Education and Training
B.S., University of Kansas, Biology, 1992
M.S., University of Georgia, Entomology, 1995
Ph.D., University of Georgia, Entomology, 2000
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Arizona, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 2001–04

Introduction to the Plague Lab
Many insects harbor mutualistic bacteria within specialized host-derived cells. These endosymbionts often biosynthesize and provision nutrients that are deficient in their hosts’ diets, and as such allow their hosts to exploit niches that they otherwise would be unable to. The endosymbionts are generally exclusively inherited vertically from mother to offspring, and these symbioses are often extremely ancient, from 10s to 100s of million years old. We are interested in a variety of aspects regarding the evolution and ecology of intracellular symbioses, including the evolutionary dynamics of relatively young endosymbiont genomes, the environmental influences of endosymbiont nutrient provisioning, and endosymbiont adaptations to host complex life cycles.

Selected Publications
Moran NA, Plague GR. 2004. Genomic changes following host restriction in bacteria. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development 14: 627-633.

Plague GR, Dale C, Moran NA. 2003. Low and homogeneous copy number of plasmid-borne symbiont genes affecting host nutrition in Buchnera aphidicola of the aphid Uroleucon ambrosiae. Molecular Ecology 12: 1095-1100.

Moran NA, Plague GR, Sandström JP, Wilcox JL. 2003. A genomic perspective on nutrient-provisioning by bacterial symbionts of insects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 100: 14543-14548.

Plague GR, McArthur JV. 2003. Phenotypic plasticity of larval retreat design in a net-spinning caddisfly. Behavioral Ecology 14: 221-226.

Dale C, Plague GR, Wang B, Ochman H, Moran NA. 2002. Type III secretion systems and the evolution of mutualistic endosymbiosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 99: 12397-12402.

Plague GR, Mulvey M, Glenn TC, McArthur JV. 2001. Molecular genetic markers provide no evidence for reproductive isolation among retreat building phenotypes of the net-spinning caddisfly Macrostemum carolina. Molecular Ecology 10: 243-248.

Plague GR. 1999. Evolution of net-spinning caddisflies: a hypothetical mechanism for the reproductive isolation of conspecific competitors. Oikos 87: 204-208.