Source: SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
THE FARM CLASSROOM - A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH INCORPORATING ECOLOGY, VIROLOGY, AND POPULATION GENOMICS IN HOPS (HUMULUS LUPULUS L.) BIOLOGY
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1028724
Grant No.
2022-77040-38529
Cumulative Award Amt.
$264,959.00
Proposal No.
2022-02638
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 15, 2022
Project End Date
Sep 14, 2026
Grant Year
2022
Program Code
[NJ]- Hispanic Serving Institutions Education Grants Program
Recipient Organization
SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
SAN DIEGO,CA 92182
Performing Department
Biology
Non Technical Summary
This grant will develop a research-based course at two regional HSI's - SDSU and CSUSM - to address scientific questions related to hops (Humulus lupulus L.) production. With two regional hop farmers and USDA-ARS, over 100 undergraduate, 14 graduate students will be trained in field, lab, and bioinformatics methods in (1) cataloging genomic diversity of local hops to assess their origin, (2) metagenomics of hop farm soil microbiomes to assess microbial community diversity to identify microbial pathogens, (3) assess effectiveness of insects in hop integrated pest management, and (4) understand hop-virus interactions by assessing the epidemiology, population genomics of viral infection.?
Animal Health Component
40%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
20%
Applied
40%
Developmental
40%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
20122301060100%
Knowledge Area
201 - Plant Genome, Genetics, and Genetic Mechanisms;

Subject Of Investigation
2230 - Hops;

Field Of Science
1060 - Biology (whole systems);
Goals / Objectives
This grant will develop a research-based course at two regional HSI's - SDSU and CSUSM - to address scientific questions related to hops (Humulus lupulusL.) production. With two regional hop farmers and USDA-ARS, over 100 undergraduate, 14 graduate students will be trained in field, lab, and bioinformatics methods in (1) cataloging genomic diversity of local hops to assess their origin, (2) metagenomics of hop farm soil microbiomes to assess microbial community diversity to identify microbial pathogens, (3) assess effectiveness of insects in hop integrated pest management, and (4) understand hop-virus interactions by assessing the epidemiology, population genomics of viral infection.This overall goal will be accomplished by(1)initiating research projects in consultation with collaborators at the USDA-ARS and the SDHGA,(2)recruiting students that are interested in pursuing agricultural and environmental research as a potential career,(3)developing curriculum to train students in the cutting edge research methods required for addressing pressing questions in the agricultural and environmental sciences,(4)implementation of a course entitled"Research Methods in Agricultural Science" based on the research and curriculum developed above,(5)developing independent student research and new internship opportunities in agriculture and natural resource science, and(6)providing career and academic advising to student participants.These activities will result in several measurable outcomes, including an increase in(1)the number of students conducting research and receiving training in agricultural sciences,(2)student confidence in their ability to conduct agricultural research,(3)student confidence and ability in "soft-skills" such as critical-thinking, communication, and teamwork, and(4)the number of students seeking graduate degrees and/or careers in agricultural sciences.
