Insect Symbiosis and Evolution
Lab News
// Endemic Hawaiian Leafhopper Picture Book is now available
Check it out: click here
// We are recruiting graduate students to study the effects of climate change on insects and their microbes. This opportunity is part of our NSF-BII-INSITE
Contact: Gordon Bennett
learn more: click here
Jan/2026
Deepika Gunasekaran published his rotation project with collaborators from UC Berkeley in Genomic Biology and Evolution! Check it out:
Jan/2026
Reo Maynard published his first paper, the first dissertation chapter in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology! Check it out:
Dec/2025
Miguel Estrada Caballero, Greg Biddle, and Gordon Bennett conducted field work on Kauai. It was a productive trip. Found a new record of a species on the beach - no joke!
July/2025
Miguel Estrada Caballero, Greg Biddle, and Gordon Bennett conducted field work on Maui in Haleakala National Park. They collaborated with National Park staff and researchers.
July/2025
Greg Biddle joined the lab as PhD graduate student and INSITE scholar
June/2025
Dr. Younghwan Kwak presents a talk AND and poster at the Gordon Animal-Microbe Research Conference in Portlan Maine.
May/2025
Dr. Heather Stever successfully defended her Ph.D. and graduated. It was a terrific seminar and a well-deserved accomplishment. She's now off to new frontiers.
March/2025
Gordon Bennett presented a very brief story of mitochondrial support genes aiding symbiont cell functions @ UT Austin for the Moran-Ochman Alumni Celebration. It was soooo much fun and nice to see the "academic family" and all their cool work.
Oct/2024
Gordon Bennett presented BII-INSITE's work on insect conservation at the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Management (NREM) seminar @ U. Hawaii Manoa.
Aug/2024
The lab presented their work at ICE 2024 in Kyoto, Japan.
July/2024
The team reinitiated fieldwork in Hawaii. We spent ~2 weeks on Maui collecting endemic insects.
June/2024
Perspective on how endosymbioses shaped global biodiversity over earth's history published in Genome Biology and Evolution
https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evae112
Aug/2023
Former Ph.D. Student Yumary Vasquez published her second dissertation chapter investigating whole genome evolution of Macrosteles quadrilineatus.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13919
Aug/2023
Graduate Student, Miguel Estrada Caballero, joins the lab. He is an NSF BII Graduate Fellow and will be working in the evolution of Hawaiian insect symbioses and climate change.
July/2023
Postdoc, Younghwan Kwak, joins the lab. She is an NSF BII Postdoc Fellow and will be working on acclimitization and adaption of leafhopper symbioses to climate change.
