News (all news and views are posted by Mayra Vidal)
11/06/2023
Matt Comerford, Averie St.Germaine, Billie Maguire, Tyler Barr, and Mayra Vidal all attended the Entomological Society of America meeting this year. They all gave amazing presentations about their research!
06/16/2023
We gave our farewell to Alex and Emma, but they are already in great new positions! Emma is now working at the Charles River Labs, and Alex is conducting research at Nantucket with Dr. Doug Woodhams.
We also welcome new lab members: Juliana Ruscio is a REU and McNair student, and Oldsen Chery is a McNair student. Welcome Juliana and Oldsen.
Lastly, Averie St.Germaine got awarded the Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid!!! Congratulations Averie!!!
Our fall webworm match-making is at full steam! Here is a pic of Juliana setting up a mating chamber.
Matt Comerford, Averie St.Germaine, Billie Maguire, Tyler Barr, and Mayra Vidal all attended the Entomological Society of America meeting this year. They all gave amazing presentations about their research!
06/16/2023
We gave our farewell to Alex and Emma, but they are already in great new positions! Emma is now working at the Charles River Labs, and Alex is conducting research at Nantucket with Dr. Doug Woodhams.
We also welcome new lab members: Juliana Ruscio is a REU and McNair student, and Oldsen Chery is a McNair student. Welcome Juliana and Oldsen.
Lastly, Averie St.Germaine got awarded the Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid!!! Congratulations Averie!!!
Our fall webworm match-making is at full steam! Here is a pic of Juliana setting up a mating chamber.
05/11/2023
Well, it's been a year since I last updated the news here. But a lot happened during this last year! Let me see if I can remember everything...
May 2022 - AJ, Kirsten, and Matt Tran left the lab (but Matt returned for another semester, which was great!). Kirsten and Matt also presented their posters for the whole department. Matt got the undergraduate distinction award!
June 2022 - We welcomed Leah Murphy as a REU student in the lab. Leah worked with fall webworm, looking at the level of generalism (individual vs population). She is amazing and we miss her!
July 2022 - Mayra went to ICE 2022 in Finland and co-organized a symposium about global change effects on insect foodwebs with Shannon Murphy and Gina Wimp. It was great!!! We also welcomed Billie Maguire in our lab as a new graduate student!
August 2022 - Leah presented her poster at the REU symposium, Billie presented a poster at ESA, and Mattheau gave an oral presentation at ESA. Matt Tran returned to the lab, now as a lab tech and post-bacc researcher.
September 2022 - We welcomed Averie St.Germaine as a new graduate student, and Alexander Richards as a McNair fellow in the lab! Mayra also gave a talk at Smith College.
October 2022- Our fire meta-analysis was accepted at Functional Ecology! Mayra also gave a talk at the Cambridge Entomological Society and had a great time talking about insects and fall webworm with the members.
January 2023 - We welcomed Dr. Cong Liu as a new postdoc in our lab! And we gave our farewell to Matt Tran.
March 2023 - Tyler Barr gave his first presentation in a conference at the New England Entomological Meeting! It was great!!
April 2023 - Mattheau was awarded the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology!! Congratulations, Matt! Mayra also visited UMass Dartmouth to give a talk there.
Well, it's been a year since I last updated the news here. But a lot happened during this last year! Let me see if I can remember everything...
May 2022 - AJ, Kirsten, and Matt Tran left the lab (but Matt returned for another semester, which was great!). Kirsten and Matt also presented their posters for the whole department. Matt got the undergraduate distinction award!
June 2022 - We welcomed Leah Murphy as a REU student in the lab. Leah worked with fall webworm, looking at the level of generalism (individual vs population). She is amazing and we miss her!
July 2022 - Mayra went to ICE 2022 in Finland and co-organized a symposium about global change effects on insect foodwebs with Shannon Murphy and Gina Wimp. It was great!!! We also welcomed Billie Maguire in our lab as a new graduate student!
August 2022 - Leah presented her poster at the REU symposium, Billie presented a poster at ESA, and Mattheau gave an oral presentation at ESA. Matt Tran returned to the lab, now as a lab tech and post-bacc researcher.