Project Methods
Activity 1: Initiation of research projects will occur in consultation with Dr. John Henning, and Dr. Nahla Bassil, Plant Geneticists at the USDA-ARS, the San Diego Hop Growers Association , and Hopportunity Farm.First, we will catalog the genomic diversity of local hops strains to assess their origin, which can then be used to screen local cultivars for local climate and soil conditions. We will subject cultivated (Star B Ranch, Hopportunity Farms) and curated (USDA) strains to genotyping by sequencing, and utilize model-based statistical methods to estimate (1) the recent evolutionary history of hops in the United States, (2) functional annotation of outlier loci identified as potential targets for artificial selection, (3) conduct a meta-analysis of genome-wide diversity and differentiation as correlated with agriculturally important traits such as resistance to drought, frost, predators, and pathogens. We will also verify the efficacy of Short Satellite Repeat (SSR) biomarkers generated by Dr. Nahla's lab across all curated (USDA) and cultivated (San Diego) strains. Second, we will assess soil nutrient availability, plant nutrient concentrations, and plant growth to determine optimal fertilization strategies that maximize hops production but minimize over-fertilization. We will also perform shotgun metagenomic sequencing of soil microbiomes to assess microbial community diversity and identify potential microbial pathogens at our farm partners, and with USDA-ARS soil core samples on the Illumina MiSeq (SDSU) and Illumina iSeq 100 (CSUSM). Third, we will conduct surveys of the potential arthropod predators, which according to a preliminary survey, revealed a wealth of species, some of which have been previously studied to exhibit intraguild predation. These surveys will help with the design of experimental analyses aimed at assessing the efficacy of these natural predators as biocontrol agents. Finally, we will assess hops-virus interactions by (1) assessing the epidemiology of viral infection by sampling hop plants and potential plant and insect vectors, (2) identifying viral strains from genome sequencing, (3) quantifying viral loads per plant or plant tissue, and (4) assessing population genetics of hop viral pathogens/isolates. These data will be used to design field or greenhouse experiments to evaluate interactions between viral infection and nutrient inputs and/or environmental stress.Activity 2: Curriculum development of a two-part, 4-unit, upper-division lab-lecture course entitled "Research Methods in Agricultural Science" will be developed based on the research initiated in Activity 1. Curriculum development will occur primarily in the spring and summer of 2023; however, course modification will be conducted annually as needed based on formative assessments described below.Activity 3: Student recruitment for the research methods course will take place annually through presentations to lower- and upper-division biology courses at SDSU and CSUSM during the fall and spring semesters. Twelve students will then be recruited from each institution (total of 24 students) in every year. Additionally, a PhD student in PI Sethuraman's lab, Alexandra McElwee-Adame and 1 Master's student, Jorge Pastrana in co-PI's Vourlitis and Jancovich's labs (TBD) will be recruited as Teaching/Research Assistants to coordinate field work, assist in lab work, and in helping students with their data analyses and writing. Both Alexandra and Jorge identify as of Hispanic/Latinx backgrounds.Activity 4: Implementation of "Research Methods in Agricultural Science" course. Part 1 of the research methods course will be offered during a 6-week period in the summer of each year, followed by Part 2 in the Fall. One section of 24 students will be offered each summer (a minimum of 96 students over 4 years), and instruction will be centered on the research initiated in Activity 1. Students will learn and utilize techniques to measure plant size, growth, and nutrient concentrations, and soil properties such as water, organic matter, and nutrient content, soil pH and texture. Students will also collectively design field sampling strategies and collate necessary samples and data for their projects over the 6-week summer period. In the fall, they will analyze samples, and analyze data using appropriate statistical models. Students will also learn how to extract, purify, and sequence DNA and/or RNA from plants, insects, and viruses, and conduct genomic analyses such as barcoding, genotyping, and gene expression profiling. At the end of the fall semester, students will be required to disseminate their research results in the form of research papers and will use faculty and peer-feedback to make needed revisions, similar to the feedback that used in the peer-review process. Students will also disseminate their work to their classmates during a poster session that will take place at the end of the course.Activity 5: Development of independent student research and new agriculture and natural resource internship opportunities. Much of the research conducted during the course can be easily expanded and continued as an independent research project, and students that exhibit both interest and potential for conducting independent research will be encouraged to do so after the conclusion of the research methods course. In addition, we will collaborate with the Offices of Community Engagement and Service Learning at SDSU and CSUSM to develop new internship opportunities for all science students, regardless of whether they participated in the research methods course. There are many private and governmental entities in Southern California that focus on agricultural and natural resource related topics that potentially offer excellent internship opportunities. We will work with the San Diego Hop Growers Association to identify hops farms that are interested in receiving interns and establish these agreements.Activity 6: Participant advising and mentoring. Personalized academic and career advising will be mandatory for all students participating in the research methods course. Advising will largely focus on student career and/or academic interest, which will inform the PDs on the most appropriate internship opportunity and/or graduate academic plan.Activity 7: Integration with other institutional programs.Eligible participants will be integrated into a variety of programs for historically excluded Undergraduate students at SDSU and CSUSM, including the MARC U*STAR, RISE, LSAMP and Beckman Scholar programs that provide students with academic support and development opportunities. Additionally, our Offices of Community Engagement and Service Learning will help promote the service-learning activities with local hops producers and establish the new internship opportunities.Activity 8: Project dissemination will be accomplished from a project web page and in the form of oral conference presentations, written reports, peer-reviewed publications, and/or conference proceedings. Students will be encouraged to present their work at local undergraduate student research conferences. The PD's, in conjunction with motivated students, will utilize data collected during the class and/or independent research to prepare scientific manuscripts and research white-papers. Data will be freely available to the San Diego Hop Growers Association and the public.Activity 9: Project evaluation. Project evaluation will be conducted by an external evaluator who will quantitatively analyze the measureable outcomes articulated below. The external evaluator will use a variety of tools such as surveys and statistical analysis of baseline and comparative data generated from this project. The external evaluator will also conduct a Meta-Evaluation that will allow us to compare our results against results generated from similar programs.

Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24

Outputs
Target Audience:This project is to develop a "Research Methods in Agricultural Sciences" course at San Diego State University and California State University San Marcos. The target audience is therefore undergraduate students in the biological sciences/biology undergraduate programs. Additionally, undergraduate and graduate student researchers willl be trained in molecular techniques towards addressing questions according to the aims of this project (on hop biology). Our other target audience for this reporting period included commercial and home brewersand hop-growers who are part of the San Diego Brewers Guild (https://www.sdbeer.com/) and SD Beer News (https://sandiegobeer.news/). Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Fall 2023 - 13 undergraduate students, and Fall 2024 - 10 undergraduate students receive(d)trained in the BIOL 596 class at SDSU in various research methods in agricultural sciences - students receive hands-on experience with field techniques (e.g. sterile sampling, greenhouse methods, irrigation, integrated pest management, soil collection), lab techniques (e.g. high molecular weight genomic DNA extraction, quality control using fluorometry, spectrophotometry, agarose gel electrophoresis, PCR, microsatellite genotyping, next generation sequencing library preparation), bioinformatics techniques (e.g. analyses of microsatellite genotypes, population structure analyses and processing of 16s rRNA and fungal ITS data using the data2/QIIME2 pipelines, statistical techniques), soil ecological techniques (e.g. measurement of soil nitrogen, phosphorous, moisture), chemical methods (e.g. HPLC/GCMS to identify and quantify organic compounds in hop bines). Additionally, these students are all co-authors on the manuscript that describes results on the evolutionary history and microbiome dynamics of hops that is currently in review at Molecular Ecology. Students were also provided opportunities to connect with local brewers, hop growers, yeast bioengineers as part of the course. Sethuraman Lab (SDSU): (1) Graduate student Alexandra McElwee-Adame has presented her research at two conferences - TAGC 2024 in Washington DC, and the SCaLE meetings at CalTech in Pasadena, CA; she is lead author on our first manuscript describing the evolutionary history of domestication in hops. She is currently finishing up her advancement to PhD candidacy requirements with SDSU and UC Riverside. (2) Undergraduate students: Kailyn Kiburi, Elijah Vogler - both students have now extensively worked in DNA extractions and QC of hops - they are also co-authors on the manuscript described above. (3) Graduate student Trevor Mugoya has now completed developing a bioinformatics pipeline for SNP calling from large plant genomes with high repeat content, as part of his MS thesis - he will be writing up this in a manuscript to be submitted in Spring 2025. (4) Graduate student Reina Hastings has now been recruited (Fall 2024) to work on other genomics projects with data being generated across all aims of this project. Vourlitis Lab (CSUSM): (1) Graduate students Leticia Marin and Jonathan (Chi-Yang) Chu were on the payroll for the first year,both at 20h/week, working on various hop projects, including measuring soil N, P, enzyme assays, viral damage analyses, and greenhouse methods. Jancovich Lab (CSUSM): (1) Graduate student Alexander Casteneda was recruited to develop a protocol to isolate, sequence, and analyze hop carlaviruses- he has since advanced to MS candidacy.? How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?(1) Students in the Fall 2023 Research methods class presented their semester-wide projects at a poster session at WhiteLabs in San Diego, CA, which was attended by over 100 hop growers, brewers, scientists, and general public. All posters have now been chronicled by the CSUSM brewchive -https://archives.csusm.edu/brewchive/collections/show/17#?c=&m=&s=&cv= (2) All graduate students have since presented their research at various local and international confeferences (3) PI Sethuraman has been communicating results from the project via a PodCast (SD Brewers Guild), and via outreach events in and around San Diego county. (4)https://sandiegobeer.news/studying-and-preserving-san-diego-hops/ (5)https://www.sdsu.edu/news/2022/12/tracing-12-000-year-pedigree-beer What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?