Melissa R. L. Whitaker

Why do plants make opioids? Testing the herbivore defense hypothesis for psychoactive alkaloids in kratom

The paper tests the herbivore defense hypothesis by showing kratom leaf and mitragynine affect insect growth and survival, but the effects are not mediated by mammalian opioid receptors.

Butterfly body size shrinkage: the impact of ecological traits across varied environments

This study uses GAMs to analyze 110 years of butterfly forewing length data, linking body size changes to ecological and life history traits, and finds sex-specific responses to climate and land use changes.

Butterflies Are Shrinking: Evidence from the Past Century

This study uses historical butterfly museum data to show a century-long decline in body size, more pronounced in warmer biomes, supporting the temperature-size rule.