Emily Khazan successfully defended her PhD dissertation in Interdisciplinary Ecology, UF’s School of Natural Resources and Environment this past Wednesday, December 1st.  Her dissertation “Thermal, community, and microbial ecology of butterflies of the Colombian Andes” explored how butterflies from one of the most biodiversity-rich areas of the world adapt to their environments.  The work has implications for how butterflies will respond to climate change in the tropical Andes.  Her dissertation included 4 data chapters.  In her own words:

“This dissertation explores the variable communities of butterflies in native forest and active pasture in the Colombian Andes. In it, I test the mechanisms by which butterflies across these habitats thermoregulate (i.e., recover from a cold shock) and parse apart the drivers of physiological patterns from the individual to the community scale. I completed these analyses after performing a new method of physiology assay – one that is accessible to scientists at any level and in any place – also described in this dissertation. I also explore the internal microbiome of two species of Heliconius butterflies, testing for patterns geographically and taxonomically. Finally, one chapter of this dissertation pulls on the ubiquitous graduate experience of working as a teaching assistant and asks the question of whether there exist biases based on gender in student evaluations of TAs.”

Emily is advised by Jaret Daniels, Florida Museum of Natural History and co-advised by Bette Loiselle; other members of her committee are Katie Sieving and Caroline Storer.

Congratulations!!!