Charles S. Henry, Professor (Ph.D., Harvard University)

Check out: The cryptic song species of Chrysoperla

 

Contact Information:

Dr. Charles S. Henry
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Connecticut
75 North Eagleville Road, Unit 3043
Storrs, CT 06269-3043
Tel: (860) 486-4450, Fax: (860) 486-6364
E-Mail: charles.henry@uconn.edu

An area of particular interest to me is the presence of hidden taxonomic diversity in insects, as exemplified by the carnea group of the green lacewing genus Chrysoperla (family Chrysopidae). One Holarctic morpho-species, Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens), has been shown to be made up of perhaps dozens of cryptic species, isolated by species-specific, substrate-borne vibrational songs. The songs are produced by jerking motions of the insect's abdomen. There is typically no percussive contact with the substrate; instead, the insects "shake" their twigs or leaves upon which they are standing, a phenomenon known as tremulation. In a given song species, the male and female songs are nearly identical. During courtship, the partners will exchange songs more-or-less "politely" in a precise duet, which is a prerequisite for successful copulation.

Examples of the songs of these cryptic species, in oscillograph, sonograph, and sound-clip format, can be experienced by clicking here and then choosing a taxon.

Selected Publications (with a link to papers and number of citations in Google Scholar):

Wells, M. M. and C. S. Henry. 1994. Behavioral responses of hybrid lacewings (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) to courtship songs. J. Insect Behav. 7:649-662.

Henry, C. S., S. J. Brooks, J. B. Johnson & P. Duelli. 1996. Chrysoperla lucasina (Lacroix): a distinct species of green lacewing, confirmed by acoustical analysis (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Syst. Entomol. 21:205-218.

Henry, C. S.  1997.  Modern mating systems in archaic Holometabola: sexuality in neuropterid insects. In Choe, J. C., and B. J. Crespi, Eds., The Evolution of Mating Systems in Insects and Arachnids, pp. 193-210.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Wells, M. M., and C. S. Henry.  1998.  Songs, reproductive isolation and speciation in cryptic species of insects: a case study using green lacewings.  In Howard, D., and S. Berlocher, Eds., Endless Forms: Species and Speciation, pp. 217-233.  New York, New York: Oxford University Press.

Henry, C. S., M. L. M. Wells, and C. M. Simon.  1999.  Convergent evolution of courtship songs among cryptic species of the carnea-group of green lacewings (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Chrysoperla). Evolution 53(4): 1165-1179.

Henry, C. S., S. J. Brooks, P. Duelli, and J. B. Johnson. 1999. Revised concept of Chrysoperla mediterranea (Hölzel), a green lacewing associated with conifers: Courtship songs across 2800 kilometers of Europe (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Syst. Entomol. 24(4): 335-350.

Henry, C. S., S. J. Brooks, D. Thierry, P. Duelli, and J. B. Johnson. 2001. The common green lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea s. lat.) and the sibling species problem. In McEwen, P. K., T. R. New, and A. E. Whittington, Eds., Lacewings in the Crop Environment, pp. 29-42. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press. 546 pp.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Duelli, P. & Johnson, J. B. 2002. Discovering the true Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) (Insecta: Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) using song analysis, morphology, and ecology. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 95: 172-191.

Henry, C. S., Wells, M. L. M. and Holsinger, K. E. 2002. The inheritance of mating song in two cryptic, sibling lacewing species (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Chrysoperla). Genetica 116: 269-289.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Duelli, P. and Johnson, J. B. 2003. A lacewing with the wanderlust: the European song species 'Maltese', Chrysoperla agilis sp.n., of the carnea group of Chrysoperla (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Systematic Entomology 28: 131-148.

Henry, C. S., Wells, M. L.M.  2004.  Adaptation or random change? The evolutionary response of songs to substrate properties in lacewings (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Chrysoperla). Animal Behaviour 68: 879-895.