September 2022 - We welcomed Averie St.Germaine as a new graduate student, and Alexander Richards as a McNair fellow in the lab! Mayra also gave a talk at Smith College.
October 2022- Our fire meta-analysis was accepted at Functional Ecology! Mayra also gave a talk at the Cambridge Entomological Society and had a great time talking about insects and fall webworm with the members.
January 2023 - We welcomed Dr. Cong Liu as a new postdoc in our lab! And we gave our farewell to Matt Tran.
March 2023 - Tyler Barr gave his first presentation in a conference at the New England Entomological Meeting! It was great!!
April 2023 - Mattheau was awarded the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology!! Congratulations, Matt! Mayra also visited UMass Dartmouth to give a talk there.
04/20/2022
It's been too long since I last posted news here, but we do have some amazing accomplishments this Spring Semester!
Tyler Barr (current MS student) and Billie Maguire (starting in the Fall) both got the NSF GRFP!! The GRFP is super competitive, and this is such a huge accomplishment at their beginning of grad school! Congratulations to Tyler and Billie!
Mayra got a new grant funded (NSF BEE # 2137555) ! In collaboration with Dave Althoff and Kari Segraves, we will explore the coevolutionary dynamics of multi-species mutualisms using budding yeast. I'm now looking for a postdoc to join the lab and take on this project with us.
With spring almost at its peak, we'll soon start to bring the fall webworm pupae out of diapause and prepare for the field season.
Here is a picture of Mayra and AJ enjoying the cherry blossoms :)
It's been too long since I last posted news here, but we do have some amazing accomplishments this Spring Semester!
Tyler Barr (current MS student) and Billie Maguire (starting in the Fall) both got the NSF GRFP!! The GRFP is super competitive, and this is such a huge accomplishment at their beginning of grad school! Congratulations to Tyler and Billie!
Mayra got a new grant funded (NSF BEE # 2137555) ! In collaboration with Dave Althoff and Kari Segraves, we will explore the coevolutionary dynamics of multi-species mutualisms using budding yeast. I'm now looking for a postdoc to join the lab and take on this project with us.
With spring almost at its peak, we'll soon start to bring the fall webworm pupae out of diapause and prepare for the field season.
Here is a picture of Mayra and AJ enjoying the cherry blossoms :)
09/24/2021
This month, we had three new people joining the lab! Dr. Mattheau Comerford joined us as a post-doctoral researcher, Haley Salzarulo is currently a lab assistant, and Amira Bailey is a research assistant. You can learn more about them in the 'people' section. We are so excited to have them here!
This month, we had three new people joining the lab! Dr. Mattheau Comerford joined us as a post-doctoral researcher, Haley Salzarulo is currently a lab assistant, and Amira Bailey is a research assistant. You can learn more about them in the 'people' section. We are so excited to have them here!
08/23/2021
Tyler presented his poster for his REU project about the temperature and diet interaction on the coloration and fitness of tobacco hornworms. He did a great job presenting and answering questions! This project was so much fun, we even set up a caterpillar photo booth :) (yes, there is a caterpillar on the branch)
I also loved seeing the presentations of students in the Lep Soc meeting last week! So many interesting projects...
And the fall webworm field season is at full steam! If you see any webs around Massachusetts, let me know!
Tyler presented his poster for his REU project about the temperature and diet interaction on the coloration and fitness of tobacco hornworms. He did a great job presenting and answering questions! This project was so much fun, we even set up a caterpillar photo booth :) (yes, there is a caterpillar on the branch)
I also loved seeing the presentations of students in the Lep Soc meeting last week! So many interesting projects...
And the fall webworm field season is at full steam! If you see any webs around Massachusetts, let me know!
04/29/2021
Yesterday, I presented my research in the Fritz Müller Seminar Series at USP. I loved talking (virtually) about science with everyone there! The talk is available on Youtube, in Portuguese.
Thank you Paulo Guimarães, Rodrigo Cogni, Patricia Coltri, and Tiago Quental for organizing this Seminar and for inviting me! I'm looking forward to seeing the other seminars. If you're interested, here is their schedule of talks, I highly recommend.
04/07/2021
So much news that I didn't include here in a timely fashion....
First, I started my lab at UMass Boston in January! It's been 3 months now, and I love my new place and my colleagues.
