N. K. Whiteman

This study examines gene family evolution in herbivorous Drosophila to understand dietary adaptation, finding higher gene turnover in herbivores but limited losses on the ancestral herbivore branch.

This study confirms Scaptomyza flava is an obligate herbivore and presents it as a model system for studying herbivory evolution.

The paper investigates the ecological and genetic factors maintaining color polymorphism in grasshoppers, finding that predation and genome structure influence morph frequencies and crypsis.

The paper reports horizontal transfer of microbial toxin genes to gall midge genomes, identifying multiple toxin genes with eukaryotic targets and environmental proximity as a driver of HGT.

The paper presents high-quality genome assemblies for 101 drosophilid lines using Oxford Nanopore sequencing, achieving high contig N50 and BUSCO completeness.

The paper investigates competitive interactions among bacterial strains in a plant microbiome, finding that P. fluorescens outcompetes P. syringae through growth rate, lag time, and antibiotic production.

The paper studies the evolution of the plant-penetrating ovipositor in Scaptomyza, finding that regulatory variation in developmental genes contributes to this adaptation.

This study identifies olfactory receptor paralogs in Scaptomyza flava that detect mustard oils, showing how plant toxins were co-opted as olfactory attractants through gene duplication and functional specialization.

This study shows insect herbivory increases bacterial abundance in leaf microbiomes and alters community composition, potentially influencing plant disease dynamics.

This study examines how the evolution of herbivory in Drosophila species reshaped their genome, particularly in genes related to chemical sensing and detoxification.

The paper reports the horizontal transfer of the cdtB gene, encoding a DNase, from bacteriophages to eukaryotic insect genomes, where it retains DNase activity and may serve as a defensive mechanism against parasitoid wasps.

The paper investigates how herbivore habitat preference influences plant distribution, finding that herbivores prefer sunny habitats over shade plants, driving the plant's distribution into shaded areas.

This study shows that bittercress plants from sunny and shaded habitats exhibit heritable differences in growth and herbivory resistance, with no growth-defense tradeoff constraints.