Isabelle Vea

University of Illinois Chicago | UIC · Department of Biological Sciences

Morphological scaling relationships, or allometries, describe how traits grow coordinately and covary among individuals in a population. The developmental regulation of scaling is essential to generate correctly proportioned adults across a range of body sizes, while the mis‐regulation of scaling may result in congenital birth defects. Research ove...

Metamorphosis undeniably shaped the evolutionary success of winged insects. So far, what we know about the hormonal regulation and molecular mechanisms controlling insect metamorphosis lies on the understanding of complete and incomplete metamorphosis. Rarer types of metamorphosis are overlooked, yet they could provide important insights as they re...

Sap-feeding insects often maintain two or more nutritional endosymbionts that act in concert to produce compounds essential for insect survival. Many mealybugs have endosymbionts in a nested configuration: one or two bacterial species reside within the cytoplasm of another bacterium, and together, these bacteria have genomes that encode interdepend...

Sap-feeding insects often maintain multiple nutritional endosymbionts, which act in concert to produce compounds essential for insect survival. Many mealybugs have endosymbionts in a nested configuration: one or two bacterial species reside within the cytoplasm of another bacterium, and to-gether these bacteria have genomes which encode interdepend...

The difference in body size between females and males, or sexual size dimorphism (SSD), is ubiquitous, yet we have a poor understanding of the developmental genetic mechanisms that generate it and how these mechanisms may vary within and among species. Such an understanding of the genetic architecture of SSD is important if we are to evaluate alter...

Morphological scaling relationships between the sizes of individual traits and the body captures the characteristic shape of a species, and their evolution is the primary mechanism of morphological diversification. However, we have almost no knowledge of the genetic variation of scaling, which is critical if we are to understand how scaling evolves...

Morphological scaling relationships between the sizes of individual traits and the body captures the characteristic shape of a species, and the evolution of scaling is the primary mechanism of morphological diversification. However, we have almost no knowledge of the genetic architecture of scaling, critical if we are to understand how scaling evol...

Adult females and males of most species differ in many aspects of their morphology, physiology and behavior, in response to sex-specific selective pressures that maximize fitness. While we have an increasingly good understanding of the genetic mechanisms that initiate these differences, the sex-specific developmental trajectories that generate them...

Meiosis, the key process underlying sexual reproduction, is generally a fair process: each chromosome has a 50% chance of being included into each gamete. However in some organisms meiosis has become highly aberrant with some chromosomes having a higher chance of making it into gametes than others. Yet why and how such systems evolve remains unclea...

The difference in body size between females and males, or sexual size dimorphism (SSD), is almost ubiquitous, and yet we have a remarkably poor understanding of the developmental-genetic mechanisms that generate it. Such an understanding is important if we are to distinguish between the many theoretical models of SSD evolution. One such model is th...

Insect molting hormone (ecdysteroids) and juvenile hormone regulate molting and metamorphic events in a variety of insect species. Mealybugs undergo sexually dimorphic metamorphosis: males develop into winged adults through non-feeding, pupa-like stages called prepupa and pupa, while females emerge as neotenic wingless adults. We previously demonst...

Insect metamorphosis produces reproductive adults and is commonly accompanied with the direct or indirect development of wings. In some winged insects, the imago is altered by life history changes. For instance, in scale insects and mealybugs, reproductive females retain juvenile features and are wingless. The transcription factor E93 triggers meta...

Insect metamorphosis generates reproductive adults and is commonly accompanied by the direct or indirect development of wings. In some winged insects, the imago is altered by life history changes. For instance, in scale insects and mealybugs, reproductive females retain juvenile features and are wingless. The transcription factor E93 triggers metam...

The Ortheziidae (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Coccomorpha) are considered one of the most ancient families of Coccoidea. In this study, the antennal structures of species belonging to the Ortheziidae are examined and combined with data from a previous phylogenetic study as well as habitat preference data. Illustrations of the antennal structures (wit...

The radiation of flowering plants in the mid-Cretaceous transformed landscapes and is widely believed to have fuelled the radiations of major groups of phytophagous insects. An excellent group to test this assertion is the scale insects (Coccomorpha: Hemiptera), with some 8,000 described Recent species and probably the most diverse fossil record of...

Scale insects have evolved extreme sexual dimorphism, as demonstrated by sedentary juvenile-like females and ephemeral winged males. This dimorphism is established during the post-embryonic development; however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms have not yet been examined. We herein assessed the role of juvenile hormone (JH) on the diverging dev...

Protocols for RT-PCR and RACE and R analyses. (PDF)

Phylogeny of JHAMT protein sequences obtained with MrBayes 3.2.5. GenBank accession numbers: Acyrthosiphon pisum: NP_001156251, Aedes aegypti: EAT42177, Apis mellifera: AGG79412, Bombyx mori: NP_001036901, Drosophila melanogaster: AAF53533, Nasonia vitripennis: XP_001604463, Planococcus kraunhiae: LC055463, Samia ricini: ABE98256, Schistocerca greg...

