Alina Davis

Alina Davis
University of Maryland, College Park | UMD, UMCP, University of Maryland College Park · Department of Entomology

PhD

About

47
Publications
22,743
Reads
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344
Citations
Introduction
In my research, I explore various mechanisms underlying ecology and evolution of species interactions using molecular, morphological, and behavioral approaches. I’m using arthropods and plant-insect study systems to investigate eco-evolutionary mechanisms which drive species interactions, and especially novel interactions between native and introduced species.
Additional affiliations
January 2018 - July 2020
University of Maryland, College Park
Position
  • Postdoctoral Associate
June 2019 - present
University of Maryland, College Park
Position
  • Lecturer
January 2016 - March 2016
Texas A&M AgriLife Research
Position
  • Research Associate
Education
August 2009 - August 2014
University of Cincinnati
Field of study
  • Biological Sciences
October 1997 - April 2002
Herzen University
Field of study
  • Biological Sciences
September 1992 - June 1997
Herzen University
Field of study
  • Biology, Psychology

Publications

Publications (47)
Article
Full-text available
Plant traits, used by the invasive insect herbivores to find and select suitable hosts, can play an important role in insect host range expansion. With regard to invasive Lycorma delicatula, it is not well explored, however, how the plant origin affects insect host selection, and whether native and introduced host plants differ in their morphology,...
Article
Full-text available
Identification of host plants of the invasive spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae), has been the focus of many studies. While the adults and late nymphs are relatively easy to observe on plants and to use for molecular gut-content analysis, studying the early instars is more challenging. This study is the continuation of o...
Article
Full-text available
Introduced grasses can aggressively expand their range and invade native habitats, including protected areas. Miscanthus sinensis is an introduced ornamental grass with 100+ cultivars of various invasive potential. Previous studies have demonstrated that the invasive potential of M. sinensis cultivars may be linked to seed viability, and some of th...
Article
Full-text available
Identification of ingested plant species using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods is an increasingly useful yet challenging approach to accurately determine the diet composition of insect herbivores and thus their trophic interactions. A typical process of detection of DNA of ingested plants involves the choice of a DNA extraction method...
Article
Full-text available
Detection of host plant DNA from sap-feeding insects can be challenging due to potential low concentration of ingested plant DNA. Although a few previous studies have demonstrated the possibility of detecting various fragments of plant DNA from some sap-feeders, there are no protocols available for potato leaf-hopper, Empoasca fabae (Harris) (Hemip...
Presentation
Full-text available
Miscanthus sinensis is an introduced ornamental grass which has more than 100 cultivars with various invasive potential. Previous studies have demonstrated that the invasive potential of M. sinensis cultivars may be linked to their morphological and physiological traits, such as coloration, growth rate, plant architecture, etc. Little is known, how...
Article
Full-text available
Spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae), is an introduced highly invasive insect pest in the US that poses a significant risk to forestry and agriculture. Assessing and predicting plant usage of the lanternfly has been challenging, and little is known regarding the lanternfly nymph association with its host plants. In this st...
Article
Full-text available
External structures of insects contribute to the ability of herbivores to select and feed on their host plants. The invasive spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) is an economically important and polyphagous insect pest in the eastern US. The lanternfly causes substantial damage to many woody plants by sucking phloem sap, r...
Poster
Full-text available
External structures of insects contribute to the ability of herbivores to select and feed on their host plants. The invasive spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) is an economically important and polyphagous insect pest in the eastern US which causes substantial damage to many woody plants. Lanternfly nymphs switch host pla...
Poster
Agricultural landscapes are composed of variety plant families, which can be host plants for herbivores. It is well know that natural enemies can reproduce in herbivores and in agricultural crops. However, little information is available of natural enemies reproduction in agricultural drainage ditches. Agricultural drainage ditches are important fo...
Poster
Full-text available
The invasive spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) is an economically important rapidly spreading invasive insect pest in the eastern US. In October 2018, the first individual was detected in Maryland. The lanternfly causes substantial damage to many woody plants by sucking phloem sap, reducing photosynthesis, causing weepi...
Presentation
Full-text available
Extension talk at the Annual MOFFA meeting.
Article
Full-text available
Sophonia orientalis (Matsumura), also known as the two-spotted leafhopper, is a widespread exotic pest of many economically important crop plants and ornamental plants in Hawaii. Sophonia orientalis is highly polyphagous and is a major threat to some of the native endemic plants. Despite the successful establishment in Hawaii, interactions of S. or...