Second, I published two papers these last months. One is a review on the variable effects of global change on insect mutualisms, in collaboration with Kari Segraves, David Althoff, Thomas Anneberg, and Anne Curé. Besides providing a brief review of the papers from the last 3 years, we make predictions of the characteristics of mutualisms that might make them more susceptible to negative effects of global change. Check it out here.
The other paper is a translation of Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia to Portuguese. Take a look here.
Third, I've been sharing my research with seminars this semester. During the spring break, I virtually visited Purdue University to talk about my research, and I also gave a short talk at the regional New England meeting of the SACNAS. Thank you Elizabeth Barnes and Luis de Leon for the invitations! Next week, I'll also give a seminar at the University of Miami. My seminar at Purdue is available here.
01/08/2021
Happy New Year!! We started off with two exciting pubs!
Check out our manuscript about coevolution of obligate mutualisms. We used our yeast system to test the coevolutionary dynamics of mutualists and test how traits related to costs and benefits change over time.
We have also published our paper documents in details the rearing techniques of fall webworm. Check it out!
10/19/2020
Our first yeast paper was published in Science!! We found that richness and redundancy of species can make multi-species mutualist communities more resistant to exploitation than pairwise mutualisms. Check out our paper here. There is access to the article in Kari's website (http://segraveslab.syr.edu/publications.html)
There is also a really nice media coverage of our paper from Syracuse University. Check it out here.
08/21/2020
Our NSF collaborative project was awarded!! We will study what drives generalism in insect herbivores through a tri-trophic approach using fall webworm. I am super excited to do this project with my amazing collaborators: Shannon Murphy, Gina Wimp, Dhaval Vyas, and Mariana Abarca.
Last night, I also had a great time discussing science and art at the SU BioArt Mixer.
08/03/2020
After 3 years, I am reunited with fall webworms!! I collected some black-headed in Massachusetts and reds near Syracuse University this past weekend, and I have to say, I missed feeding and taking care of caterpillars...
07/06/2020
This has been an intense year so far...Being in lock down can be specially challenging for people with mental illness, and I really hope everyone is coping the best ways they can.
Other than dealing with my anxiety, I've been educating myself about personal bias and black history in the US (I'm from Brazil, and black people also has to deal with immense racism there, but the history is very different from US). Everyone should do the same, and think of actions to change the social structure that disadvantage people that are not white cis heterosexual men.
About my academic news, in this first semester I talked about my research at UMass Boston, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and Universidade Federal de Pelotas. I had such a great time in every one of these events! And I leave here my appreciation for the people that organized these seminars, I know it was probably harder than in normal circumstances.
Here is a picture of Matita with the plants to bright our days :)
01/16/2020
Our paper on the performance of fall webworm on host plants from different locations is now available online. Check it out! This paper is a result of an amazing collaboration with John Lill and Robert Marquis (and an experiment on how to ship eggs and larvae across North America)
09/25/2019
I had an amazing time in Brazil visiting family and collaborators! During my visit, I had the great chance of talking about my research at Unicamp, USP, and Ufscar. I am very thankful for all the people that organized these events! If you want to see one of my presentations about my current research at Syracuse University, check out this video of my presentation at USP (in Portuguese).
My research on the foraging preference of Dorymyrmex nigra is now a beautiful article piece at Hakai Magazine. Check it out!
09/06/2019
Shannon Murphy, Gina Wimp, and I are offering a travel award for graduate students and post-docs to attend the International Congress of Entomology, next year in Helsinki. We are looking for people that can help increase the diversity and inclusion in the meeting, and people that will present on global change and insects. Find out more here.
08/07/2019
Our paper of the influence of geographic distance and host plant use on the genetic divergence of fall webworm was accepted in Molecular Ecology. This is so exciting!! The manuscript will soon be available to share...
07/23/2019
Summer's been busy! I am amazed by the yucca-yucca moth system, and I am so glad I have the chance to do some work on this super interesting text-book example of obligate mutualism. Tegeticula larvae are really hard to rear on different hosts (such a difference from fall webworm), but we will get there...
Besides working with yucca moth, we also started a new experiment with the yeast mutualism system this summer. As usual, the start is a bit rough, but we are getting there...
