March 2017 – Insects on Plants, Chemical Ecology, and Coevolution

Early reviews & events: Monarchs and Milkweed

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Monarchs and Milkweed is now available, although the official release date from Princeton University Press in April 11. On Saturday April 8th, I will be participating in the San Antonio Book Festival. Early reviews have been positive (thank you!), including a whirlwind summary in the Washington Post, which emphasizes conservation issues and my argument that milkweed limitation is not driving… Read more

Winter Walk #3

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

On Friday March 24, we had our third winter walk… after a mostly snow-free and rather warm winter, last week we got well over a foot of snow in Ithaca. Schools (including Cornell) were closed for 2 days, and we all did a bit of skiing. The ground has retained more snow cover from this storm than it had all… Read more

Gordon Conference – Cornell connections

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

The women of Cornell’s plant-herbivore group (Jennifer, Natasha, Zoe, Katja, Katie, Lina, and Aino) recently returned from the plant-herbivore interactions gordon research conference. Pictures below by Jennifer Thaler. As usual, Jennifer described the GRC as a love-fest, seeing old friends and meeting new colleagues. Especially fun for those in attendance (I was home looking after the family) were all of… Read more

The importance of academic service in research communities

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Lina Arcila-Hernandez — No Comments ↓

By Lina Arcila Hernández and Katie Holmes In recent conversations mulling over the history of science, we’ve talked about a shift in the social environment that scientists experience. It seems that historically, scientific knowledge has been built by highly creative individuals driven by an acute desire to understand the world around them. And still today, scientists spend a big part… Read more

Jigsaw #3 – Specialists vs. Generalists

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Last week in the Plant-Interactions-Group we had our 3rd JIGSAW session. Our topic was specialists vs. generalists in plant-herbivore interactions. I was inspired to cover this topic because it is a persistent issue, one that has been discussed widely in ecology for decades. Are specialists and generalists fundamentally different in their ecological and evolutionary relationships with plants? Is this an… Read more

The oldest butterfly?

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — 1 Comment ↓

It’s unclear when humans became humans. Presumably it was a gradual growth of our consciousness over the eons. There are some things, however, that appear to distinguish us from most other animals. For example, our artistic depictions. From the deepest, darkest caves have emerged pictures of humanity from thousands of years ago. And in an Egyptian tomb, that of Nebamun,… Read more

Winter Walk 2017 #2

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Anurag Agrawal — No Comments ↓

Last week, late in February, it was nearly 70F in Ithaca, NY. Buds were breaking, as were temperature records. I heard a lecture yesterday that projected that this spring would be 2-3 weeks early compared to 2012, which previously held the record as the earliest spring in recent decades. In 2012, I watched a monarch butterfly lay an egg on… Read more