(1) PI Sethuraman will work with students of his Fall 2024 Research Methods in Agricultural Sciences course at SDSU to (a) develop and publish a bioinformatics pipeline for determining the provenance of unknown hops by incorporating the USDA's microsatellite database, along with microsatellite loci genotyped via the 96 whole genomes generated in Spring 2024, (b) develop and publish the bioinformatics pipeline with graduate student Trevor Mugoya to call SNPs and structural variants from large plant genomes (E.g. hops) with high repeat content, (c) develop a mobile app with graduate student Reina Hastings that will be "trained" using large scale phenotypic data on hops and genomic variant calls to predict flavor profiles, (d) sequence 96 more hop genomes with graduate student Alexandra McElwee-Adame, (e) continue the ongoing 3-year drought tolerance experiment at the CSUSM greenhouse to understand phenotypic and genomic consequences of drought in five commonly grown American hops. (2) coPIs Jancovich and Vourlitis will teach BIOL 596 Research Methods in Ecology and Evolution course at CSUSM in Spring 2025, incorporating the wealth of data that we have collated thus far from various projects as part of this grant.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Major Aim: Developing research-based courses at 2 regional HSI's - SDSU and CSUSM - Completed (and ongoing to be taught over the next 3 years) - we have now developed and taught BIOL 596 Research Methods in Agricultural Sciences (SDSU) in Fall 2023and BIOL 596 Research Methods in Ecology and Evolution (CSUSM) in Spring 2024. Aim 1: Cataloging genomic diversity of local hops to assess their origins (i) We have now analyzed a large SNP dataset generated by the USDA ARS (collaborators John Henning and Nahla Bassil) with >100 accessions of diploid hops, genotyped at thousands of SNPs to understand population structure, diversity, differentiation, and evolutionary history of domestication of hops. This manuscript has since been submitted and is currently in review at Molecular Ecology. (ii) We have generated 96 whole hop genomes from high-throughput sequencing, aligned, mapped, and called SNPs from across these strains; these data are currently being analyzed. (iii) We have obtained 96 more accessions from the USDA ARS (collaborators Nahla Bassil, April Nyberg), which graduate students Alexandra McElwee-Adame and Reina Hastings are in the process of extracting DNA from. These will be sequenced by the end of 2024, and data analyzed in 2025. Aim 2: Metagenomics of hop farm soil microbiomes to assess microbial community diversity to identify microbial pathogens (i) We have now created a 16s rRNA database of soil microbiomes and fungal ITS biomes from 5 US-based and 5 non-US-based cultivars of hops which were grown in a common-garden set up - these data and analyesare also being published with the manuscript described above. (ii) We have also created a 16s rRNA database of soil microbiomes and the fungal ITS biomes of >10 hop cultivars collected from Hopportunity Farm in Julian CA. Aim 3: Assess effectiveness of insects in hop integrated pest management (i) We have now published two studies describing the effectiveness of ladybug species used in biological control and integrated pest management. (ii) In continuing years of the BIOL 596 course, we will assess efficacy of utilizing Hippodamia convergens for biological control in a more controlled setting (at a greenhouse). Aim 4: Understand hop-virus interactions by assessing the epidemiology, population genomics of viral infection. (i) coPI Jancovich and his lab have now developed a protocol for extracting, sequencing, and analyzing carlaviralinfections in hops, led by graduate student Alexander Castenada. The goal of our component of this project is to develop a quantitative real-time (qRT) PCR assay that will identify and quantify the carlaviruses that are associated with hop plants. This process first involves generating a protocol to isolate total RNA from plant tissue. Once isolated, RNA can then be converted to cDNA that can then be used in a qRT-PCR assay using primers directed to known hop-associated carlaviruses. Our approach will detect the presence of a carlavirus infection in the sample and quantify how much of the virus is in that sample by detecting and quantifying the presence of viral RNA that has been converted to cDNA. This will allow us to determine if samples that do not appear to be infected (i.e. asymptomatic) are in fact infected and determine their infection levels. Similarly, this process will identify and quantify viral load in samples that do appear to be infected (i.e. symptomatic) providing insight into type of carlavirus infecting these plants and the relative infection level. These data will be helpful in management of hop plant production.We have obtained samples from healthy and disease looking hops plants that were growing in the greenhouse at CSUSM. Samples from hop plants were documented, flash frozen and then stored in a -80 o C freezer. We have successfully used published literature to