Erica Westerman

University of Arkansas | U of A · Department of Biological Sciences

Phenotypic plasticity allows many animals to quickly respond to seasonal changes in their environment. Seasonal changes to physiological systems, such as sensory systems, may explain other more obvious changes in behaviour, often working synergistically with changes in morphology. Here we investigate if there are covarying seasonal changes to morph...

Prey-predator interactions have resulted in the evolution of many anti-predatory traits. One of them is the ability for prey to listen to predators and avoid them. Although prey anti-predatory behavioural responses to predator auditory cues are well described in a wide range of taxa, studies on whether butterflies change their behaviours in respons...

Animal communities can undergo seasonal shifts in assemblage, responding to changes in their environment. Animal behavior can also shift due to seasonal environmental variation, with the potential to shape ecosystems. However, it is unclear if similar environmental factors and time scales affect both abundance and behavior. We examined how butterfl...

Sexually dimorphic behavior is pervasive across animals, with males and females exhibiting different mate selection, parental care, foraging, dispersal, and territorial strategies. However, the genetic underpinnings of sexually dimorphic behaviors are poorly understood. Here we investigate gene networks and expression patterns associated with sexua...

While male mate choice has received sparse attention in comparison to female choice, it occurs often in insects. In addition, male insects may preferentially allocate sperm and ejaculate in response to female quality. Previous research indicates that male Bicyclus anynana butterflies can learn mate preference through prior exposure to females, thou...

Oakleaf butterflies in the genus Kallima have a polymorphic wing phenotype, enabling these insects to masquerade as dead leaves. This iconic example of protective resemblance provides an interesting evolutionary paradigm that can be employed to study biodiversity. We integrated multi-omic data analyses and functional validation to infer the evoluti...

Sexually dimorphic behavior is pervasive across animals, with males and females exhibiting different mate selection, parental care, foraging, dispersal, and territorial strategies. However, the genetic underpinnings of sexually dimorphic behaviors are poorly understood. Here we investigate gene networks and expression patterns associated with sexua...

The spectrum of light that an animal sees—from ultraviolet to far red light—is governed by the number and wavelength sensitivity of a family of retinal proteins called opsins. It has been hypothesized that the spectrum of light available in an environment influences the range of colours that a species has evolved to see. However, invertebrates and...

Butterflies have evolved an immense diversity in eye organization to support a range of vision-based behaviors including courtship, oviposition, and foraging. This diversity has been surveyed extensively across the butterfly phylogeny, and here we take a complementary approach to characterize the eye within a group of closely related Heliconius but...

Many studies have linked genetic variation to behavior, but less is known about how that variation alters the neural circuits that drive behavior. We investigated the genetic and neurobiological basis of courtship preference variation in Heliconius butterflies, which use vision to identify appropriate mates based on wing color patterns. We found th...

Many animals have the ability to learn, and some taxa have shown learned mate preference, which may be important for speciation. The butterfly Heliconius melpomene is a model system for several areas of research, including hybridization, mate selection and speciation, partially due to its widespread diversity of wing patterns. It remains unclear wh...

The spectrum of light that an animal sees - from ultraviolet to far red light - is governed by the number and wavelength sensitivity of a family of retinal proteins called opsins. It has been hypothesized that the spectrum of light available in an environment influences the range of colors that a species has evolved to see. However, invertebrates a...

While many traits can be gained or lost over evolutionary time, it has long been unclear whether complex sensory processing structures, such as brain neuropils, can be regained after having been lost. Morris et al. (2021) show that a part of the brain once lost in butterflies, a macro-glomeruli complex (MGC) in the antennal lobe, is prevalent and h...

Background Animal behavior is largely driven by the information that animals are able to extract and process from their environment. However, the function and organization of sensory systems often change throughout ontogeny, particularly in animals that undergo indirect development. As an initial step toward investigating these ontogenetic changes...

Heliconius butterflies have undergone adaptive radiation and therefore serve as an excellent system for exploring the continuum of speciation and adaptive evolution. However, there is a long-lasting paradox between their convergent mimetic wing patterns and rapid divergence in speciation. Here, we characterize a locus that consistently displays hig...

Agricultural dependency on insect-mediated pollination is increasing at the same time that pollinator populations are experiencing declines in diversity and abundance. Current pollinator research in agriculture focuses largely on diurnal pollinators, yet the evidence for pollination by moths and other nocturnal pollinators is growing. Apples are on...

Community science, which engages students and the public in data collection and scientific inquiry, is often integrated into conservation and long-term monitoring efforts. However, it has the potential to also introduce the public to, and be useful for, sensory ecology and other fields of study. Here we describe a community science project that exp...

