LoPresti Plant/Insect Ecology Lab
Welcome to the LoPresti Lab's website. We are a group of passionate plant/insect ecologists and evolutionary biologists at the University of South Carolina.
I am currently recruiting graduate students (PhD or MSc) and undergraduates (primarily at U of SC) for the lab. Please get in touch if anything the lab does sounds interesting!
Research
Our research is varied, but doesn't stray far from how plants and insects are able to survive and reproduce. We are currently studying pollination, generally, and more specifically the effects of pigment and morphology on pollination success in sand verbenas, seed ecology and seed defense against granivores, as well as "bodyguard" mutualisms in sticky plants. We also dabble in plant evolution, volatile chemistry, floral structure, and several other topics that are of interest to our lab members.
We are always interested in including more folks in our active - and fun - group. Do get in touch if you are interested in joining the lab as an undergraduate, grad student, or post-doc.
Latest Publications
Mucilage binding to ground protects seeds of many plants from harvester ants: A functional investigation - Functional Ecology
We found that seeds bound to the ground with mucilage (a common property of diverse seeds) were better protected from harvester ants than unbound seeds. We also incorporated a meta-analysis of mucilage adhesion and found that there were some climatic (dryness, solar intensity) and life history variables (annuals) that predicted "stickier" seeds. We are excited about these results and hope both the small-scale protection and the larger-scale trends lead to more people studying mucilage and finding cool things!