academia – Insect Chemical and Evolutionary Ecology

New paper out in Science

Our paper is now out in Science, and we made the cover!

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr7368

I was lucky enough to be part of this global team that looked at how predator community, prey community, and visual environment influenced the predation risk of cryptic and warningly-coloured model moths.

We found that aposematic strategies fare better in environments with low predation intensity, whereas camouflage strategies are advantaged when other camouflaged prey species are rare and when light levels are low.

This is the sort of research this is impossible without strong global networks of collaboration. Team science at its best!

New paper out now!

The final chapter of Cristina’s PhD is out now in Functional Ecology!

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.70122

In it we set out to test how resource availability shapes the relationship between colour and chemical defense in the wood tiger moth. We found that – counter to our predictions – honest signalling was only present when moths were reared on a high protein diet.

Entomologendag 2024

Entomologendag was a nice way to round off the year. I spoke about the effect of urbanisation on warning signals, Jiajia and Hannah presented beautiful posters. Hannah also continued the proud IBED tradition by winning the poster prize!

Welcome

Hello!

I’m Bugphd. As my name suggests I’m a PhD student at the University of St Andrews studying (surprise surprise) bugs. To be more specific I am interested in the evolution of sexual traits and how these affect species ecology, in particular the causes and consequences of reproductive interference in the Lygaeidae.

I occasionally blog about my life as a postgraduate student over at Inside St Andrews so this blog is going to be for all the stuff I write for them and then decide is either too silly, too self-obsessed or too academic to post there. Topics that are likely to come up are: my research, procrastination, and anything involving spiders.