Congratulations Dr. Potdar!
Dr. Sushant Potdar successfully defended his thesis: “The causes and consequences of behavioral plasticity in anti-predatory defense and mate choice in tropical butterflies” Congratulations on this monumental achievement!
Congratulations Dr. Hirzel!
Dr. Grace Hirzel successfully defended her thesis “Effect of Seasonal Environment on Abundance, Behavior, Visual Signaling, and Perception in Prairie Butterflies” today! Congratulations on this monumental achievement!
Welcome Chance and Jonas!
We are pleased to welcome two new graduate students, Chance Powell and Jonas Amenyo, to the Westerman lab and the University of Arkansas this fall! Looking forward to years of discovery, creativity, and collaboration.
Team work makes the dream work
The Westerman Lab was engaged in multiple collaborations this summer, from darter transcriptomics with Dan Magoulick (USGS Co-Op), graduate student Kearstin Findley (Magoulick Lab), and Hans Hofmann (UTAustin) to the summer Junonia coenia team, including REU student Austin Martinez, undergraduates Maria Garnica and Kailey Hall, new graduate student Chance Powell, and senior graduate student Grace Read More …
Postdoc Keity Farfán Pira interviewed by JEB!
Congratulations to Dr. Keity Farfán Pira on her interview in JEB as a ECR spotlight! In this interview, Keity discusses the main findings of her recent publication, “A cis-regulatory sequence of the selector gene vestigial drives the evolution of wing scaling in Drosophila species“, as well as her experiences as a scientist and her career Read More …
Preprint on environmental effects on butterfly community abundance and behavior now available on BioRxiv!
Graduate student Grace Hirzel and former undergraduate Ashlyn Anderson’s manuscript assessing years of monthly and biweekly abundance and behavioral data of Arkansas prairie butterflies “One size does not fit all: Family specific differences in seasonal patterns of abundance and behavior in butterfly communities” is now available on BioRxiv! Check out the pre-print here.
Congrats Kaleigh Cox on her poster at Undergraduate Research Week!
Senior Kaleigh Cox presented her research on female cryptic mate choice at the Undergraduate Research Week poster session this week (April 20, 2023) at UARK. Well done Kaleigh!
Sexually dimorphic learning transcriptomics published in Molecular Ecology!
Congratulations to former lab members Dr. Dave Ernst, Gabby Agcaoili, and Abby Merril on their paper, “A learning experience elicits sex-dependent neurogenomic responses in Bicyclus anynana butterflies” published in Molecular Ecology! Both female and male B. anynana butterflies learn mate preferences, however they learn preferences for different wing pattern elements and exhibit different learning biases. Read More …
Westerman receives NSF CAREER Award!
PI Erica Westerman was recently awarded an NSF CAREER Award to study the interplay of genetics and environment on sensory system development in butterflies. Check out the UARK Newswire article here: https://news.uark.edu/articles/63162/nsf-career-award-to-study-visual-systems-of-northwest-arkansas-butterflies
Paper on cryptic mate choice published in the Journal of Insect Behavior!
Congratulations to Westerman Lab graduates Jacob Siebenmorgen, Taryn Tibbs, and Nikki Robertson on their manuscript: “Cryptic mate preference in male Bicyclus anynana butterflies” which was just published in the Journal of Insect Behavior! Check out the paper here: link