Eva's paper on the conspecific cues used by honey bees to forage on occupied flowers is now available online. I highly recommend this paper, check it out!
And as another great news, we received funding from NSF to help participants from our symposium and graduate students to go to ICE 2020 in Finland! We will offer 11 travel awards to graduate students and post-docs that work with food webs and climate change, we will have announcements soon...
05/14/2019
On analysis of the influence of title's attributes on citation rate is now available as an Opinion in Ecological Entomology. We found that including latin names in the title decreases the number of citations the paper receives. Check it out!
05/10/2019
Yesterday I gave a talk at Evoday Cornell, and the whole species interactions lab attended the meeting. This was my first time going to this meeting, and I absolutely loved it! The lab of Ornithology is beautiful, and I really enjoyed all the talks and discussions about evolution of interacting species.
Look at this gorgeous lab photo! (top row left-right: Kari Segraves, David Althoff, Sheng Wang, Thomas Anneberg. bottom: me and Anne Curé)
02/28/2019
We finished our second round of the experiment that we test how species richness influence mutualism persistence! It was a huge experiment!
12/10/2018
You can now see our paper on the foraging preference of Dorymyrmex nigra ants online. Check it out
10/24/2018
I had the honor to be interviewed by the Brazilian podcast about insects "Bug Bites". If you want to hear me talking (in Portuguese) about my work as an ecologist, check it out: https://soundcloud.com/bugbi…/bb-028-a-ecologa-in7-perguntas
10/05/2018
You can now see the pre-print of our paper in Ecology. I absolutely love this paper and I am very proud of it! We used a new approach to obtain the fitness of insect herbivores in tri-trophic interactions by considering the slopes of fitness from bottom-up and top-down forces, and with that we investigated the diet breadth evolution of herbivores. Check it out.
09/29/2018
Our paper on the foraging preference of Dorymyrmex ants varying spatially with resource availability was accepted! It will be soon available in the journal Ecological Entomology.
09/20/2018
Two great news! Our paper on a quantitative measure of tri-trophic fitness was accepted in the journal Ecology!! I will have more news soon about it...
The major scientific agency in Sao Paulo State (Brazil) highlighted in their website my Master's work on the use of extrafloral nectar by a drosofilid larva to attract and prey on ants. In Portuguese from Fapesp website: http://agencia.fapesp.br/larva-de-mosca-usa-acucar-como-isca-para-devorar-formigas/28760/
In English: agencia.fapesp.br/fruit-fly-larvae-use-sugar-as-bait-to-attract-and-devour-ants/28854/
09/12/2018
Our latest fire paper was just publish! You can find it online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00135/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Ecology_and_Evolution&id=410459
08/14/2018
Entomology Today (a blog from the Entomological Society of America) highlighted my latest published paper from my Masters (as well as the previous ones). The piece is very nice and I definitely recommend the reading: https://entomologytoday.org/2018/08/13/meddling-mutualism-fly-larva-uses-nectar-lure-ants-lunch/
07/31/2018
Our review on how fire can affect insects is now available online! Check it out: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214574518300191?via%3Dihub#fig0005.
07/27/2018
I am a little late, but we recently published the natural history of a ant-preying dipteran larva, where we describe its sit-and-wait behavior and use of extrafloral nectar to attract ants as prey. Check it out: https://academic.oup.com/ee/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ee/nvy097/5050820
Our invited contribution to Current Opinion in Insect Science was also accepted for publication! More info about that soon...
07/04/2018
I am officially at Syracuse University!
05/08/2018
I just defended my dissertation, and I am now officially a Doctor!
03/30/2018
Our comment on Chen & Chen's meta-analysis is now published in April's issue of Insect Science. Check it out!
02/16/2018
Our Avida-ED workshop at FRSES (Front Range Student Ecology Symposium, Colorado State University) was a success!! Thank you all for coming! Check out Dale's post with some pictures: https://dalebroder.wordpress.com/2018/02/16/digital-evolution-workshop/
02/03/2018
I had an amazing time at Syracuse University visiting the Althoff and Segraves Labs. They are all lovely people doing amazing research!
12/14/2017
Our meta-analysis was published in the January issue of Ecology Letters! Check it out!
