towards a genomic constraint on organismal responses to environmental cues. This pattern highlights a gap in our understanding of the time course of environmentally responsive gene expression, and moreover, how these dynamics are regulated. Advances in behavioural genomics explore how gene expression dynamics are correlated with behavioural traits that range from stable to highly labile. We consider the idea that certain genomic regulatory mechanisms may predict the timescale of an environmental effect on behaviour. This temporally minded approach could inform both organismal and evolutionary questions ranging from the remediation of early …

A Model Species For Agricultural Pest Genomics: The Genome Of The Colorado Potato Beetle, Leptinotarsa Decemlineata (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), Sean D. Schoville, Yolanda H. Chen, Martin N. Andersson, Joshua B. Benoit, Anita Bhandari, Julia H. Bowsher, Kristian Brevik, Kaat Cappelle, Mei-Ju M. Chen, Anna K. Childers, Christopher Childers, Olivier Christiaens, Justin Clements, Elise M. Didion, Elena N. Elpidina, Patamarerk Engsontia, Markus Friedrich, Inmaculada García-Robles, Richard A. Gibbs, Chandan Goswami, Alessandro Grapputo, Kristina Gruden, Marcin Grynberg, Bernard Henrissat, Emily C. Jennings, Jeffery W. Jones, Megha Kalsi, Sher A. Khan, Abhishek Kumar, Fei Li, Vincent Lombard, Subba Reddy Palli, June-Sun Yoon

Entomology Faculty Publications

The Colorado potato beetle is one of the most challenging agricultural pests to manage. It has shown a spectacular ability to adapt to a variety of solanaceaeous plants and variable climates during its global invasion, and, notably, to rapidly evolve insecticide resistance. To examine evidence of rapid evolutionary change, and to understand the genetic basis of herbivory and insecticide resistance, we tested for structural and functional genomic changes relative to other arthropod species using genome sequencing, transcriptomics, and community annotation. Two factors that might facilitate rapid evolutionary change include transposable elements, which comprise at least 17% of the genome and …

Distribution, Dna Barcoding And Phylogenetics Of Caribbean Calliphoridae Flies: Tools For Forensic Studies, Sohath Zamira Yusseff

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are among the most dominant and conspicuous insects in the decomposition process. They are important in forensic entomology to determine time of death and, in certain situations, cause of death or relocation of a body. Insects are now included as standard operating procedures in crime scene investigations in many countries, however, this is not standard procedure in the Caribbean area due to lack of knowledge of insects involved in cadaveric decomposition. Successful application of forensic entomology depends on solid underlying data. Our main goal is to advance the knowledge of Calliphoridae in the Caribbean to enable …