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The willow leaf beetle Chrysomela aeneicollis lives at high altitude in the South-central Sierra Nevada, from near Mount Whitney to Yosemite. This California insect has been the focus of studies of ‘Evolution in Action’ since the 1980s, when Dr. John Smiley (former WMRC station manager) and then graduate student Nathan Rank conducted experiments examining relationships between beetles, willow host plants where adults and larvae feed, and the insect enemies that prey upon the beetles.
Dr. Nathan Rank, now a professor at Sonoma State University, and his colleague Dr. Elizabeth Dahlhoff, Santa Clara University, currently study how willow leaf beetles tolerate and survive exposure to environmental extremes. Throughout the years, Dahlhoff and Rank have led a team of mostly undergraduate researchers (over 140 to date) in this project. This is the longest running study at WMRC, which began in 1984.
At this talk Dr. Rank will be discussing the 40 year span of his research. This event is free and open to the public. This talk will be recorded and posted to our YouTube channel at a later date.