Four lab members traveled to Tremont, Tennessee for the 52nd annual Southeast Population Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics (SEPEEG) meeting this past weekend. Alexandra, Lucy and Mia presented posters about their work in the Erickson lab, and new lab member Amy presented about her previous undergraduate research at UR. We all enjoyed networking with biology researchers from around the region and took in the lovely scenery of the Great Smoky Mountains with a hike to a waterfall. 

 Our paper studying population genetics in a large sample of North American Zaprionus has been published in G3! We created a new reference genome for Z. indianus and sequenced over 200 individual flies. We found evidence that North American populations may have rapidly evolved resistance to pesticides since colonizing the Western Hemisphere. Undergraduates Alexandra Stellwagen UR '26 and Ansleigh Gunter UR '24 both contributed to this work. Read more on the G3 website or in the attached PDF: 

Micropublications are a new publication format that allow for quick dissemination of small but rigorous research results. Weston just published data from two years of field sampling of Z. indianus (in collaboration with Alan Bergland's lab at UVA) in microPublication Biology. We found that Z. indianus distribution in the eastern US was geographically variable across years and even documented them potentially using native black walnuts and pawpaws as hosts! https://www.micropublication.org/journals/biology/micropub-biology-001707

Our most recent paper was a true team effort! Six UR undergraduates worked together to test for rapid evolution of ecologically-relevant traits in Z. indianus. We found that wing size evolves in just a few generations in invasive populations!  Postbac Logan Rakes led the lab work and postbac Weston Gray led the analysis. Stay tuned to see if our results replicate in a second year of study....
https://academic.oup.com/evolut/advance-article/doi/10.1093/evolut/qpaf102/8129715

 Congrats to Alexandra Stellwagen, who was awarded the Junior Research Award at the 2025 Biology Awards Ceremony! Alexandra was recognized for her outstanding academic achievement and her research in the Erickson lab that combines her CS and Biology majors. Alexandra has learned to analyze transcriptome and population genomic data in the past year and will be using her CS skills in a health research setting in an internship at St. Jude this summer. Congrats Alexandra!

Congrats to lab alum Camille Walsh-Antzak, whose honors thesis was published in the journal Ecology and Evolution!

Invasive species may succeed in new environments in part because they are less susceptible to diseases and parasites that have co-evolved with local hosts, giving invaders a competitive advantage. We tested this hypothesis by competing an invasive fruit fly against established species in the presence of parasitoid wasps that lay their eggs in fruit fly larvae. We found that the invasive species generally outcompeted other species in the presence of parasitoids, but the extent of its advantage depended on the species it was competing against and the number of larvae present.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.70754

Weston, Logan, Christine, Ansleigh, Jerry, Sam, Jillian, and Camille all contributed their expertise to our huge study of rapid phenotypic evolution in Z. indianus. We found that flies evolve smaller wings within a few generations of invading new environments, and other phenotypic changes also occur.  These findings suggest that the species can evolve rapidly, which could fuel future invasions and pest potential. Check out our work here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.15.623845v1

Our work on population genomics of invasive Z. indianus populations in North America is now available on BioRxiv! UR undergraduate Ansleigh Gunter (pictured at left) contributed to some of the analyses in this paper. Check it out here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.20.614190v1

Read about what members of the Erickson lab have been up to this summer  on the URNow website!

Congrats to Camille, who just published her honors thesis work on BioRxiv! Read more about her work on how Z. indianus may get a boost by avoiding parasitoid wasps here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.07.09.602257v1