Lab News

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We have a current opening for a graduate student (PhD level) to study urban evolution in insect pest species. The position can start either January or August 2021. Please send a letter of interest and your current resume to Dr. Booth at warren-booth@utulsa.edu.

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New paper, led by Booth-lab post-doctoral research associate Dr. Brenna Levine, documenting a lack of sexual selection in the western diamondback rattlesnake, Crotalus atrox, accepted for publication in Royal Society Open Science.

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Dr. Booth was awarded three years of funding from OCAST's (Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Techonology) Health Research program. The study is titled "Does socio-economic status influence the genetic structure, diversity and gene flow, of a resurging urban pest insect of public health significance".

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New paper investigating the reproductive compatibility among host-associated bed lineages accepted for publication in Ecology and Evolution. Includes former Booth-lab graduate student Christopher Lawrence.

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New paper investigating the susceptibility of bed bugs exhibiting metabolic and target-site deltamethrin resistance to plant essential oils published in Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology. Includes Booth-lab graduate student Cari Lewis.

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New paper led by Booth-lab graduate student Cari Lewis, documenting the detection of the tropical bed bug, Cimex hemipterus, in Hawaii, for the first time, and the kdr-associated mutation frequency, accepted for publication in the Journal of Medical Entomology.

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New paper published in Scientific Reports investigating the venom complexity of a pitviper snake produced by facultative parthenogenesis.

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New paper in press in Behavioral Ecology investigating the role of kin selection in regards to the interplay between lek size and relatedness in the mole cricket.

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New paper accepted in the Journal of Medical Entomology titled: Distribution and frequency of pyrethroid resistance-associated mutations in host lineages of the bed bug, Cimex lectularius (Hemiptera: Cimicidae) across Europe, co-authored with Dr. Ondrej Balvin.

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We are thrilled that our recent National Science Foundation proposal to study mitochondrial heteroplasmy and recombination has been funded. This project includes funding for a 3 year post-doctoral researcher starting Mid 2018. 

 

Dr. Booth has recently joined the editorial board of the Journal of Heredity as an Associate Editor. 

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We are currently looking to add new graduate students to the Booth lab. Areas of particular interest include 1) the population genetics/genomics of metapopulations, 2) the genomics and/or microbiomics of host-associated shifts, and 3) studies of mitochondrial heteroplasmy and animal mitochondrial recombination. Positions may be available at both the M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels. Email Dr. Booth (warren-booth@utulsa.edu) for further information.

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Dr. Booth attended the Evolution meeting in Portland, OR, were he gave an invited presentation in the Urban Evolution symposium.

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Two new papers accepted this month. The first, a very cool paper with collaborators in the Gamble lab at Marquette University and the Castoe lab at UT Arlington, documenting an XY sex determination system in Boa and a Python. This paper has been accepted and will be published in Current Biology. The second paper is from the Booth lab, with collaboration from the Brown lab here at TU, and was led by our former graduate student Ms. Stacey Hannebaum. This paper, accepted in the Journal of Mammalogy documents the ecological and phenotypic effects of survival and habitat transitions in white footed mice. Overall, a nice month for papers, and we have several more about to be submitted.

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We are thrilled to have our 2016 snake parthenogenesis paper, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society nominated in F1000Prime as being a paper of special significance in its field bu F1000 Faculty member Prof. Deborah Charlesworth. In 2011 Prof. Brian Charlesworth listed our Boa parthenogenesis paper as being one of his top five significant papers in Biology Letters. Quite an honor and we are humbled.  

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Dr. Booth has recently been awarded promotion to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. Effective August 2017.

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New paper accepted in the Journal of Medical Entomology led by undergraduates Jelena Runjaic (USF) and Ian Bellovich (TU) in association with Ms. Catherine Page and Dr. Charles Brown (TU), examining the effect of long-term exposure to a common insecticide by the swallow bug, Oeciacus vicarius.

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Dr. Booth presented an invited talk on the bed bug genome and the use of DNA to study bed bug populations, at the Global Bed Bug Summit (Indianapolis, USA).

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New co-authored paper in press in Insectes Sociaux with Dr. Magda Sorger documenting super-colony like formation in Lepisiota ants.

 

Phylogeographic and population genetic analysis reveals multiple species of Boa and independent origins of island dwarfism published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

 

Bed bug mitogenome paper published in Mitochondrial DNA Part B: Resources. 

 

New co-authored paper on the influence of management strategy on the mating system of White-tailed deer accepted into the Journal of Wildlife Management.

 

We are proud to have been part of the team that sequenced the bed bug genome. This has been published in Nature Communications and is available on our publications page.

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BBC Earth recently interviewed Dr. Booth for a piece on virgin birth and parthenogenesis. You can read it here.