Thesiss

Using protein chemistry, molecular biology, and electrophysiology techniques, we investigate the composition of two insect venoms with physiologically distinct actions. The first venom we explore comes from the parasitoid wasp, Ampulex compressa, which hunts the cockroach as a f…

Many Hymenoptera, with their painful stings and noxious chemical defenses, exhibit bright aposematic warning color patterns and are the most frequently mimicked group of organisms. Such aposematic color patterns are found in parasitic wasps of the Neotropical Compsobracon group …

Bee flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae) are pollinators as adults and larval parasitoids of various insect groups, including bees and wasps. Despite over half of all Texas bee fly genera exploiting hymenopterans, the prevalence, range, and specific life histories of these species are h…

Sex allocation and sexual selection have been heavily studied, but rarely linked. In this thesis I investigated the interface between them in the gregarious parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis, both directly and through their interactions with the mating system and sexual confli…