Similarly, although larval survival is, on average, highest on turkey oak, there is considerable variation among beetle families for survival on the other hosts. Two aspects of this study are somewhat novel. Second, and most important, all experiments involve manipulating beetles on their natural hosts in the wild. Using mesh bags, females are placed on clusters of leaves and rotated among all potential host plants. This method gave estimates that compared well with those generated using classical breeding experiments.
Resistance appears related to tree phenology, leaf shape and size, and biochemical composition.
The striped ground cricket, Allonemobius fasciatus, is an ideal organism for the study of mating preferences in the wild. During copulation females chew on a specialized gland located on the male's tibia . A male's mating history can be ascertained by non-destructive visual inspection of this tibial gland. Virgins show no damage while mated males show evidence of a chewed tibia. A second thrust of my research program concerns the evolution of adaptive maternal effects.