Shannon Shuang Xing
Ectotherms with darker color might be able to absorb heat more efficiently; gaining a thermal advantage in cool environments while being susceptible to overheating in hot environments. My PhD projects focus on how wing darkness of butterfly and moths varies among different thermal gradients in tropical Australia and China. It may help us understand how temperature shapes the morphology of Lepidoptera in the past and into the future with climate change.
Publication:
Xing, S., T. Bonebrake, C.C. Tang, E.J. Pickett, W. Cheng, S.E Greenspan, S.E. Williams, & B.R. Scheffers. (In press) Cool habitats support darker and bigger butterflies in Australian tropical forests. Ecology and Evolution
Pickett, E.J., Chan, M., Anderson, K., Chan, S., Cheng, W., Chong, J. R., Hu, J., Lee, K.S., Regan, H., Smith, B., Yu, Y.T., Xing, S. and Bonebrake, T.C. Modelling the globally endangered black-faced spoonbill population under unprecedented habitat loss and climate change.(in prep)
Pickett, E.J., Thomson, D. L., Li, T.A., Xing, S. Jensen's inequality and the impact of short-term environmental variability on long-term population growth rates. (submitted)
Yuanxing Ye, Geoffrey W. H. Davison, Pingfen Zhu, Lijuan Duan, Nan Wang, Shuang Xing and Changqing Ding. 2013. Habitat Utilization, Time Budget and Daily Rhythm of Ibisbill (Ibidorhyncha struthersii) in Daocheng County, Southwest China. Waterbirds 36: 135-143.
Funding:
Principle Investigator:
(2015-present). Young Explorers Grant, National Geographic Society. $ 4960.00 USD. "Coloration of butterfly wings along arboreal, altitudinal and latitudinal gradients in tropical Southern China."