Former PhD student Grace Hirzel’s paper “Synchronous seasonal plasticity in coloration, behaviour and visual gene expression in a wild butterfly population“, with postdoc Keity Farfán-Pira and current grad student Chance Powell, as well as collaborators from Bob Reed’s lab,  is now published in Functional Ecology! Check out this exciting paper describing seasonal changes in Arkansas Read More …

An issue of Integrative and Comparative Biology on Pollinator-plant interactions in a changing landscape features papers by multiple current and former members of the Westerman Lab! Check out a perspective on the role of epigenetics in plant-pollinator interactions by Sushant Potdar et al here: https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/65/4/877/8169243 As well as a paper utilizing community science data to Read More …

Former PhD student Dr. Yiting Ter’s paper “Divergent sensory transcriptomic profiles in positive and negative learning in Bicyclus anynana butterflies” is now published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A! Check out this exciting paper detailing the differences in antenna and eye responses to positive and negative stimuli here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00359-025-01771-4

Congrats to newly minted doctoral candidates Chance Powell and Jonas Amenyo on passing their qualifying exams!  

Congratulations Dr. Ter on defending her dissertation: Molecular mechanisms underlying social learning in the butterfly Bicyclus anynana!

Welcome new PhD students Sofia Maass, Tristan Hoerschelmann, and Brooke Kester! Looking forward to new discoveries, creative approaches, and exciting collaborations with our new team members:)

Congratulations to Dr. Matt Murphy on successfully defending their thesis “The evolutionary ecology of signal and signal reception optimization, with a focus on butterflies (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera)”!

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!

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!

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.