Tina Boddum

PhD student Chemical ecology V building +46 40 41 53 19 +46 736 29 07 26 Fax +46 40 46 19 91 tina.boddum@slu.se

Postal address Dept. of Plant Protection Biology  Box 102 SE-230 53 Alnarp Sweden Visiting address                         Delivery address Sundsvägen 14                           Växtskyddsvägen 3

Education

PhD student, funded by ICE3. Project title: "Host shift induced speciation in gall midges". 2007–present
Master of Science, Biology. University of Southern Denmark, Odense. 2005–2007
Bachelor of Science, Biology. University of Southern Denmark, Odense. 2001–2005

Research projects

I study the olfactory basis of host finding and host specificity in gall midges (Cecidomyiidae). I am interested in how specific the midges are and what factors determine the specificity. So far, I have focused on the swede midge (Contarinia nasturtii) but more species will be included.

The speciation of gall midges is fast compared to other families of Diptera. Most gall midges are only found on one type of host plant and the right plant is necessary for the gall midges to complete their life cycle. I want to determine if the volatiles emitted by the host plants are important for gall midge speciation by testing the following questions:

1. Do distantly related gall midges associated with the same host plant use the same or a similar set of odors to identify it?
2. Do closely related species that have different host plant requirements respond to odors common for the different plants? To test that, I compare the response of a range of gall midges – including distantly related species that are sympatric and closely related species that utilize very different host plants – to volatiles emitted from different plants.

I use the following methods: behavioral experiments, electrophysiology, molecular biology, chemical analyses and odor collection.