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 …
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 …
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.
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!
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 …
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
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
It was wonderful to be back to in person conferences this summer! Graduate students Sushant Potdar and Kiana Kasmaii, and former undergraduate student Jarrod Varnell, all did an excellent job presenting their research at ABS.
The Westerman lab welcomes new postdoc Dr. Keity Farfan Pira, who comes to us from the Cinvestav-IPN in Mexico. We are very excited to have Dr. Farfan Pira join our team, to pursue the genetics of imprinting like learning!
Check out “The evolution and diversification of oakleaf butterflies” by Wang et al. to learn about the genes involved in the spectacular wing pattern diversification of oakleaf butterflies. A link to the paper can be found here.
