Damon Crook

Tuesday, November 12th

In-Person Meeting
Virtual Zoom Option
7:30 PM EST

An overview of insect sensory systems and why we study them

Damon Crook

Insect Chemical Ecologist

APHIS USDA MA

The Forest Pest Methods Laboratory in Cape Cod, MA, provides research and tools for detection, survey and control of exotic pests that safeguard the agricultural commodities, natural resources, and trade of the USA. Our lab provides method development for commodity treatments, Biocontrol, Molecular ID, Trapping, Lure Development and General Ecology/Behavior. An important part of our labs research is to identify attractants for new invasive pests so that monitoring surveys can be quickly established. This presentation will give a brief overview of insect sensory systems and the electrophysiological methods we use to study them. Research examples from our lab will include important invasive pests such as the emerald ash borer Agrilus planipennis, Asian Longhorn Beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis and the coconut rhinoceros beetle, Oryctes rhinoceros.

Andrew Berry

Tuesday, October 8th

In-Person Meeting
Virtual Zoom Option
7:30 PM EST

Alfred Russel Wallace: Insects and the Discovery of Evolution

Andrew Berry

Assistant Head Tutor of Integrative Biology

Lecturer on Organismic & Evolutionary Biology

Harvard University

In 1908, at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the theory of evolution by natural selection by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, Wallace addressed a simple question: why did it fall to him and Darwin (who had died a long time previously, in 1882) to make the discovery?  Why had the simple insight that is natural selection not occurred to other arguably more penetrating contemporary thinkers?  Wallace’s answer: Beetles.  Both he and Darwin started their careers as naturalists as avid beetle collectors.  Historians of science have traditionally dismissed this claim as a typical instance of Wallace’s modesty, but I will argue that in fact studies of beetles — and other groups of insects — did indeed provide the scientific foundation of the Darwin-Wallace theory. 

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