Insect Agroecology Lab

We are very excited that the genome of the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) has been sequenced as part of the i5K project by the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine. Sean Schoville from University of Wisconsin will be leading the manual annotation of the genome. I will help in coordinating the community.

If you are interested in participating in the manual annotation of the L. decemlineata, please contact me and I will send you directions on how to participate. The genomic resources have been posted here.

Chase Stratton just started in the lab. He comes from Dr. Karen Kester’s lab at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he worked on the effects of planting designs of non-crop habitat on parasitoid impact. At UVM, Chase is interested in studying how to disrupt specialized insect-plant interactions (like the swede midge) within agroecosystems.

Welcome Chase!

Jedeliza Ferrater (Wagenigen and IRRI) just published her first paper in Arthropod-Plant Interactions!

The Brown Planthopper has been the focus of innumerable research projects focused on rice resistance and planthopper “adaptation”. Jedi’s article nicely provides an overview as why this interaction is likely to be more complex than we previously thought!

Way to go, Jedi!

http://link.springer.com/journal/11829/7/6/page/1

Vic found that if the potato plant is grown under short-day photoperiods it may produce changes in the plant, which causes Colorado potato beetles to diapause. This paper is now available online at the link below. If you would like a copy, please email us.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/een.12066/abstract

Hannah just won a Mini-Grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research!