A Close-Up Look at 'Singing Cicadas'
UC Davis Postdoctoral Scholar Mark Stukel Will Present Seminar on His Research
UC Davis postdoctoral scholar Mark Stukel will present a seminar on his research involving "the singing cicadas" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar.
Stukel will speak on "From New Zealand Hybridization to Worldwide Diversification: Phylogenomic Insights into the Evolution of Cicadidae" at 4:10 p.m., Monday, May 19 in 122 Briggs Hall. The seminar also will be on Zoom. The Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
"Cicadidae, or the singing cicadas, are a charismatic globally distributed insect family that serve as an interesting system for answering questions in evolutionary biology," Stukel writes in his abstract. "Thanks to their long underground life cycles and species-specific mating songs, they can be used for studying patterns of species distribution around the world and the evolution of reproductive isolation. Phylogenomic datasets consisting of hundreds of genes have increased our ability to answer these questions."
"In this talk, I will introduce what makes cicadas useful system for answering these evolutionary questions, share research using phylogenomic datasets to uncover the evolutionary relationships and untangle ancient hybridization events in a New Zealand cicada species radiation, and share phylogenomic results on the evolutionary history and global biogeography of the family Cicadidae as a whole." (See his research on YouTube)
Stukel is a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Professor Jason Bond, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the lab of Michael Forthman, California Department of Food and Agriculture. "My research interests are in phylogenomics, systematics, hybridization, and biogeography, with a special interest in insects of the order Hemiptera," he says.
Stukel received his doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Connecticut in 2024. His dissertation title: "Phylogenomics and Evolution of Cicadidae: Insights from New Zealand and Across the Globe." He holds a bachelor's degree in biology (2015) from Hope College, Holland, Mich.
Stukel received a 2023 Fulbright U.S. Graduate Award, studying for 10 months at the School of Biological Sciences and Centre for Computational Evolution, University of Auckland, New Zealand. (He was initially awarded the Fulbright in 2021, but it was delayed due to COVID-19 pandemic.)
Coordinator of the seminars is nematologist Amanda Hodson, assistant professor. She may be reached at akhodson@ucdavis.edu for any technical issues with Zoom.
