The Ries Lab of Butterfly InformaticsA study that is a collaboration with our own Biology Department's Gina Wimp and Danny Lewis (as well as Shannon Murphy at Denver University) looking at edge effects on predators just was published online early in Ecology! The study looked at...
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April 25, 2019: Edge effect article disputing common wisdom about predators is online early at Ecology
April 16, 2019: Mariana gives invited seminar at University of Maryland
Mariana gave a talk in the University of Maryland's Entomology Department. She talked about the research she is doing on Baltimore Checkerspots. UMD has been a center of activity in terms of conservation efforts for the species. There was a...
Read moreApril 16, 2019: Vaughn Shirey receives a GRFP from NSF! Way to go Vaughn!!!
Wow! Its been a sweet couple of weeks for Vaughn. On top of the news that he received a National Geographic Explorer's award to carry out field research in Canada, he just found out that he was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from NSF....
Read moreMarch 21, 2019: Vaughn Shirey receives Nat'l Geo Explorer's Award
Vaughn just received an award that will cover expenses to do butterfly research in the Boreal forests of the Yukon this summer. He will be working with Greg Breed, a collaborator from University of Alaska - Fairbanks. Vaughn will be accompanied...
Read moreFebruary 15, 2019: Fall migration paper accepted for publication in PNAS!
A collaborative research paper (led by Sarah Saunders and Elise Zipkin of Michigan State University) showing that monarch overwinter colony size is still primarily driven by summer population size, but that only nectar availability during fall...
Read moreDecember 12, 2018: Ries gives talks at MSU and Kellog Biological Station
Leslie gave a talk at MSU on monarchs hosted by her good friend and former lab-mate Elise Zipkin. She met there with many collaborators, including students and post-docs from the Zipkin lab and also Scott Swinton who she is working on a...
Read moreAugust 08, 2018: Ries lab receives new funding to re-use NSF-funded data on butterfly thermal ecology
Mariana Abarca will be leading this project to compile data and develop models of thermal responses by tapping into 40 years of NSF research on Pierid butterflies. She will work with the Kingsolver lab at UNC who to compile data from their long...
Read moreAugust 05, 2018: Our first silver-spotted skipper paper accepted for publication!
Mariana is first author on a collaborative paper presenting the results of our first season of rearing of silver-spotted skippers where we used the data to develop a predictive model of phenology. In a collaboration with Martha Weiss and John...
Read moreMay 30, 2018: Two rounds of surveys completed for Hurricane Harvey impact study
Jeff Pippen and Ries Lab members Naresh Neupane and Andra Doherty completed over 120 surveys at sites in southeast Texas this spring to help study the impact Hurricane Harvey had on insect resources and butterfly populations.
March 15, 2018: Ries lab studying Hurricane Harvey impact on TX Monarch resources
Dr. Ries recently visited the wintering grounds of Monarchs in Oyamel forests of Mexico, witnessing the millions of Monarchs preparing for the spring migration.
The Ries lab is actively engaged in Monarch research and conservation, working...
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