Research
1. Smith, D.K., Avanesyan, A., and W. O. Lamp. (2019) Eupatorium serotinum tRNA-Leu (trnL) gene, partial sequence; chloroplast. Direct Submission, GenBank Accession no. MN395725. 2. Smith, D.K., Avanesyan, A., and W. O. Lamp. (2019) Lonicera maackii tRNA-Leu (trnL) gene, partial sequence; chloroplast. Direct Submission, GenBank Accession no. MN3652...
Article
Full-text available
Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) is an invasive pest of soft-skinned fruits that has caused significant economic damage worldwide. In this study, we focused on the seasonal abundance of D. suzukii during the early years of establishment in Wisconsin. We explored the seasonal patterns of summer and winter morphs, their reproductive output, and the eff...
Article
Full-text available
Novel, non-coevolved associations between introduced plants and native insect herbivores may lead to changes in trophic interactions in native communities, as well as to substantial economic problems. Although some studies in invasion ecology demonstrated that native herbivores can preferentially feed on introduced plants and therefore contribute t...
Poster
Full-text available
Novel, non-coevolved associations between introduced plants and native insect herbivores may lead to changes in trophic interactions in native communities, as well as to substantial economic problems. Although some studies in invasion ecology demonstrated that native herbivores can preferentially feed on introduced plants and therefore contribute t...
Article
Full-text available
Spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii Matsumura (Diptera: Drosophilidae), is an invasive pest of soft-skinned fruits across the globe. Effective monitoring is necessary to manage this pest, but suitable attractants are still being identified. In this study, we combined lures with fermenting liquid baits to improve D. suzukii trapping specific...
Poster
Full-text available
The enzyme glyceraldehyde-3-phosphaste dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is an important enzyme found in plants that is crucial to glycolysis and is a housekeeping gene. Since it is found in abundance in plant cells, we extracted DNA from the rosemary plant, Rosmarinus officinalis.After DNA extraction, we amplified the GAPDH gene through PCR and verified the p...
Poster
Full-text available
GAPDH is an enzyme integral to cellular breakdown of glucose during glycolysis (Fig.1.). Because all cells perform glycolysis for energy, the gene for encoding GAPDH is highly conserved. This study wanted to see if there were in fact any differences in the GAPDH gene between species. PCR was performed on cilantro and rosemary genomes to amplify the...
Presentation
Full-text available
Coriandrum sativum(Cilantro) is a common herb used in cooking, spice, and in nutritional cleansing. According to the Global Healing Center, cilantro has good nutritional benefits and is a powerful cleansing agent that can target toxic metals in the body. Cilantro’s prominent use in food and nutritional benefits led us to sequence the glyceraldehyde...
Article
Full-text available
The spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae), is an emerging invasive pest, which attacks a wide variety of fruits and berries. Although previous studies have focused on different aspects of D. suzukii reproductive biology, there are no protocols available for determining the mating status of D. suzukii females and droso...
Article
Plant tolerance to herbivory is an important component of plant competitive ability, which can facilitate the plant invasion process. The prediction of higher tolerance to herbivory in invasive plants has received mixed support in experimental studies, partially because of differences in methods of estimating plant tolerance in terms of plant growt...
Article
Generalist insect herbivores, such as grasshoppers, may either avoid feeding on exotic plants, potentially enabling these plants to become invasive in the introduced range, or insects may incorporate exotic plants into their diet, contributing to the biotic resistance of native communities and potentially preventing plant invasions. Accurate determ...
Article
Full-text available
During microsatellite marker development, researchers must choose from a pool of possible primer pairs to further test in their species of interest. In many cases, the goal is maximizing detectable levels of genetic variation. To guide researchers and determine which markers are associated with higher levels of genetic variation, we conducted a lit...
Poster
Full-text available
During microsatellite marker development, researchers must choose from a pool of possible primer pairs to further test in their species of interest. In many cases, the goal is maximizing detectable levels of genetic variation. To guide researchers and determine which markers are associated with higher levels of genetic variation, we conducted a lit...
Article
Full-text available
Although the general interaction between native and exotic plants and specialist insect herbivores has received considerable attention in ecological studies, plant responses to herbivory by generalist insects, as well as feeding preferences of generalist insects, are still poorly understood. Experimental studies comparing leaf damage of native and...
Presentation
Full-text available
Generalist insect herbivores, such as grasshoppers, may either avoid feeding on exotic plants, thus enabling these plants to become invasive in the introduced range, or insects may incorporate exotic plants into their diet; this can contribute to the biotic resistance of native communities that potentially may prevent plant invasions. Although ther...
