Chandra Earl

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Bioinformatician at National Ecological Observatory Network

Temporal ecological niche partitioning is an underappreciated driver of speciation. While insects have long been models for circadian biology, the genes and circuits that allow adaptive changes in diel-niches remain poorly understood. We compared gene expression in closely related day- and night-active non-model wild silk moths, with otherwise simi...

The saturniid moth genus Automeris includes 145 described species. Their geographic distribution ranges from the eastern half of North America to as far south as Peru. Automeri s moths are cryptically colored, with forewings that resemble dead leaves, and conspicuously colored, elaborate eyespots hidden on their hindwings. Despite their charismatic...

Temperature is thought to be a key factor influencing global species richness patterns. We investigate the link between temperature and diversification in the butterfly family Pieridae by combining next generation DNA sequences and published molecular data with fine-grained distribution data. We sampled nearly 600 pierid butterfly species to infer...

Thermal performance curves (TPCs) depict variation in vital rates in response to temperature and have been an important tool to understand ecological and evolutionary constraints on the thermal sensitivity of ectotherms. TPCs allow for the calculation of indicators of thermal tolerance, such as minimum, optimum, and maximum temperatures that allow...

The saturniid moth genus Automeris includes 135 described species. Their geographic distribution ranges from the eastern half of North America to as far south as Peru. Automeris moths are cryptically colored and their forewings resemble dead leaves, with conspicuously colored, elaborate eyespots hidden on their hindwings. Despite their charismatic...

Circadian rhythms drive many biological patterns, such as activity periods. The temporal partitioning that results can reduce predation, minimize competition, or enable new resource utilization. It can also drive the evolution of sensory systems, such as the highly specialized antennae with which male moths find mates, and the visual specialization...

Butterflies are a diverse and charismatic insect group that are thought to have evolved with plants and dispersed throughout the world in response to key geological events. However, these hypotheses have not been extensively tested because a comprehensive phylogenetic framework and datasets for butterfly larval hosts and global distributions are la...

Temperature is thought to be a key variable explaining global patterns of species richness. However, to investigate this relationship carefully, it is necessary to study clades with broad geographic ranges that are comprised of species inhabiting diverse biomes with well-characterized species ranges. In the present study, we investigate the link be...

Butterflies are a diverse and charismatic insect group that are thought to have diversified via coevolution with plants and in response to dispersals following key geological events. These hypotheses have been poorly tested at the macroevolutionary scale because a comprehensive phylogenetic framework and datasets on global distributions and larval...

Gracillariidae is the most taxonomically diverse cosmopolitan leaf-mining moth family, consisting of nearly 2000 named species in 105 described genera, classified into eight extant subfamilies. The majority of gracillariid species are internal plant feeders as larvae, creating mines and galls in plant tissue. Despite their diversity and ecological...

Lepidoptera are a highly diverse group of herbivorous insects, however, some superfamilies have relatively few species. Two alternative hypotheses for drivers of Lepidoptera diversity are shifts in food plant use or shifts from concealed to external feeding as larvae. Many studies address the former hypothesis, but with bias towards externally feed...

Broad-scale, quantitative assessments of insect biodiversity and the factors shaping it remain particularly poorly explored. Here we undertook a spatial phylogenetic analysis of North American butterflies to test whether climate stability and temperature gradients have shaped their diversity and endemism. We also performed the first quantitative co...

Broad-scale quantitative assessments of biodiversity and the factors shaping it remain particularly poorly explored in insects. Here, we undertook a spatial phylogenetic analysis of North American butterflies via assembly of a time-calibrated phylogeny of the region coupled with a unique, complete range assessment for ~75% of the known species. We...

Museum specimens have enormous potential for use in a broad range of biodiversity and evolutionary questions, but their data are typically accessible only to researchers who can physically visit collections facilities. Recent digitization efforts of collections provide new modes of access and collaboration to enrich biodiversity knowledge, and rema...

Background: Butterflies (Papilionoidea) are perhaps the most charismatic insect lineage, yet phylogenetic relationships among them remain incompletely studied and controversial. This is especially true for skippers (Hesperiidae), one of the most species-rich and poorly studied butterfly families. Methods: To infer a robust phylogenomic hypothesi...

The Smithsonian Data Science Lab, part of the Office of the Chief Information Officer, is tasked with providing data science solutions for "data rich" research projects taking place at the Smithsonian. In a partnership with the Department of Entomology (NMNH), we are using deep structured learning methods to automatically determine digitized bumble...

The advent of next-generation sequencing technology has allowed for the collection of large portions of the genome for phylogenetic analysis. Hybrid enrichment and transcriptomics are two techniques that leverage next-generation sequencing and have shown much promise. However, methods for processing hybrid enrichment data are still limited. We deve...

The world is literally crawling with insects, butterflies being the best known due to being brightly colored and charismatic. They have long been important model organisms for many topics in biology, ecology and evolution. Geographic information about the biodiversity of butterfly species is vital for understanding these topics and the changes that...

The world is literally crawling with insects, of which butterflies (superfamily: Papilionoidea) are the best known due to being brightly colored and charismatic. They have long been important model organisms for many areas in biology, ecology and evolution, thus a complete phylogeny ( >18,000 species) is an extremely useful resource for researchers...

Butterfly wing patterns are among the most diverse morphological characteristics in nature, with many of the 18,000 or so described butterfly species readily distinguished by wing pattern alone. Wing pattern serves as one of the primary means of communication among species and is thus subject to strong natural selection for mimicry and warning colo...

The RIG-like receptors (RLRs) are related proteins that identify viral RNA in the cytoplasm and activate cellular immune responses, primarily through direct protein-protein interactions with the signal transducer, IPS1. Although it has been well established that the RLRs, RIG-I and MDA5, activate IPS1 through binding between the twin caspase activa...