Sex ratio variations in Planococcus kraunhiae during oviposition. A. Photograph of fixed and DAPI-stained embryos at oviposition, top: male embryo as evidenced by the bright, condensed paternal genome, bottom: female embryo as evidenced by homogeneous nuclei. B. Percentage of male embryos on each oviposition day. Counts were made using DAPI-stained...

Coccoids are abundant and diverse in most amber deposits around the world, but largely as macropterous males. Based on a study of male coccoids in Lebanese amber (Early Cretaceous), Burmese amber (Albian-Cenomanian), Cambay amber from western India (Early Eocene), and Baltic amber (mid-Eocene), 16 new species, 11 new genera, and three new families...

Because adult male Coccoidea rarely live more than three or four days, they are seldom collected and their morphology has been little studied. Therefore, the systematics of the Coccoidea is dependent on the morphology of the paedomorphic adult female. A good example is the family Ortheziidae, in which the males of only four extant and three fossil...

Scale insects (Coccoidea) are important plant pests with a peculiar postembryonic development that leads to an extreme sexual dimorphism. The wingless paedomorphic adult females result from successive molts, whereas males go through two quiescent stages to achieve their adult winged form. The latter seems reminiscent to complete metamorphosis and i...

The plant-sucking scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) are amongst the most damaging pests in agriculture and forestry. Despite a sophisticated and specialized taxonomy, obtaining a dated phylogeny of the Coccoidea has remained unexplored because of a unique situation in this group: their systematics is solely based on the highly reduced adult fema...

Citation: Vea IM, Gwiazdowski RA, Normark BB (2012) Corroborating molecular species discovery: Four new pine-feeding species of Chionaspis (Hemiptera, Diaspididae). ZooKeys 270: 37–58. Abstract The genus Chionaspis (Hemiptera, Diaspididae) includes two North American species of armored scale in-sects feeding on Pinaceae: Chionaspis heterophyllae Co...

Locality information for all type specimens. (doi: 10.3897/zookeys.270.2910.app2) File format: Microsoft Word document (doc). Explanation note: Locality information for all type specimens; the Sample ID number directly corresponds to Sample ID number in Appendix 2. The geodetic system used for all GPS points is WGS 1984.

Voucher information for all type specimens. (doi: 10.3897/zookeys.270.2910.app1) File format: Microsoft Word document (doc). Explanation note: Voucher information for all type specimens; each specimen has several kinds of vouchered material. Specimens are conventionally slidemounted in balsam, and each is associated with extracted, whole genomic DN...

The Ortheziidae (ensign scale insects) is a morphologically well-defined family. The morphology and occurrence in the fossil record suggests a probable early origin of the family in scale insect evolution. The present phylogenetic analysis – based on 69 morphological characters of female ortheziids, using 39 exemplar Recent species – provides the f...

Cryptic species are present in many animal groups and they may be best detected through large sample sizes collected over broad geographic ranges. Fine-scale local adaptation has been hypothesized to occur in armoured scale insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) and a consequence of this process may be multiple cryptic species. We estimate species divers...

Cryptic species are present in many animal groups and they may be best detected through large sample sizes collected over broad geographic ranges. Fine-scale local adaptation has been hypothesized to occur in armoured scale insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) and a consequence of this process may be multiple cryptic species. We estimate species divers...

Based on scanning electron microscopy and the small subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA), Haplosporidium tuxtlensis n. sp. (Haplosporidia), a parasite found in the visceral tissues of the false limpet Siphonaria pectinata (Linnaeus, 1758), is described. The spores are ellipsoidal (3.61 ± 0.15 µm × 2.69 ± 0.19 µm), with a circular lid (2.94 ± 0.5 µm) re...

The monotypic genus Chlamydolecanium Goux (Hemiptera: Coccoidea: Coccidae) is known only from the original collection in Corsica. The original description does not allow definite placement in any of the subfamilies in the Coccidae. Although it had been suggested that it belonged to the Cardiococcinae, no other members of this subfamily were geograp...

Cryptic species are present in many animal groups and they may be best detected through large sample sizes collected over broad geographic ranges. Fine-scale local adaptation has been hypothesized to occur in armoured scale insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) and a consequence of this process may be multiple cryptic species. We estimate species divers...

The pine needle scale Chionaspis pinifoliae (Fitch) and pine scale Chionaspis heterophyllae Cooley are the only armored scale insects of the genus endemic of North America to feed on pine. These two species are considered as pests of numerous pine species and sometimes other conifers. Closely monitored by the Integrated Pest Management, they can ca...

The ensign scale insects (Ortheziidae) are considered to be one of the most basal families of scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea). About 200 recent species have been described, with some species known only from the fossil record. They are recognizable by their extravagant white wax secretion, giving them an ornate, elegant appearance. Although the...