The timing of seasonal life cycles is a critical question underlying many biological processes, including the generation and maintenance of biodiversity and agriculture production and food security. Animals and plants must synchronize their lives with the seasons to avoid freezing or overheating and to exploit seasonal resources. The goal of this grant is to understand how historic and contemporary shifts in seasonality can facilitate biological diversification in insect communities. In the short term, such shifts have caused rapid evolution of new crop pests and associated parasite communities. The proposed research tests 1) whether the same processes explain more ancient diversification of communities, and 2) whether changing climates will disrupt or promote diversification in the future. The results may inform many scientific fields, from basic research on the genesis of new species to applied control of agricultural pests. This project includes workshops with high school teachers and students to build curricula supporting "learning by doing" and meeting national standards, as well as providing training for graduate students and postdocs.
This project includes genomic analysis of dipteran pest insects, including the apple fly Rhagoletis pomonella and blueberry maggot fly Rhagoletis mendax plus the community of parasitoid wasps that attack these flies. Genomic work will integrate with 1) functional studies of the overwintering hibernation of both the flies and the wasps from hormonal and molecular perspectives, and 2) computational simulations of the responses of the flies and their parasites to projected seasonal shifts resulting from climate change.
