Research Topic

For my project I plan to map out the “character states” of each of the 15 genera in the scarab beetle tribe Cyclocephalini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae). This is a crucial step in my Master’s thesis research. To do this, I will need to examine beetles under the microscope and look at many characters (i.e. shape of legs or hair on wing cover) and assign a number to each state that character may exhibit (i.e. 0 for no spines, 1 for one spine, 2 for three spines or 0 for no hair, 1 for short hair, 2 for long hair). This data will be organized, using a program called Mesquite. During the time period remaining, I won’t be able to have a complete analysis, but I should be able to present some of the preliminary work.