Presentation
Full-text available
Plant tolerance to herbivory is an important component of plant competitive ability, which can facilitate the plant invasion process. The prediction of higher tolerance to herbivory in invasive plants has received mixed support in experimental studies, partially because of differences in methods of estimating plant tolerance in terms of plant growt...
Thesis
Full-text available
Although the interaction between native and exotic plants and their insect herbivores has been examined extensively, experimental studies on plant responses to generalist insects as well as feeding preferences of generalist insects on native versus exotic plants have provided inconsistent results. This dissertation addresses this issue by incorpora...
Article
Full-text available
• Premise of the study: A PCR-based method of identifying ingested plant DNA in gut contents of Melanoplus grasshoppers was developed. Although previous investigations have focused on a variety of insects, there are no protocols available for plant DNA detection developed for grasshoppers, agricultural pests that significantly influence plant commu...
Poster
Full-text available
Understanding how exotic species become invasive and how they interact with native plants and animals in the introduced range has economical, agricultural, medical and ecological importance. One of the possible mechanisms which allow the successful spread of exotic plant species is plants’ release from their native specialist herbivores (Fig.1) and...
Presentation
Full-text available
The knowledge of food diet of insect herbivores is critical for better understanding and predicting plant-insect associations in natural communities. Direct observations and laboratory feeding trials may provide limited information about actual food consumption, and are often challenging for large-scale studies on insects’ diet. A PCR method of pla...
Presentation
Full-text available
Background/Question/Methods Invasive species and their ability to outcompete native species can cause significant environmental problems on different levels: from economic losses and human health problems to changes in natural communities and the loss of biodiversity. The overall goal of this study is to provide greater insight into the successful...
Article
Full-text available
Populations of periwinkles Littorina saxatilis (Olivi 1792) and L. arcana Hannaford Ellis, 1978 are well suited for microevolutionary studies, being at the same time closely related and intraspecifically diverse. The divergence between these two sibling species, sympatric over large parts of their distribution areas, is small, the only morphologica...
Presentation
Full-text available
The interaction between insect herbivores and plants is a mechanism, which may allow an exotic plant species to become invasive in the introduced range. Although there have been many studies on grasshopper feeding, only some of these examined feeding on native versus invasive plants; the question of whether grasshoppers as a generalist insect herbi...
Poster
Full-text available
The family Sarcophagidae (Diptera) contains species of agricultural, forensic, and medical importance. However, relationships within the family are still poorly understood. In order to provide greater insight into deeper phylogenetic nodes in these groups, we analyze sequence data for five mitochondrial genes [cytochrome oxidase I (COI), cytochrome...
Thesis
Full-text available
The focus of my Candidate of Science dissertation was cellular immune response of Biomphalaria snails to infection by Echinostoma trematodes. Biomphalaria snails are freshwater pulmonate snails, native to Caribbean and South America. In my research, I used two species, B. glabrata and B. pfeifferi. Biomphalaria glabrata has been a primary model spe...
Article
Full-text available
Among the large cells located in the posterior of Echinostoma caproni and E. paraensei miracidia are secretory cells, germinal cells (GC), and undifferentiated cells. Secretory cells do not give rise to progeny, whereas GC do. Undifferentiated cells develop into GC that can also divide to produce embryos. Cleavage of GC of E. caproni occurs only af...
Article
Full-text available
The reproduction in the first parthenogenetic generation--mother sporocyst (MS) in two species of echinostomes (E. caproni, E. paraensei) is investigated. A group of densely packed cells, which noticeably differ from others, occupies the posterior part of the miracidium. They are characterized by large sizes and a large bubble-shaped nucleus with h...
Article
The amoebocyte-producing organ (APO) was study histologically in two strains of Biomphalaria glabrata snails selected for susceptibility/resistance. We compared the APO in non-infected snails with that post infection (PI) with miracidia of Echinostoma caproni. Histological analysis revealed that the APO is situated between the anterior pericardial...

Questions

Questions (7)
Question
Could anyone suggest any online sources (databases, dedicated websites, etc.) on insect morphometric characteristics, please? I'm particularly interested in insect mouthparts and tarsi measurements. Thank you! I appreciate your time and help! Alina
Question
I'm developing an upper-level undergraduate course on invasion ecology and would appreciate any suggestions for interactive online resources the students could use as an alternative to a standard lab or field trip. I'm specifically interested in online labs/databases/interactive schemes, etc. which involve plants, insects, and any aquatic organisms.
Thank you very much. I appreciate any suggestions.

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