{"id":1082,"date":"2013-10-09T21:42:35","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T21:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/?p=1082"},"modified":"2023-09-26T13:43:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T13:43:01","slug":"studying-evolution-with-the-bean-beetle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/2013\/10\/09\/studying-evolution-with-the-bean-beetle\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying evolution with the bean beetle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Evolution by natural selection is the uniting principle behind all of biology. \u00a0This semester, Hampden-Sydney introductory biology students are studying evolution using the bean beetle (<em>Callosobruchus maculatus<\/em>), an agricultural pest that lives off of beans and which normally resides in the subtropics of Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1083\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/10\/female-on-bean4.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1083\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1083\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/10\/female-on-bean4-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1083\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bean beetle adult and egg (white dot) on the surface of a mung bean (http:\/\/www.beanbeetles.org)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The students are doing an experiment in which they simulate a &#8220;bottleneck effect&#8221;&#8230;&#8230;.if large beetles are separated from small beetles and only allowed to mate with beetles of the same size, will all the offspring be the same size as their parents? \u00a0The experiment required the students to get a crash course in weighing and moving beetles and generating new beetle crosses.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1084\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/10\/IMG_0650.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1084\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1084\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/10\/IMG_0650-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1084\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Isolating beetles and setting up a cross<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_1085\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/10\/IMG_0651.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1085\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1085\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2013\/10\/IMG_0651-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1085\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Catching a runaway beetle with forceps<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The beetles will lay eggs on supplied mung beans, and the larvae and pupae will develop inside them. \u00a0When the adults emerge after 3-4 weeks, the students will find out how well the size of the beetle can be influenced by artificially selecting the parents. \u00a0The use of bean beetles is a new approach towards allowing Hampden-Sydney students to take a hands-on approach to the study of evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evolution by natural selection is the uniting principle behind all of biology. \u00a0This semester, Hampden-Sydney introductory biology students are studying evolution using the bean beetle (Callosobruchus maculatus), an agricultural pest that lives off of beans and which normally resides in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/2013\/10\/09\/studying-evolution-with-the-bean-beetle\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2146,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/2146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}