Which mosquito species is likely to transmit the virus that causes the next epidemic? Join José Loaiza, Smithsonian research associate, senior scientist at Panama’s government research bureau, INDICASAT, and University of Panama professor, as he visits back yards and used-tire lots to find the answer.
Human sisters may look extremely different from one another. What does that have to do with gold, black and red beetles?
Not only does it take energy to make weapons, it may take even more energy to maintain them. Because leaf-footed bugs drop their legs, it is possible to measure how much energy they allocate to maintaining this appendage that males use to fight other males.
Some organisms adapt more quickly than others and may have a better chance to survive climate change. 2018 Tupper Fellow, Mike Logan, follows lizards as they adapt to islands.
Study Sheds New Light on Fundamental
Question in Evolutionary Biology
Three adventure-seekers meet in the clouds, each with their own reasons to learn more about mysterious jewel-like bees.
Parasitoid wasps lay their eggs on a spider’s back. This team proposes that by injecting the spider host with the molting hormone, ecdysone, the wasp induces the spider to make a special web for the wasp’s pupa.
Why did some bee species become social, while the majority have remained solitary? On Barro Colorado Island, a bee that adopts both strategies interchangeably, may unlock the evolutionary origins of sociality in insects
Yves Basset, who heads insect monitoring efforts for the Smithsonian ForestGEO program and Greg Lamarre, from the University of South Bohemia, present immediate, science-based actions that mitigate insect decline.
Unrelated butterflies may have the same wing patterns. These patterns warn off predators and help suitors find the right mate. But if wing patterns in each species evolved the same way, knocking out an important gene should have the same effect in both. Carolina Concha and her team discovered that knocking out the WntA gene results in different effects in co-mimics, so the two species evolved the same pattern via different pathways.
