Projects

Museomics of dried beetles with target enrichment to explore phylogeny and diversification

Collaborator: Anthony Cognato

We are extracting DNA from longhorn and ambrosia beetles up to 100 years old. Using PCR-based probes, we enrich the degraded DNA for a set of genes and sequence hundreds of specimens together. The result is mitogenomes and the targeted gene regions. This enables species-level phylogenetic work to explore beetle-host relationships and revise taxonomy.

Building molecular and morphological identification tools for conifer and invader Cerambycidae (CerambycID)

Collaborators: A. Cognato/S. Smith (Michigan State), Amanda Redford (USDA)

No worldwide resource is available to identify conifer-feeding and invader longhorned beetles. We build a verified DNA database of multiple diagnostic genes, and morphology tools in a matrix-based key for Cerambycidae genera worldwide. Imaging of all genera was done for adults, larvae are underway. The project includes a biogeographic analysis between Old and New World groups. Results are encapsulated in the custom website CerambycID.

Milkweed longhorn beetle defense escalation

Collaborator: Anurag Agrawal (Cornell)

Milkweed beetles are able to eat leaves of plants with toxic cardiac glycosides, heart-stopping chemicals. By sequencing beetle transcriptomes, mapping plant toxicity to the beetle phylogeny, and comparing adaptive genetic changes, we are testing hypotheses of defense escalation, and escape-radiate adaptation.

Systematics and population dynamics of Monochamus beetles and relatives, PhD project

Committee: Brian Farrell, Naomi Pierce, Scott Edwards

This project focuses on the evolutionary history of sawyer beetles (Cerambycidae: Monochamus) and their tribal relatives. Results show that Monochamus sensu lato is a lumping of many disparate genera and the tribe Lamiini includes many other tribes. Comparing Monochamus transcriptomes at the population level shows that sky island geography in the Great Basin does not effectively isolate populations and isolation by climate explains most of their differentiation.

Gorongosa National Park Bioinventory Project, Mozambique

Collaborator: Isildo Nganhane

I surveyed beetles for the park and started building the beetle section of their insect collection. This included databasing the specimens and training young Mozambican students in curation, entomology, and faunistics. The main product will be a Projects on fauna and longhorned beetles as bioindicators of forest health have stemmed from this.

Cerambycid transcriptomics

I am sequencing the transcriptomes of multiple subfamilies in the Chrysomeloidea to test existing higher-level hypotheses of their relationships. I am focusing effort on the genus Monochamus to determine how the New World genus Goes is related and produce a phylogeny of the Nearctic species to compare with a smaller multigene dataset.

Beetle trapping and survey studies, Huron Mountain Club, Michigan

This project explores the phytophagous beetle fauna of land in the upper peninsula of Michigan, which includes areas of virgin and old growth forest. The ongoing survey uses a variety of collecting methods including chemical lures and canopy traps. A trapping study was conducted in pine woodland to compare the efficacy of lures on pine sawyers and to determine the effects of tree removal. Survey specimens are being used to support chrysomeloid transcriptome sequencing efforts.

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