Ice crawlers are a rare group of cold specialized insects that inhabit montane areas, caves, lava tubes and canyons. These areas are typically characteristic of colder regions, which makes these environments and ice crawlers particularly vulnerable to past and present climate change. The goal of this proposal is to understand how climate change has historically affected the genetic differentiation of the ice-crawlers in the family Grylloblattidae through population genetics. Historical glacial periods have been hypothesized to have a significant effect on the biodiversity of ice crawler populations and contributed to present day levels of genetic diversity. Glacial expansion resulted in ice crawlers dispersing to higher altitudes. Due to their low vagility, isolation was prominent and is what likely resulted in the biological diversity of current Grylloblattidae populations. This study focuses on reconstructing responses of ice crawlers to glacial cycles in the vicinity of the southern Cascades Range. Samples will go through a reduced representation genome sequencing process to measure variation, estimate relationships and reconstruct demographic changes. The results will be correlated with glaciation events to understand the effects of past changes in climate on genetic diversity among ice-crawler populations. If speciation in the phylogeny aligns with historical glacial cycles with low levels of efficient dispersal, then it can be concluded that glaciations impacted the diversification of Grylloblattidae populations. Understanding historical climate effects can provide insight into ice crawler genomics and would help to make predictions about the impact of future climate change.

The Manduca sexta hawkmoth, a proficient pollinator, employs its antennae to efficiently navigate its surroundings. Their antennae have highly sensitive olfactory receptor cells, providing acute odor recognition ability, which makes the moth's antennae an ideal tissue candidate for developing reliable biosensors. In contrast, commonly used portable artificial sensors are inefficient and inaccurate in chemical detection. To evaluate the moth antenna's effectiveness as a biosensor model, I assessed its neural activity longevity via an electroantennogram over 24-hour durations. I first attached an excised antenna to a circuit board to measure voltage variations across the antennal nerves during odor stimulation and establish a baseline understanding of the voltage lifespan. To increase the longevity of electrical activity, I formed a hydrogel solution to enclose the antenna, protecting it from drying out, and Leibovitz's L-15 Medium so the antenna has access to Amino Acids to continue cell and tissue growth, serving as an energy source. Preliminary findings show a tradeoff between longevity and electrical activity, where the antenna-only trials had high voltage readings over 4 hours while the hydrogel antenna had less intense electrical readings over 14 hours. The hydrogel proved to be a quality medium to preserve the antenna from dying prematurely. These results demonstrate that moth antennae are a suitable model for highly accurate and efficient biosensors, and support the feasibility of implementation in devices that detect and identify substances of interest with a longer lifespan. Future work will apply machine learning methods for enhanced chemical discrimination for disease diagnosis.

The darkling beetle (Alphitobius diaperinus), also known as the litter beetle or mealworm, is a common pest in poultry production. It infests chicken feed, transmits poultry-related diseases, and causes structural damage. Synthetic pesticides currently used in poultry houses are becoming less effective due to resistance and cannot be applied inside houses with chickens present due to their toxicity. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a novel hemp-derived pesticide (NHP) as a natural alternative for controlling litter beetles at various developmental stages. While hemp has shown insecticidal and repellent properties in some insect species, limited research has investigated its biological effects on Alphitobius species or across life stages. Feeding assays were conducted to assess toxicity in larvae and adults. All stages showed susceptibility including reduction in egg hatching. Our findings support the potential of hemp as an effective, natural alternative for managing litter beetle infestations in poultry environments.

Enumerative combinatorics is an area of math concerned with counting the number of distinct configurations for a set of discrete objects. Some examples of this are poker hands, configurations of chess pieces, isomers of a chemical compound, and configurations of atoms in a crystal structure. Polya’s Enumeration Theorem (a.k.a Polya counting) is a powerful tool that counts the number of distinct arrangements while accounting for geometric symmetry. This research is focused on using symmetry-based counting techniques to better classify structures based on rotation and reflection. We will also discuss some applications of Polya counting, including isomer identification and information networks.