Plants, Predators, and Parasitoids:
Hemiptera as a Model System for the study of Tri-Trophic Associations
Primary Researcher: Craig C. Freeman
Funding source: NSF subcontract
As part of the American Museum of Natural History-led, multi-institutional study of tritrophic associations (selected North American plants, their phytophagous hemipteran predators, and parasitoid predators of those hemipteran insects), the R.L. McGregor Herbarium (KANU) is contributing critical plant specimen data for approximately 96,000 specimens in 18 vascular plant families for which hemipterans exhibit a particular host preference: Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Chenopodiaceae, Cyperaceae, Fabaceae, Fagaceae, Grossulariaceae, Juglandaceae, Lamiaceae, Oleaceae, Pinaceae, Poaceae, Polygonaceae, Rhamnaceae, Salicaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Solanaceae, and Zygophyllaceae. The study will allow researchers to address a wide range of questions in systematics, evolution, conservation biology, ecosystems studies, biogeography, and agricultural science.
