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My Master's research (with Dan Hahn at the University of Florida) was on the effects of light, temperature, and starvation on development of phenotypically plastic traits. Specifically, I used corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea, formerly Heliothis zea) to test how different factors affect growth, lipid storage, and pupal diapause.
Clemmensen, S.F., Hahn, D.A. 2015. Dormancy cues alter insect temperature-size relationships. Oecologia. 177 (1): 113-121. PDF
see lab website
Lipid Storage It's been suggested that organisms that cannot feed during diapause (such as pupal diapausers) will need to acquire more energy in order to survive and exit the diapause state. I took a close look on the effects of light cycle and temperature on pupal size and storage fat in order to test this hypothesis.
Larval Growth Many lepidopterans display certain growth patterns during their larval devleopment. Originally in the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) it was demonstrated that larvae must achieve 2 different threshold weights to pupate normally (see papers by Nijhout). My goal was to demontrate that these thresholds are present in H. zea, as well as to explore the effects of diapause-inducing conditions on these weights and whether a seperate set of thresholds exist for entering and completing diapause successfully.
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