Henry, C. S.  2006. Acoustic Communication in Neuropterid Insects. In: Drosopoulos S, Claridge M (eds) Insect Sounds and Communication: Physiology, Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution. CRC Press (Taylor and Francis Group), Boca Raton, Florida, pp 153-166.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Duelli, P., and Johnson, J. B.  2006.  Courtship song of the South African lacewing Chrysoperla zastrowi (Esben-Petersen) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae): evidence for a trans-equatorial geographic range? Journal of Natural History 40: 2173-2195.

Henry, C. S., Wells, M. L. M.  2006.  Testing the ability of males and females to respond to altered songs in the dueting green lacewing, Chrysoperla plorabunda (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 61: 39-51.

Henry, C. S., Wells, M. L. M.  2007.  Can what we don't know about lacewing systematics hurt us?  A cautionary tale about mass rearing and release of "Chrysoperla carnea" (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). American Entomologist 53: 42-47.

Henry, C. S., Mochizuki, A., Nakahira, K., Haruyama, N. & Nomura, M. 2009. Courtship songs of Chrysoperla nipponensis (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) delineate two distinct biological species in eastern Asia. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 102, 747-758

Henry, C. S. & Wells, M. L. M.  2009. Sexually dimorphic intrasexual duetting in an otherwise monomorphic green lacewing (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae, Chrysoperla plorabunda): Sexual selection or sex recognition? Journal of Insect Behavior, 22, 289-312.

Noh, S. & Henry, C. S.  2010. Sexually monomorphic mating preferences contribute to premating isolation based on song in European green lacewings. Evolution, 64, 261-270.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Johnson, J. B., Venkatesan, T. & Duelli, P.  2010. The most important lacewing species in Indian agricultural crops, Chrysoperla sillemi (Esben-Petersen), is a subspecies of Chrysoperla zastrowi (Esben-Petersen) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Journal of Natural History 44, 2543-2555.

Henry, C. S. & Wells, M. L. M.  2010. Acoustic niche partitioning in two cryptic sibling species of Chrysoperla green lacewings that must duet before mating. Animal Behaviour 80, 991-1003.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Johnson, J. B., Wells, M. L. M., & Duelli, P.  2011. Song analysis reveals a permanent population of the Mediterranean green lacewing Chrysoperla agilis Henry (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) living in Central Alaska. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 104, 649-657.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Duelli, P., Johnson, J. B., Wells, M. L. M., & Mochizuki, A.  2012. Parallel evolution in courtship songs of North American and European green lacewings (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society 105, 776-796.

Henry C. S., Brooks, S. J., Duelli, P., Johnson, J. B., Wells, M. L. M., Mochizuki, A.  2013. Obligatory duetting behavior in the Chrysoperla carnea-group of cryptic species (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae): its role in shaping evolutionary history. Biological Reviews 88: 787-808.

Duelli, P., Henry, C. S., Mochizuki, A.  2014. The endemic Atlantochrysa atlantica (McLachlan) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) on Atlantic Islands: African or American origin? Journal of Natural History 48: 2595–2608.

Duelli, P., Johnson, J. B., Waldburger, M., Henry, C. S.  2014. A new look at adaptive body coloration and color change in “common green lacewings” of the genus Chrysoperla (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 107: 382-388.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Johnson, J. B., Mochizuki, A., Duelli, P.  2014. A new cryptic species of the Chrysoperla carnea-group (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) from western Asia: parallel speciation without ecological adaptation. Systematic Entomology 39: 380-393.

Choi, M.-Y., Mochizuki, A., Henry, C. S.  2015. The green lacewing, Chrysoperla nipponensis in nature and in an insectary population in Korea: song types and mitochondrial COI haplotypes. Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology 18: 151-155.

Duelli, P., Bolt, D., Henry, C. S.  2015. Neuroptera of the Caucasian Republic of Georgia. Entomological News 124: 229-244.

