Phylogenetic and Comparative Studies of Tiger moths (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidae)

'This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).'

The project will assess evolutionary relationships among tiger moths and the evolutionary associations of moth feeding behavior with plant chemicals that serve to protect moths from predators. Relationships among tiger moths will be assessed using DNA data and this information will allow specific questions of life history and morphological evolution in this moth lineage to be answered. One such question involves the association of particular mouthpart structures with adult feeding on potentially protective plant chemicals. Another question examines whether ultrasound-producing structures used in defense against bat predation and in moth courtship are evolutionarily correlated with changes in feeding behavior.

These results could provide valuable insights into the evolution of animal behavior through examination of a novel system that likely evolved under unique ecological and physiological constraints. Both graduate and undergraduate students will be trained as part of the work and additional scientific products of this study will include a web-based tutorial on the evolution of butterfly and moth mouthparts and adult feeding strategies. Contributions to scientific infrastructure will include deposition of data in Morphbank, Genbank, and the All-Leps Barcode of Life project database. This information will be valuable for educational outreach and future studies in physiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology.