Sara G. Bothwell Allen

I am interested in the effects our landuse decisions have on insect ecology. In my dissertation research in California, I have examined relationships between the landscapes in which organic vegetable farms are situated, the diversity of the parasitic wasp family Ichneumonidae found on these farms, and parasitism rates of two herbivore species. Components of this research led to me to build detailed vegetation/landuse maps of the landscape surrounding 33 central coast farms and a 1400+ specimen collection of ichneumonid wasps sampled from these farms.

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