Jessica Keppel Higgins: RAPID EVOLUTION AND POPULATION DIVERGENCE IN RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN COLIAS BUTTERLIES (Under the direction of Joel Kingsolver)

Pollinators play an important role within a variety of ecosystems but are experiencing declines. In recent years, climate change has been affecting the mutualistic relationship between these organisms and the corresponding plants they interact with. It is important to closely study interactions such

High altitude regions are likely to be highly affected by climate change. Pollinators such as bees in these regions may have to change life history traits to survive. Because eusociality is associated with reduced mortality and increased resilience to resource variation, primitively eusocial bees ma

With earlier snowmelt, the impacts of a late frost in the Rocky Mountains have been more consequential for the production of flowers in species such as Erigeron speciosus. Several species of Tephritid flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are pre-dispersal seed herbivores of E. speciosus. The neighborhood ar

It’s common for scientists to apply experimental practices that have worked well in another study to their own studies without a complete consideration of how that manipulation may impact their system. Open-top warming chambers and pollinator exclusion bags are two such common experimental manipulat

Insect pollinators serve vital roles in natural and agricultural systems. There is a lack of long-term data on wild bee populations in North America, so standardized sampling protocols have been developed to address this need. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of 10 years of long

Predation and mutualism take up a large part of interactions within communities. These multi-trophic level interactions affect the makeup of the community. We explored how predation impacts the strength of mutualism between ants and aphids on the plant Ligusticum porteri. It has been a base assumpti

Studies have shown that there have been pollinator declines occurring worldwide (e.g., Beismiejer et al. 2006; Potts et al. 2010; Burkle et al. 2013; Goulson et al. 2015). It is important to understand plant-pollinator interactions as thoroughly as possible, including which species are interacting w

Terrestrial soils store more carbon than exists in the atmosphere and all plant life combined. Thus, small changes in the amount of carbon stored in soil or released back to the atmosphere from soil can have large impacts on atmospheric carbon concentrations and climate change. As climate change pro

Native bumble bees play key roles in their ecosystems as pollinators, but little is known about the quantity and quality of floral resources on which they depend in natural areas across a season. Additionally, how those resources might be affected by abiotic factors, many of which are being altered

The production and structure of animal signals may be condition dependent and may provide more than one type of information to receivers. While alarm calls are not typically viewed as condition dependent, recent studies have suggested that their structure and possibly their propensity to be emitted

Mutualisms are the species interaction in which both mutualist partners benefit from the relationship. Most mutualisms involve multiple interacting species and associating with multiple mutualist partners can be beneficial if they provide complementary benefits. Yet, mutualist species may also compe

Abstract Assisted migration consists of the introduction of a species to previously inhabited areas or to new suitable regions. Such introductions have been touted as a viable tool for conserving the earth's biodiversity. However, both the likely success of assisted migrations and the impacts on loc