Henry, C. S., Brooks, S. J., Johnson, J. B., Haruyama, N., Duelli, P., Mochizuki, A.  2015. A new East-Asian species in the Chrysoperla carnea-group of cryptic lacewing species (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) based on distinct larval morphology and a unique courtship song. Zootaxa 3918: 194-208.

Henry, C. S., Wells, M. L. M.  2015. Courtship songs of green lacewings filmed in slow motion: how a simple vibrating structure can generate complex signals (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Chrysoperla). Journal of Insect Behavior 28: 89-106.

Noh, S., Henry, C. S.  2015. Within-species mate preferences do not contribute to the maintenance of sexually monomorphic mating signals in green lacewings. Ethology 121: 1-11.

Noh, S., Henry, C. S.  2015. Speciation is not necessarily easier in species with sexually monomorphic mating signals. Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Price, B. W., Henry, C. S., Hall, A., Mochizuki, A., Duelli, P., Brooks, S. J.  2015. Singing from the grave: DNA from a 180 year old type specimen confirms the identity of Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens). PLoS ONE: 1-11.

Courses Taught:
Undergraduate Level -- General Entomology; Introductory Biology (for biology majors); Evolutionary Biology.
Graduate Level -- Evolution; Insect Phylogeny.

Undergraduate and Graduate Student Advisees (past and present):

Katie Taylor.  Katie entered the Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2014. Her interests are in insect behavior, ecology, and evolution -- particularly in factors that influence reproductive isolation and hybridization between incipient or recently-diverged species. She is pursuing both field- and laboratory-oriented tests of specific evolutionary hypotheses, focusing on the widespread carnea-group of cryptic green lacewing species.

Suegene Noh. Suegene entered the Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2003, graduating in December, 2009. She is interested in insect communication and speciation, especially as those relate to acoustical signals. After some initial behavioral investigations of sexual signaling in treehoppers (order Hemiptera), she turned her attention for her Ph.D. project to acoustic preference functions in the European cryptic species of the green lacewing genus Chrysoperla (carneagroup). Since receiving her degree, Suegene has worked in three consecutive postdoctoral positions: first, in Jeremy Marshall's proteomics lab at Kansas State University, investigating prezygotic, postmating reproductive isolation among closely related cricket species; second, in Ted Morgan’s genomics lab at Kansas State, studying the genomics and quantitative genetics of cold tolerance in Drosophila; and most recently, in the Strassmann/Queller lab at Washington University in St. Louis, working on the genomics of cooperation and conflict during the major transition between unicellular and multicellular stages of life of a social amoeba. 

Maxi Polihronakis. Maxi entered the Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2002, graduating in May, 2008. For her Ph.D. work, her interests were focused on the behavioral ecology and systematics of the May-June beetles, genus Phyllophagain Scarabaeidae (order Coleoptera). She was (and is) particularly intrigued by the evolution of asymmetrical genitalia in these beetles. Since leaving UConn, Maxi has pursued projects of similar direction and scope with Mike Caterino, at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, applying her expertise and creativity to flightless tenebrionid beetles and other coleopterans of the rich California beetle fauna. Maxi then found professional employment working with Dr. Teri Markow at the University of California, San Diego, first as Postdoctoral Project Scientist and later as Assistant Research Scientist in the Drosophila species stock facility. Dr. Markow has recently retired from her Headship position, leaving Maxi in charge of the facility. She is currently also co-PI on a largeNSF facilities grant (funded by the Living Stock Collections for Biological Research program).

Manuel Morales. Manuel completed his Ph.D. degree at UConn in September, 1999. He then took a position for two years as an RTG Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Maryland, working principally with David Inouye on mutualism. In Fall, 2001, he assumed a full time, tenure-track position as Assistant Professor at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts. He is currently a tenured Professor at Williams.

Collaborators: Janine Caira, Marta Martínez Wells, and Chris Simon

(page updated 2 June 2016)