Jenny
Apple
Jenny Apple is a postdoctoral researcher working with
Dr. Sam Wisely and Dr. Tony Joern to reconstruct the history of
differentiation
in host plant use in the oligophagous grasshopper Hesperotettix
viridis. They are analyzing genetic variation in this
species using AFLPs, microsatellites, and mitochondrial DNA sequences.
Using
these molecular data and population genomic analyses, they will
contrast
patterns of adaptive and neutral genetic variation to describe past
geographic
distributions, infer demographic history, and determine the degree to
which
adaptive divergence contributes to genomic differentiation among host
races of Hesperotettix.
Before coming to
Kansas
State University, Jenny worked with Dr. John Bishop at Washington State
University-Vancouver in which she investigated the cause of spatially
structured insect herbivory on dwarf lupine (Lupinus
lepidus var. lobbii),
the principal colonist of primary successional habitat at Mount St.
Helens. She
also spent a year teaching plant ecology and a nonmajors biology course
as a
Visiting Assistant Professor at Willamette
University (Salem, OR).
As a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian
Environmental Research
Center (Edgewater, MD),
she explored the interaction of biotic and abiotic stresses on the
growth and
reproductive output of a wetland perennial. She earned her PhD at the University of Utah with Dr. Don Feener. For
her
dissertation, she worked on Barro
Colorado Island, Panama,
to study how variation in host plant light environment affected the
strength
and impact of a tropical ant-caterpillar mutualism.
For more information
on
the Hesperotettix project, click
here.
Jenny Apple’s
CV
Contact information:
Dr. Jennifer
Apple
Kansas State
University
Division of
Biology
116 Ackert Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
Office: 114 Bushnell Hall
Office phone: 785-532-7053
E-mail: japple@ksu.edu