Publications by authors named "Ryan D Ridenbaugh"
Understanding the genetics of adaptation and speciation is critical for a complete picture of how biodiversity is generated and maintained. Heterogeneous genomic differentiation between diverging taxa is commonly documented, with genomic regions of high differentiation interpreted as resulting from differential gene flow, linked selection and reduced recombination rates. Disentangling the roles of each of these non-exclusive processes in shaping genome-wide patterns of divergence is challenging but will enhance our knowledge of the repeatability of genomic landscapes across taxa.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRapidly evolving taxa are excellent models for understanding the mechanisms that give rise to biodiversity. However, developing an accurate historical framework for comparative analysis of such lineages remains a challenge due to ubiquitous incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) and introgression. Here, we use a whole-genome alignment, multiple locus-sampling strategies, and summary-tree and single nucleotide polymorphism-based species-tree methods to infer a species tree for eastern North American Neodiprion species, a clade of pine-feeding sawflies (Order: Hymenopteran; Family: Diprionidae).
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- Ichneumonoidea is a diverse superfamily of over 48,000 parasitoid wasp species that play a crucial role in biological control by attacking other arthropods and influencing evolutionary strategies related to parasitism.
- The study investigates the phylogenetic relationships among Ichneumonoidea by designing probes for 541 genes across 91 taxa to better understand their evolution, viral acquisition, and host interactions.
- Findings reveal strong support for higher-level relationships within Ichneumonoidea, but also indicate the need for caution in outgroup selection due to codon use biases, and show evidence of independent viral acquisitions in two Ichneumonidae subfamilies.
Article Synopsis
- The eucalyptus tortoise beetle, Paropsis charybdis, is an invasive species in New Zealand that significantly damages Eucalyptus nitens plantations, prompting a search for specific biological control agents from Tasmania.
- Research focused on the larval parasitoid wasp, Eadya paropsidis, which was found to primarily target the smaller paropsine beetle P. tasmanica, while another cryptic species, Eadya sp. 3, was identified as a strong candidate for controlling P. charybdis.
- Additional findings revealed another new species, Eadya sp. 1, which interacts with several hosts, indicating potential for broader control strategies against invasive beetles in New
A new species of the genus Haliday, , is described and illustrated from the southeastern United States, where it parasitizes the crypt gall wasp, Ashmead, 1896, on live oaks in the genus Quercus (subsection Virentes). This is the 1 species of the genus reported from the southeastern United States to parasitize cynipid gall wasps and the 3 species of the genus reported to attack cynipids in North America. Modified sections of the identification keys to subgenera and species of (Yoshimoto, 1971) are included to integrate the new species.
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