Got Pollinators?
A research team led by Sharon Strauss, Section of Evolution and Ecology, found that insect pollinators spent less time visiting mustard plants (Brassica rapa) that contained higher levels of the defensive compound myrosinase, which confers resistance to the herbivorous flea beetle. The time reduction was attributed to the altered floral characteristics of higher-resistance plants: reduced petal size and a lower number of open flowers. Therefore, when pollinator populations are limited, less-defended plants may have a selective advantage. Strauss, et al. Evolution 53:1105-1113.
How low can you go?
Ecologist Art Shapiro partly blames a freeze during winter 1998, and a cool spring and summer in 1999, for the lowest Sacramento Valley butterfly population in three decades. However, Shapiro's 28 years of records show that population peaks and valleys are typical; low numbers of some butterfly species aren't particularly worrisome. In the Sierra Nevada above 5,000 feet, butterfly numbers were normal or better than average. Shapiro's butterfly research was featured on the March cover of The Weekly Reader, an educational magazine for parents, teachers, and children.
On the fly
Fruit fly geneticist Kenneth Burtis, an associate professor of molecular and cellular biology, is author number 52 in a list of 195 authors of the March 24, 2000, article in Science titled "The Genome of Drosophila melanogaster." The authors report the nucleotide sequence of nearly all of the Drosophila genome, paving the way for many new insights into this important biological model. |