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SI Entomology
Christy Jo Geraci, SI Postdoctoral Fellow
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Research Interests:
- Diversity, phylogeny, and spatial distribution of Amazonian Canopy Mordellidae (Coleoptera)
- Trichoptera Systematics & Phylogenetics (specific focus on the World Hydropsychidae subfamilies and genera)
My general research interests are in insect systematics and phylogenetics. I am working with Terry Erwin on the Ecuador Canopy Biodiversity Project, which began 1994 to monitor the effects of road construction on the insect fauna in Yasuni National Park. Over 400 morphospecies of tumbling flower beetles (Coleoptera: Mordellidae) have been collected from two hectares of forest during the 12-year study, which is over one quarter of the total number of mordellid species described worldwide. I will combine phylogenetic tools, DNA barcoding, and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to ask if the apparent radiation of Mordellidae in the canopy is related to the high tree richness (70+ families, 300+ genera, 1000+ species) in the Yasuni region. I also study Trichoptera systematics and the use of caddisfly larvae as indicators of water pollution. My dissertation revised the phylogeny and classification of the World subfamilies and genera of Hydropsychidae (manuscripts in prep).
Publications
Geraci, C.J., M.A. Al-Saffar, and X. Zhou. DNA barcoding facilitates description of unknown faunas: a case study on Trichoptera in the headwaters of the Tigris River, Iraq. In press, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.
Zhou, X., J.L. Robinson, C.J. Geraci , C.R. Parker, O.S. Flint, Jr., D. Etnier , D. Ruiter , R. E. DeWalt , L.M. Jacobus, and P.D.N. Hebert. Accelerated construction of a regional DNA barcode reference library: caddisflies (Trichoptera) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In press, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.
Geraci, C. J., X. Zhou, J. C. Morse, and K. M. Kjer. 2010. Defining the genus Hydropsyche (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) based on DNA and morphological evidence. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 29(3): 918-933.
Erwin, T.L. and C.J. Geraci. 2009. Amazonian rainforests and their richness of Coleoptera, a dominant life form in the Critical Zone of the Neotropics. Pages 49-67 in Insect Biodiversity: Science and Society, 1st edition. R. Foottit and P. Adler, (eds.), Blackwell Publishing, USA.
Erwin, T.L., and C.J. Geraci. 2008. New Genera of Western Hemisphere Pseudomorphini (Insecta: Coleoptera, Carabidae) with notes on their distributions and relationships. Pages 77-100 In: Back to the Roots and back to the future: towards a new synthesis between taxonomic, ecological, and biogeographical approaches in carabidology. Proceedings of the XIII European Carabidologists Meeting, Blagoevgrad, August 20-24, 2007, L. Penev, T.L. Erwin, and T. Assmann (eds), Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, Bugaria.
Geraci, C. J. and J. C. Morse. 2008. New species of Cheumatopsyche (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) from North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 84(1): 1-8.
Geraci, C.J. and R.C. Laughlin. 2006. Examining Trichoptera genitalia with confocal laser scanning microscopy. Nectopsyche 3: 1-4. 
Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., and C.J. Geraci. 2006. Two new species of Acutogordius (Nematomorpha), with a brief review of literature data of this genus. Systematics and Biodiversity 4(4):427–433. 
Geraci, C.J., K.M. Kjer, J.C. Morse, and R. Blahnik. 2005. Phylogenetic relationships of Hydropsychidae subfamilies based on morphology and DNA sequence data. Pages 131 – 136 in Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Trichoptera, K Tanida and A Rossiter (eds.), Tokai University Press, Japan.
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