RW Moriarty Science Seminars

R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Biogeographic and socioeconomic drivers of global insect invasions

Speaker: Andrew Liebhold, US Forest Service, Morgantown, WV

Biological invasions are largely an unintended consequence of globalization. With increasing mobility, humans have accidentally transported organisms around the world, breaking the geographical boundaries that separated species ranges that persisted for millions of years of evolution. Among animals, insects are the most numerous group of species, with thousands of insect species having been established outside of their native ranges and many of these species causing immense impacts on agriculture, human health and conservation of native ecosystems.

Here, we report on an analysis of historical insect invasions in 11 world regions. We use these data to compare frequencies of invasions among different insect orders and among different insect families. Certain groups, such as the Hemiptera, Formicidae and the Staphylinidae are generally over-represented in non-native insect assemblages, while other taxa are under-represented. These patterns generally reflect characteristics of these insects that cause them to enter important invasion pathways and biological characteristics that facilitate invasions. These results ultimately can be of use when conducting invasive pest risk analysis.

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R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Every Family Has Its Junk Drawer: Adventures in Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) Systematics

Speaker: Kevin Keegan

Noctuidae moths are one of the most successful animal lineages on the planet, being abundant in nearly all terrestrial habitats and with over 12,000 species globally—some of which are among the world’s most damaging agricultural pests. Despite their success and importance in terrestrial food webs, relationships among the overwhelming majority of noctuids remain poorly understood, hampering a broad range of scientific and applied biological endeavors. The extreme morphological diversity of these more than 12,000 species has vexed taxonomists for centuries resulting in “junk drawer” groups: moths that have no business being classified together but whose proper taxonomic placement within Noctuidae has remained a mystery. This talk will provide an overview of recent advances in our understanding of evolutionary relationships among Noctuidae that have combined new natural history and molecular data, along with adult and larval morphological data to produce the largest ever molecular phylogeny of Noctuidae. These new findings have resulted in a taxonomic sea-change for the group, including the discovery and description of new tribes and subfamilies, and have provided a roadmap for future systematic studies of Noctuidae across the world.

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R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Tandem Effects of Changes in Both Climate and Land Use on Body Size

Speaker: Amanda Martin

Alterations in body size, a fundamental ecological trait, can have profound impacts on an organism’s life history and ecology with long-lasting effects that span multiple biological scales. Increased warming from climate change has led to smaller body size due to impacts on growth (i.e., Bergmann’s rule and temperature-size rule), but several exceptions exist. The impacts of land use change may offer an explanation as why not all animals are getting smaller in response to climate change. While impacts of land use on body size should adhere to the same physiological principles due to urban heat island effect, urbanized environments are also characterized by substantial habitat fragmentation and altered resource availability and quality which selects for larger body sizes associated with enhanced dispersal abilities. Thus, understanding the combined effects of climate and land use changes on body size is imperative for biodiversity preservation and predicting future responses to rapid environmental change.

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R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Presents: Northward Migration of Umbrella Magnolia via Horticultural Escape

Speaker: Jesse Bellemare

Due to climate change, many species will need to shift their distributions northward in coming decades; however, slow rates of natural dispersal might be insufficient to keep pace with the high rate of change, resulting in species declines or extinctions. To avoid this outcome, some biologists have proposed human intervention via “assisted migration” to move species northward into regions where they have not lived in the past, but where they are expected to survive in the future. Significant concerns about the potential for invasive behavior have delayed implementation of this controversial strategy, but native plant horticulture might already be resulting in “accidental” assisted migration for some plant species. This talk will review the case of Umbrella Magnolia (M. tripetala), an understory tree species native to southern Pennsylvania and areas southward that has historically been planted north of its native range in the Northeast U.S. With recent climate change, this tree has begun to escape from horticulture and naturalize north of its native range, effectively shifting its range northward in the directions forecast by climate models. The species provides a striking example of human-assisted migration and raises challenging questions about our definitions of “native” in a world of increasing species range shifts due to climate change.

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