Current Research Activities: By definition, populations are collections of individual organisms, and it is the collective responses of individuals to environmental factors that determine the population-level responses to these factors. My research attempts to understand parasitoid-host and parasitoid-parasitoid interactions at the population-level through a mechanistic understanding of parasitoid behavior at the level of the individual. Most recently I have been investigating the role of oviposition behavior in interference competitive among parasitoids, specifically aphelinid parasitoids of the sweetpotato whitefly. I also have a broad interest in the connection between natural enemy life history and effective biological control. |