Zangerl studies the ecology and evolution of insect-plant interactions from the perspectives of insect physiology and plant chemistry. One area of interest is in optimal defense theory involving the timing of deployment and distribution of defense chemicals (furanocoumarins) in wild parsnips (Pastinaca sativa) and the costs and benefits of defense. Another avenue of research involves the study of coevolution between wild parsnip and its principal herbivore, the parsnip webworm (Depressaria pastinacella). Furanocoumarins have been identified as plant traits that influence resistance to webworms, and furanocoumarin detoxification by cytochrome P450s has been established as the primary trait responsible for defense in the insect against these toxins. Quantitative genetic methods are employed both to determine evolutionary potential of each species to evolve in response to the other and to quantify the degree of selection imposed by each species.

Representative and Recent Publications

Zangerl, A.R., A.M. Arntz, and M.R. Berenbaum. 1997. The physiological price of an induced chemical defense: photosynthesis, respiration, biosynthesis, and growth. Oecologia 109: 433-441.

Wraight, C.L., A.R. Zangerl, M.J. Carroll, and M.R. Berenbaum. 2000. Absence of toxicity of Bt pollen to black swallowtails under field conditions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 97: 7700-7703.

Hamilton, J.G., A.R. Zangerl, E.H. DeLucia, and M.R. Berenbaum. 2000. The carbon-nutrient balance hypothesis: Its rise and fall. Ecology Letters 4: 86-95.

Zangerl, A.R., D. McKenna, C.L. Wraight, M. Carroll, P. Ficarello, R. Warner, and M.R. Berenbaum. 2001. Effects of exposure to event 176 Bacillus thuringiensis corn pollen on monarch and black swallowtail caterpillars under field conditions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 98: 11908-11912.

Zangerl, A.R., J.G. Hamilton, T.J. Miller, A.R. Crofts, K. Oxborough, M.R. Berenbaum and E.H. de Lucia. 2002. Impact of folivory on photosynthesis is greater than the sum of its holes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 99: 1088-1091.

Nitao, J.K., Hamilton, J.G., Zangerl, A.R., DeLucia, E.H., and Berenbaum, M.R. 2002. CNB:Requiescat in pace? Oikos 98: 540-546.

Zangerl, A.R. 2003. Evolution of induced responses to herbivores. Basic & Applied Ecology 4: 91-103.

Zangerl, A.R. and M.R. Berenbaum. 2003. Phenotype matching in wild parsnips and parsnip webworms: causes and consequences. Evolution 57: 806-815.

Zangerl, A.R., M.R. Berenbaum, E.H. DeLucia, and J.K. Nitao. 2003. Fathers, fruits, and photosynthesis: Pollen donor effects on fruit photosynthesis in wild parsnip. Ecology Letters 6: 966-970.

Ode, P.J., Berenbaum, M.R., Zangerl, A.R. and Hardy, I.C.W. 2004. Host plant, host plant chemistry and the polyembryonic parasitoid Copidosoma sosares: indirect effects in a tritrophic interaction. Oikos 104: 388-400.