Animal behavior is largely driven by the information that animals are able to extract and process from their environment. However, the function and organization of sensory systems often change throughout ontogeny, particularly in animals that undergo indirect development. As an initial step toward investigating these ontogenetic changes at the mole...

Synopsis Mechanistically connecting genotypes to phenotypes is a longstanding and central mission of biology. Deciphering these connections will unite questions and datasets across all scales from molecules to ecosystems. Although high-throughput sequencing has provided a rich platform on which to launch this effort, tools for deciphering mechanism...

Many animals have the ability to learn, and some taxa have shown learned mate preference. This learning may be important for speciation in some species. The butterfly Heliconius melpomene is a model system for several areas of research, including hybridization, mate selection, and speciation, partially due to its widespread diversity of wing patter...

A female Bicyclus anynana and an onlooking male. The dorsal eyespots display variation in number and are hidden from view on the inner sides of the wings. See Rivera-Colón et al., pp. 1059–1078. Image courtesy of William Piel and Antónia Monteiro.

Body plans often evolve through changes in the number of repeated parts or serial homologs. Using the butterfly Bicyclus anynana, RiveraColón et al. studied the genetics underlying heritability... The underlying genetic changes that regulate the appearance and disappearance of repeated traits, or serial homologs, remain poorly understood. One hypot...

Species susceptible to inbreeding depression are hypothesized to combat this problem through a number of different mechanisms, including kin recognition. For species with kin recognition, it is unknown if filial recognition is innate or due to prior juvenile experience with siblings. Here, we first test for the presence of kin recognition, and then...

The underlying genetic changes that regulate the appearance and disappearance of repeated traits, or serial homologs, remain poorly understood. One hypothesis is that variation in genomic regions flanking master regulatory genes, also known as input-output genes, controls variation in trait number, making the locus of evolution almost predictable....

Mating displays often contain multiple signals. Different combinations of these signals may be equally successful at attracting a mate, as environment and signal combination may influence relative signal weighting by choosy individuals. This variation in signal weighting among choosy individuals may facilitate the maintenance of polymorphic display...

Animals display an astonishing array of diverse colors and patterns, and animals also exhibit preferences for these diverse, species-specific traits when choosing a mate (i.e., assortative mate preference). It is hypothesized that in order for both preference and trait to be species specific, alleles for a trait and the preference for that trait mu...

The underlying genetic changes that regulate the appearance and disappearance of repeated traits, or serial homologs, remain poorly understood. One hypothesis is that variation in genomic regions flanking master regulatory genes, also known as input-output genes, controls variation in trait number, making the locus of evolution almost predictable....

The postdoctoral community is an essential component of the academic and scientific workforce, but a lack of data about this community has made it difficult to develop policies to address concerns about salaries, working conditions, diversity and career development, and to evaluate the impact of existing policies. Here we present comprehensive surv...

Neotropical Heliconius butterflies display a diversity of warningly colored wing patterns, which serve roles in both Müllerian mimicry and mate choice behavior. Wing pattern diversity in Heliconius is controlled by a small number of unlinked, Mendelian "switch" loci [1]. One of these, termed the K locus, switches between yellow and white color patt...

The postdoctoral community is an essential component of the academic and scientific workforce. As economic and political pressures impacting these enterprises continue to change, the postdoc experience has evolved from short, focused periods of training into often multidisciplinary, extended positions with less clear outcomes. As efforts are underw...

Supergene mimicry is a striking phenomenon but we know little about the evolution of this trait in any species. Here, by studying genomes of butterflies from a recent radiation in which supergene mimicry has been isolated to the gene doublesex, we show that sexually dimorphic mimicry and female-limited polymorphism are evolutionarily related as a r...

Aim Couple field and modelling studies to evaluate the effects of rising water temperature on reproduction of a dominant marine species and how temperature induced changes in a species' phenology may affect fouling communities that occur along a temperature gradient. Location North western Atlantic. Methods We examined the interaction between max...

Rearing environment can have an impact on adult behavior, but it is less clear how rearing environment influences adult behavior plasticity. Here we explore the effect of rearing temperature on adult mating behavior plasticity in the butterfly Bicyclus anynana, a species that has evolved two seasonal forms in response to seasonal changes in tempera...

