Topic: Sweating the Small Stuff: Understanding how insects survive wildland fires

Abstract: Insect communities change with the presence and intensity of wildland fire, but the behavioral and physiological mechanisms that underlie survival by some insects, but not others, during wildland fires are poorly understood. This talk will examine the thermal physiology of ants, mechanisms regulating interspecific variations in thermal physiology, wildland fire heating patterns, and factors influencing small scale variations in fire intensity.

Short Bio: Dr. Robin Verble is the founding director of the Missouri S&T Ozark Research Field Station and an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences. She was a member of the faculty of Texas Tech University’s Department of Natural Resources Management prior to joining the S&T faculty in August 2018. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, an M.S. in Entomology at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and a B.S. in Biophysics from the University of Southern Indiana. Her research interests broadly include fire ecology, insect ecology, and forest ecology. Specifically, she focuses on understanding how wildland fires impact insect community dynamics in oak-hickory systems.

April 10th at 6.00 pm
Public House Brewing Company’s Rolla Brewpub Loft