60 crickets in two hours!
TJ is leading a massive field effort between the Larson and Firneno Labs! Below are a few photos from their various trips across the field cricket hybrid zone.
Gabrielle, Scott and Lauren went to Cricket Course, a five-day workshop at the Archbold Biological Station in Florida that provided hands-on training in identification, ecology, behavior, and bioacoustics of crickets. The Larson and Tinghitella Lab team learned taxonomy and bioacoustics, and received training in ensiferan collection, rearing, recording, song analysis, species identification, and pinning.
Erica, Robin Tinghitella and Luana Maroja were awarded an NSF Rules of Life grant to study the evolution of variable species boundaries in field crickets. As part of our public education efforts, Julie Morris will be helping us organize Nature Challenges on singing insects. The team is excited to get started!
Congratulations to Brooke, who was awarded a Northwest Scientific Association Student Research Grant!. Brooke will use this grant to travel to the Washington (whenever travel restrictions are lifted) to collected red and black sticklebacks.
Congratulations to Amy who was awarded The Explorers Club Mamont Scholar Grant and an Orthopterists Society Theodore J. Cohn Research Award. Amy will use these grants to travel to Pennsylvania to collect crickets.
The Murphy, Tinghitella and Larson Labs have been sampling clover across Denver as part of the Global Urban Evolution Project. We had great help from Veronica Huizar and Gui Zheng, who are participating in the University of Denver STEM Student Research Initiative. Check out Veronica and Gui's blogs about their summer research experience!
Veronica Huizar