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| Hugh Dingle will discuss the rapidly evolving soapberry bug at the Nov. 10th seminar. i(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
DAVIS--Soapberry bug expert Hugh Dingle, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, will discuss his research on the rapidly evolving soapberry bugs at the Department of Entomology’s next seminar, set from 12:10 to 1 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 10 in 122 Briggs Hall.
His topic: "And the Beak Shall Inherit: Contemporary Local and Reverse Evolution in Morphology and Life History in American and Australian Soapberry Bugs."
His lecture will be webcast live at http://uc-d.na4.acrobat.com/ucsn1/, and then will be archived on the UC Davis Department of Entomology page at http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/webcastlinks.html,
During his 20-year tenure on the UC Davis faculty, Dingle studied various aspects of insect migration “and especially the relation between migration and the evolution of life histories.”
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| Two soapberry bugs at the UC Davis Arboretum. Click to enlarge. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
“One aspect of these studies,” he said, “was the rapid contemporary evolution of insects (soapberry bugs) on introduced host plants (golden rain trees), including the interesting genetic relationships between feeding habits and variation in the ability to fly and migrate.”
His seminar will focus on laboratory-selection experiments on North American soapberry bugs designed to assess the genetic relationships among rapidly evolving traits, including the feeding apparatus and the structure and function of wings and wing muscles, necessary to migratory behavior.
“The bugs respond rapidly to selection for both forward and reverse evolution, demonstrating that the genetic variation necessary for evolution is present in the bugs even after intense natural selection,” Dingle said.
Of particular interest is a genetic correlation between mouthpart structure and wing morph frequency so the two traits share genes and evolve together. “The ecology of the bugs reveals why this might be the case,” he said. “A similar rapidly evolving soapberry bug system exists in Australia allowing intercontinental comparisons of contemporary evolution in these bugs as a consequence of the introduction of exotic host plants.”
For the last seven years, he has been living and doing research at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. Now a resident of Davis, he is continuing his research from his headquarters in Briggs Hall.
He received his bachelor's degree in zoology, with honors, from Cornell University, and his master's and doctorate degrees in zoology from the University of Michigan.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