11/24/2017
Our meta-analysis is now available online for early view. Check it out!
Our case study on the Butterfly hunt is published! Check it out!
8/28/2017
The DU SciTech camp was a success!! I am really happy to meet all the amazing girls that spent the week with us! Check out the blog of one of the girls (Zoe) with a review of the camp: https://kidsanimalstation.com/2017/08/16/bug-collecting-how-to-and-du-camp-review/
Our case study to help students develop critical thinking has been published: Grenis, K., Lehto, W.R., VIDAL, M.C., Murphy, S.M. and R.M. Tinghitella. Animals on Treadmills: critical thinking and public perception of science. 2017. National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.
07/20/2017
Our DU SciTech camp for girls was published in the Denver Post! I am so excited for our camp, we will host 20 girls this year!
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/26/regis-du-free-stem-camps-middle-school-girls/
05/30/2017
Last week, I received the Outstanding Research Award from the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics! This award is given to one student per year. I am really happy to receive this recognition of my work, and this was the 4th award that I received this year. This year's being great so far!
The DU SciTech camp was a success!! I am really happy to meet all the amazing girls that spent the week with us! Check out the blog of one of the girls (Zoe) with a review of the camp: https://kidsanimalstation.com/2017/08/16/bug-collecting-how-to-and-du-camp-review/
Our case study to help students develop critical thinking has been published: Grenis, K., Lehto, W.R., VIDAL, M.C., Murphy, S.M. and R.M. Tinghitella. Animals on Treadmills: critical thinking and public perception of science. 2017. National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.
07/20/2017
Our DU SciTech camp for girls was published in the Denver Post! I am so excited for our camp, we will host 20 girls this year!
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/26/regis-du-free-stem-camps-middle-school-girls/
05/30/2017
Last week, I received the Outstanding Research Award from the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics! This award is given to one student per year. I am really happy to receive this recognition of my work, and this was the 4th award that I received this year. This year's being great so far!
03/22/2017
Our poster "Bottom-up and top-down effects on fitness of insect herbivores: a meta-analysis" (by M.C. Vidal and S.M. Murphy) won the 2nd best poster award at the Front Range Student Ecology Symposium (Colorado State University).
Our meta-analysis will also be featured as a top paper at DURAPS (University of Denver Symposium). I am very excited with the good feedback we are receive with our project!
Our comment on Chen and Chen meta-analysis (journal Insect Science, published in 2017) was accepted for publication.
We also had 2 case studies accepted for publication and 1 in review. Check out our publication under "publications" section.
07/20/2016
Our paper on the exploitation of an ant-plant mutualism by Drosophilidae larvae was posted in a Dutch blog, check it out: http://blog.willyvanstrien.nl/2016/07/19/nare-vlieg/
During the whole week I have been doing some cool science-related activities with some amazing girls in the SciTech Girls Camp at DU, developed by Dr. Murphy, Dr. Tinghitella and Dr. Hoffman. Check out the camp at DU news: http://news.du.edu/science-and-fun/
Our case study developed to help teaching density dependence in Ecology classes was sent for external revision by the NCCSTS.
Our poster "Bottom-up and top-down effects on fitness of insect herbivores: a meta-analysis" (by M.C. Vidal and S.M. Murphy) won the 2nd best poster award at the Front Range Student Ecology Symposium (Colorado State University).
Our meta-analysis will also be featured as a top paper at DURAPS (University of Denver Symposium). I am very excited with the good feedback we are receive with our project!
Our comment on Chen and Chen meta-analysis (journal Insect Science, published in 2017) was accepted for publication.
We also had 2 case studies accepted for publication and 1 in review. Check out our publication under "publications" section.
07/20/2016
Our paper on the exploitation of an ant-plant mutualism by Drosophilidae larvae was posted in a Dutch blog, check it out: http://blog.willyvanstrien.nl/2016/07/19/nare-vlieg/
During the whole week I have been doing some cool science-related activities with some amazing girls in the SciTech Girls Camp at DU, developed by Dr. Murphy, Dr. Tinghitella and Dr. Hoffman. Check out the camp at DU news: http://news.du.edu/science-and-fun/
Our case study developed to help teaching density dependence in Ecology classes was sent for external revision by the NCCSTS.