develop a pipeline to isolate plant and viral RNA from these samples. The RNA will then be used to identify and quantify any carlavirus infection in those samples. Using previously published literature we have developed a qRT-PCR assay to detect and quantify hop carlaviruses. We have obtained commercially synthesized DNA constructs for three carlaviruses known to be associated with hop plants and an internal control. We have designed and obtained primer and probe pairs that will be used to detect the internal control and three carlavirus isolate(s) using a qRT-PCR assay. We have optimized the qPCR assay for the internal control and 2 of the 3 carlavirus targets. However, we are continuing to troubleshoot problems with the 3 rd carlavirus and may need to reorder primers and probes for this assay. Once this target has been optimized we will use these assay to identify and quantify the carlaviruses associated with asymptomatic and symptomatic hop plants. (ii) coPI Vourlitis and his lab have worked on establishing a protocol for assessing viral damage on hop leaves via image processing, and these work are being collated and described in the manuscript submitted to Molecular Ecology.?

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Sethuraman, A, Jones A, Nunziata SO, Weisrock DW, Obrycki JJ. Go west: population genomics reveals unexpected population fluctuations and little gene flow in Western Hemisphere populations of the predatory lady beetle, Hippodamia convergens. Evolutionary Applications. DOI: 10.1111/eva.13631
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Li H, Peng Y, Wu C, Li Z, Mao K, Zhu J, Jin M, Buck R, Monahan S, Sethuraman A, Xiao Y. Assessing genome-wide adaptations associated with range expansion in the invasive pink stem borer. Insect Science. DOI: 10.1111/1744-7917.13320
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2023 Citation: Welch, N, Vourlitis, G. (2023) Comparing growth and viral damage of native and non-native Humulus lupulus varieties. Student Research Symposium, California State University, San Marcos, November 28, 2023.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2024 Citation: McElwee-Adame A, Sethuraman A. (2024) Wild bines to beer steins: Exploring the evolutionary genomics of hops domestication. The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2024, Washington DC, March 2024.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: A. Casaneda and J.K. Jancovich. Identification and quantification of hop carlaviruses using a two-step qRT-PCR based approach. Summer Scholars Poster Showcase, California State University San Marcos, August 9, 2024.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2024 Citation: CoalMiner: a random coalescent model generator for fastsimcoal28. Esplin R, Sethuraman A (under review)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2024 Citation: Evolutionary history and rhizosphere community dynamics in domesticated hops (Humulus lupulus L.). McElwee-Adame et al., (under review)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Population genomics and demographic modeling enhance our understanding of trophic level interactions in biological control. Sethuraman A and Obrycki JJ. Biological Control. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocontrol.2024.105585
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Jones A, Obrycki JJ, Sethuraman A, Weisrock DW Shared patterns of population genomic variation and phenotypic response across rapid range expansions in two invasive lady beetle species, Biological Control DOI: 10.1016/j.biocontrol.2024.105519
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Ang G, Zhang A, Obrycki JJ, Sethuraman A. A High Quality Genome of the Convergent Lady Beetle, Hippodamia convergens. G3. DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkae083


Progress 09/15/22 to 09/14/23

Outputs
Target Audience:This project is to develop a "Research Methods in Agricultural Sciences" course at San Diego State University and California State University SanMarcos. The target audience is therefore undergraduate students in the biological sciences/biology undergraduate programs. Additionally, undergraduate and graduate student researchers willl be trained in molecular techniques towards addressing questions according to the aims of this project (on hop biology). Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?1) Currently, 13undergraduate students are enrolled in BIOL 596 Research Methods in Agricultural Sciences at SDSU. These students are receiving training in a variety of field, ecological, molecular, bioinformatics and evolutionary methods in agricultural sciences. The students are leading several research projects to understand (a) diversity and origins of local hop strains, (b) quantifying soil microbial and fungal diversity in US versus non-US cultivars of hops, (b) quantifying photosynthesis, growth rates, soil N, C, and P content across US versus non-US cultivars. 