College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Entomology

Mark Scriber retired from MSU in 2010.

Scriber focused on biosystematic studies and nutritional ecology and insect/plant interactions, including mechanisms of host plant resistance and insect counter-adaptations involving biochemical, behavioral, genetic and ecological factors affecting oviposition preferences, reproductive isolation, diapause, color polymorphisms, geographic distribution and larval detoxification processes are of central importance. Natural enemies and herbivore induced phytochemical resistance in various tree species were also studied. Swallowtail butterflies and giant silkmoths serve as model systems to understand ecological specialization and evolutionary speciation. Inter-specific mating preferences and independent species-diagnostic trait cline analyses (behavioral, morphological, physiological, biochemical and molecular) were examined across several hybrid zone transects from Wisconsin to Vermont.

Recent Publications

• Scriber, J.M. (2011) INVITED REVIEW: Impacts of climate warming on hybrid zone movement; Geographically diffuse and biologically porous “species borders” Insect Science, 18: 121-159.
• Kunte K, Shea C, Aardema ML, Scriber JM, Juenger TE, Gilbert, L.E., and Kronforst, M.R. (2011) Sex Chromosome Mosaicism and Hybrid Speciation among Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies. PLoS Genetics 7(9): e1002274. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002274
• Ording, G.J., Mercader, R.J., Aardema, M.L. and Scriber, J.M. (2010). Allochronic isolation and incipient hybrid speciation in tiger swallowtail butterflies. Oecologia, 162, 523-531.
• Scriber, J.M. (2010) INVITED REVIEW: Integrating ancient patterns and current dynamics of insect-plant interactions: taxonomic and geographic latitude in herbivore specialization. Insect Science, 17: 471-507.
• Mercader, RJ, M. Aardema, and JM Scriber. 2009. Hybridization leads to host use divergence in a polyphagous butterfly sibling species pair. Oecologia 158: 651-662.
• Scriber JM, Michelle L. Larsen, Geoff R. Allen, Paul W. Walker, & Myron P. Zalucki,. 2008. Interactions between Papilionidae and Ancient Australian Angiosperms: Evolutionary specialization or ecological monophagy in the Papilionidae? Entomologia expt. & appl. 128: 230-239.
• Scriber, J. M., G.J. Ording, and R.J. Mercader . 2008. Hybrid introgression and parapatric speciation in a hybrid zone. pp. 69-87. In K. J. Tilmon. “Specialization, Speciation, and Radiation: the Evolutionary Biology of Herbivorous Insects” Univ. California Press.
• Mercader, RJ and JM Scriber. 2007. Diversification of Host Use in Two Polyphagous Butterflies: Differences in Oviposition Specificity or Host Rank Hierarchy? Entomologia Exp. et Appl..125:89-101
• Putnam, A.S., J.M. Scriber, and P. Andolfatto. 2007. Discordant divergence times among Z-chromosome regions between two ecologically distinct swallowtail butterfly species. Evolution 61: 912-927