Faculty

Deborah Smith - Entomology
Associate Professor
  Ph.D., Cornell University
3038 Haworth Hall
  Phone: (785) 864-4340
 

Area of Interest and Research

My research combines molecular systematics with the study of social arthropods.  I am particularly interested in the systematics, population biology and biogeography of honey bees ( Apis ) and social spiders ( Anelosimus & Stegodyphus) .

Representative Publications

Honey Bee Biology

Cho, S. Huang, Z. Y., Green D. R., Smith, D. R. and Zhang, J. (in press) Evolution of the complementary sex-determination gene of honey bees: Balancing selection and trans-species polymorphisms.  Genome Research

Warrit, N. Smith, D. R. and Lekprayoon, C. (2006) Genetic subpopulations of Varroa mites and their Apis cerana hosts in Thailand.  Apidologie 37:19-30.

Smith,D. R., Warrit, N., Otis, G. Thai, P. H. and Tam, D. Q. (2005) A Scientific Note on high variation in the non-coding mitochondrial sequences of Apis cerana F. from South East Asia.  Journal of Apicultural Research 44 (4): 197-198.

Smith, D. R., Warrit, N. and Hepburn, H. R. (2004) Apis cerana from Myanmar (Burma): Unusual distribution of mitochondrial lineages.  Apidologie 35: 637-644.

DeGrandi-Hoffman, G., Schneider, S. S. and Smith, D. R. (2004) The African Honeybee:  Factors Contributing to a Successful Biological Invasion.  Annual Review of Entomology 49:351-376.

Sheppard, W. S. and Smith, D. R. (2000) Identification of African-derived bees in the Americas:  A Survey of Methods.  Annals of the American Entomological Society 93: 159-176.

Palmer, M. R., Smith, D. R., and Kaftanoglu, O. (2000) Turkish honeybees: genetic variation and evidence for a fourth lineage of Apis mellifera mtDNA. Journal of Heredity 91:42-46.

Smith, D. R., Crespi, B., and Bookstein, F. (1997)  The Procrustes method and fluctuating asymmetry in the honey bee, Apis mellifera: effects of ploidy and hybridization.  Journal of Evolutionary Biology 10:551-574.

Smith, D. R. and Hagen, R. H. (1997) The biogeography of Apis cerana as revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequence data. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 69(4) suppl., 294-310.

Hall, H. G. and Smith, D. R. (1991) Distinguishing African and European honeybee matrilines using amplified mitochondrial DNA.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA 88: 4548-4552.

Smith, D. R., Taylor, O. R, and Brown, W. M. (1989)  Neotropical Africanized honeybees have African mitochondrial DNA.  Nature 339: 213-215. 

Social Spiders

Bilde T., Lubin Y., Smith D., Schneider J. M, Maklakov A. A. (2005) The transition to social inbred mating systems in spiders: role of inbreeding tolerance in a subsocial predecessor. Evolution 59(1): 160-174.

Whitehouse, M., Agnarsson, I., Miyashita, T., Smith, D., Cangialosi, K., Masumoto, T., Li, D. and Henaut, Y. (2002) Argyrodes: Phylogeny, sociality and interspecific interactions: A report on the Argyrodes Symposium, Badplaas 2001.  Journal of Arachnology 30 (2): 238-245

Smith, D. R. and Hagen, R. H., 1996. Population structure and Interdemic selection in the cooperative spider Anelosimuseximius (Araneae: Theridiidae).  Journal of Evolutionary Biology 9:589-608.

Smith, D. R. and Engel, M. S., 1994. Population structure in an Indian cooperative spider, Stegodyphus sarasinorum Karsch (Eresidae).  Journal of Arachnology 22:108-113.

Smith, D. R., 1983.  The ecological costs and benefits of communal behavior in a presocial spider.  Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 13: 107-114.

Smith, D. R., 1982.  Reproductive success of solitary and communal Philoponellaoweni (Araneae: Uloboridae).  Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 11: 149-154.

Smith, D. R., 1980.  Predation by Argyrodes (Theridiidae) on solitary and communal spiders.  Psyche 97: 349-355.