Correlations of male and female activity levels by treatment. (PDF)

Parametric Survival Model of B. anynana lifespan. (PDF)

GLM of best fit for copulation duration, fit of all models tested. (PDF)

GLM effect tests for factors influencing copulation rates. (PDF)

GLM effect tests for factors influencing male and female activity, all data pooled. (PDF)

GLM effect tests for factors influencing WS male and female activity. (PDF)

GLM effect tests for factors influencing DS male and female activity. (PDF)

Reproduction is often more costly to females than it is to males, leading to the evolution of ornamented or competitive males and choosy females. Reproduction costs to females, however, can be reduced through nuptial gifts provided by males. These gifts, by increasing female survival or fecundity, can promote the evolution of mutual mate choice, or...

Fixed, genetically determined, mate preferences for species whose adult phenotype varies with rearing environment may be maladaptive, as the phenotype that is most fit in the parental environment may be absent in the offspring environment. Mate preference in species with polyphenisms (environmentally dependent alternative phenotypes) should therefo...

Mating displays are often composed of multiple signals in multiple sensory modalities, with each individual signal contributing to the attractiveness of the displaying individual. Adult mate preferences for some of these signals are learned during premating, or juvenile, social experience with a sexually mature individual. While learned mate prefer...

Transitory fusion is an allorecognition phenotype displayed by the colonial hydroid Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus when interacting colonies share some, but not all, loci within the allorecognition gene complex (ARC). The phenotype is characterized by an initial fusion followed by subsequent cell death resulting in separation of the two incompatible...

Colony identifications. (DOCX)

Continuous time-lapse imaging of rf/ff versus rr/rr transitory fusion reaction at 9-minute intervals (46X). Colonies began to separate at 52∶12 hours following initial contact. (MP4)

Movie generated from tracings of gastrovascular canals of selected frames of Movie S1. Frames were chosen to minimize the extent to which polyps obscure the fusion zone. The time post-contact is given on each frame (hours:minutes). Note that gastrovascular architecture in the fusion zone is largely constant once initiated and that gastrovascular re...

Polyp grafting experiments. (A) Isogeneic (rr/rr versus rr/rr) control grafts. (B) Isogeneic grafts incubated in necrostatin. (C) Allogeneic (fr/ff versus rr/rr) control grafts. (D) Close-up of graft margin in an allogeneic control showing cellular debris. (E) Allogeneic grafts in necrostatin. Scale: 200 um. (TIFF)

Transitory fusion reaction of an rf/ff versus rr/rr while incubated in 3-MA (38X). To minimize file size the film begins 67∶40 post-contact. Frames acquired after removal from 3-MA at 152∶00 hours are designated. (MP4)

Early acquisition of mate preferences or mate-preference learning is associated with signal diversity and speciation in a wide variety of animal species. However, the diversity of mechanisms of mate-preference learning across taxa remains poorly understood. Using the butterfly Bicyclus anynana we uncover a mechanism that can lead to directional sex...

Climate change and its role in altering biological interactions and the likelihood of invasion by introduced species in marine systems have received increased attention in recent years. It is difficult to forecast how climate change will influence community function or the probability of invasion as it alters multiple marine environmental parameter...

Studies on insect melanism have greatly contributed to our understanding of natural selection and the ultimate factors influencing the evolution of darkly pigmented phenotypes. Research on several species of melanic lepidopteran larvae have found that low levels of circulating juvenile hormone (JH) titers are associated with a melanic phenotype, su...

The egg-laying behavior of female insects could directly benefit the mother, her offspring, or a combination of both. Periodical cicada (Magicicada septendecim (L.)) females oviposit in twigs in the forest canopy, and newly hatched nymphs fall to the ground, where they spend 17 years feeding on tree roots. If nymph dispersal from their mother's ovi...

Many benthic colonial invertebrates have the ability to fuse and form chimeras with compatible colonies. Botryllid ascidians are model organisms for the study of the evolution of and molecular basis for allorecognition, and fusion rates have been determined for different populations and species by random sampling and fusion testing between individu...

Increased awareness of climate change and invasive species has resulted in a surge of studies on how climate change impacts the invasibility of communities. A common method of study is comparing temperature ranges of native or naturalized species to those of highly invasive species. Two fouling community animals that have been so compared are the a...

The influence of abiotic factors on the establishment and success of invasive species is often difficult to determine for most marine ecosystems. However, examining this relationship is critical for predicting the spread of invasive species and predicting which habitats will be most vulnerable to invasion. Here we examine the mortality and physiolo...

Invasive ascidians are a growing concern for ecologists and natural resource managers, yet few studies have documented their short- and long-term temporal patterns of abundance. This study focuses on the invasion of the Gulf of Maine by the colonial ascidians Botryllus schlosseri, Botrylloides violaceus, Diplosoma listerianum and Didemnum sp. A. We...