| Affiliations: | |
| Project Leader: | Morgan Thompson mthompson@tamu.edu Entomology |
| Faculty Mentor: | Helms, Anjel, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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TBA |
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Team Size:
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3
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| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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Students will have the opportunity to develop technical skills including but not limited to designing experiments, extracting plant metabolites, collecting and analyzing volatile chemicals, maintaining plant and insect colonies, conducting statistical analyses/coding in R, and scientific writing. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to present findings at regional and national conferences, earn co-authorship on peer-reviewed publications, and become a full member of the research group |
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Team Needs:
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Basic knowledge of biology (including but not limited to ecology and molecular biology) is recommended. Interest in learning about chemical ecology, plant-insect interactions, and insect ecology is preferred. Must be comfortable working with plants, insects, and soil. Organization, reliability, and enthusiasm for scientific discovery are required |
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Description:
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Plants produce an incredible diversity of chemical compounds, which play important roles in a number of different ecological interactions. When plants emit volatile chemical compounds, these volatiles diffuse into the environment and can be detected by insect herbivores, pollinators, predators, and even other plants. In this way, plants can use volatiles to ‘talk’ to one another, communicating critical information about stressors in their environment. Insect feeding on plant tissue induces volatile emissions and thereby changes communication between plants. Our lab is actively investigating how insects influence volatile chemical communication between plants and the current project will further elucidate key characteristics that shape this emerging area of research |