Time is a tyrant and, as I have write this, my summer Erasmus student, Teun de Jong, has almost finished his internship. I first met Teun in Wageningen, in February 2023, during my visiting fellowship to the lab of Nina Fatouros. Teun was fascinated by my work on thermal fertility sensitivity in the large white butterfly, Pieris brassicae, and the experimental set up that Jamie Smith had worked on during last summer 2022 for his MSc research (as a side note, congratulations to Jamie on securing a PhD at the University of Hull!). Luckily, he secured an Erasmus research internship to come work with me in Lincoln this summer 2023! Teun has worked very hard this summer to replicate Jamie's experiments heating wild pupae of the large white butterfly, and measuring the effects of heat on butterfly reproduction success and fitness. Teun arrived the last week in May 2023, and, in a happy coincidence, I had just received news that I had been funded by the Royal Society for an international exchange with Sylvain Pincebourde. Teun therefore, started trialling different thermal imaging cameras with Sylvain's help. Following this, Teun launched into rearing butterflies and plants, setting up experiments and troubleshooting the butterfly's lack of interest in mating! I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Teun, who is looking for a PhD. I can highly recommend him, he is hard working, dedicated, and I have no doubt he will find a suitable project to pursue and excel in.
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With the simulated heatwaves experiments well under way, and the behavioural experiments finally progressing, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Since Sofia Gigliotti joined us in April 2022, we have been so busy preparing experiments, sourcing caterpillars and setting up the field study, that this is my first post in four months and Sofia has left us! However, it is a sign that we have been working very hard to make our British Ecological Society-funded large project work.
Jamie Smith has been in charge of looking after the Pieris brassicae pupae. He has released them in their field enclosure and they have mated, produced eggs and the caterpillars have successfully hatched. He has then set up the simulated heatwave experiments and is attempting cross-matings between heated individuals and controls. Fingers crossed it works out! Meanwhile Electra is investigating the behavioural thermoregulation of caterpillars. Originally we were hoping to use large white (P. brassicae) too, but we had to source some new ones when the first batch died - I do wonder whether our heated diapause caused them physiological stress (see for example, this new work by Nielsen et al 2022 on Pieris napi). Electra has worked against all odds as two more batches of caterpillars did not make it! She is now working with a third batch sourced from the wild, and things are finally looking better. |
AuthorGraziella Iossa Archives
August 2023
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