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:
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Jan/2026
Reo Maynard published his first paper, the first dissertation chapter in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology! Check it out:
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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!
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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.
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July/2025
Greg Biddle joined the lab as PhD graduate student and INSITE scholar
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Aug/2024
The lab presented their work at ICE 2024 in Kyoto, Japan.
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July/2024
The team reinitiated fieldwork in Hawaii. We spent ~2 weeks on Maui collecting endemic insects.
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June/2024
Perspective on how endosymbioses shaped global biodiversity over earth's history published in Genome Biology and Evolution​
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https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evae112
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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​
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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.
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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.