2) PhD student Alexandra McElwee-Adame (supported by this grant)has made significant progress towards AIM 1 of this project. 3) Masters student Trevor Mugoya has been recruited to develop a pipeline for analyzing these whole genome sequencing data - he will be developing this in the Python programming language, and this pipeline will be made publicly available for all hops researchers. 4) Undergraduate students Elijah Vogler and Kailyn Kiburi have been recruited to help with Alex and Trevor in their respective research projects. They have been trained in molecular and bioinformatics techniques. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Poster presentations from students will be presented at the end of the semester (in December 2023), and will occur at a local brewery, where we will invite local hop growers, brewers, and the general public to learn more about the science of hops. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?1) coPIs Drs. Vourlitis and Jancovich will develop and teach a similar research methods course at CSU San Marcos in the Spring of 2024, where they will assess hop viruses (AIM 3 of the project) 2) PI Sethuraman will continue to develop curricular material for his Fall 2024 course, to focus on AIM 4 of the project.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1) We have made significant progress towards AIM 1 of cataloging genomic diversity of local hops and assessing their origins. We have established a memorandum of understanding and a data sharing agreement with the USDA-ARS (Drs. John Henning and Nahla Bassil), who have now shared hundreds of germplasm samples from their databases with us. We have successfully extracted high molecular weight DNA from these samples, and are in the process of preparing these samples for whole genome sequencing with the Texas A&M University Genomics Core. 2) I (PI Sethuraman) have now developed and currently teaching BIOL 596 Research Methods in Agricultural Sciences at San Diego State University this Fall. As part of this course, we have now (a) visited and connected with local farmers at Hopportunity Farm in Julian CA (e.g. see interview with Mr. Phil Warrenhttps://youtu.be/O18kax90rqA), (b) established acommon-gardenexperiment with 10 replicates of 5 US-based and 5 non-US based cultivars of hops at the CSU San Marcos greenhouse, (c) sampled hop tissues, soil cores across both experiment sites, (d) extracted DNA from hops and genotyped them at 8 microsatellite markers from Dr. Nahla Bassil's group, (e) extracted DNA from soil cores and will be performing 16s rRNA and fungal ITS sequencing with Zymo Corp in the coming week, and (f) teaching students numerous techniques including photosynthesis, GCMS/HPLC analyses, bioinformatic analyses of next generation sequencing data in the coming weeks. Students will also be presenting their results from these projects at the end of the semester in December 2023. All of these data will make significant progress towards AIM 2 of the grant. 3) PI Sethuraman and coPI Vourlitis have made significant research strides via publications (as reported) through support from this USDA HSI grant.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Li H, Peng Y, Summerhays B, Shu X, Vasquez Y, Vansant H, Grenier C, Gonzalez N, Kansagra K, Cartmill R, Ling M, Xuguo Z, Obrycki JJ, Li B, Sethuraman A Global patterns of genomic and phenotypic variation in the invasive harlequin ladybird. BMC Biology DOI: 10.1186/s12915-023-01638-7
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2023 Citation: Tovar A, Monahan S, Kristan A, Welch W, Dettmers R, Arce C, Buck T, Ruben M, Rothenberg A, Saisho R, Cartmill R, Skaggs T, Reyes R, Lee MJ, Obrycki J, Kristan W, Sethuraman A. Like mother, like daughter? Phenotypic plasticity, environmental covariation, and heritability of size in a parthenogenetic wasp. bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2022.12.02.518902 Under revision at The American Naturalist
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2023 Citation: Ang G, Zhang A, Obrycki JJ, Sethuraman A A high quality genome of the convergent lady beetle, Hippodamia convergens. Under review at G3.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2023 Citation: Vourlitis, G.L, P. Berry, J.M. Cabuco, A. Estrada, K.H. Garc�a, B.T. Hunter, L. Mastaglio, E. Murguia, N. Nacauili, M. Ponce, L. Saenz, Z. Salah, J. Shaffer, M. Solis, S. Thomas, E. Becket. Composition and activity of soil microbial communities in native and non-native vegetation of southern California. In revision to Applied Soil Ecology.