Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

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beetles in a petri dish

Christy Jo Geraci, SI Postdoctoral Fellow

  • Phone:
    202-633-1023 (office)
  • Fax:
    202-786-2894
  • E-mail Address: geracic@si.edu
  • USPS Address:
    Smithsonian Institution
    PO Box 37012, MRC 187, Rm CE-725
    Washington, DC 20013-7012
  • Shipping Address:
    Smithsonian Institution
    National Museum of Natural History
    10th & Constitution NW
    Washington, DC 20560-0187
  • Education:
    PhD Clemson University
    MA Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
    BA Drew University
 CJ Geraci

Research Interests:

  • Diversity, phylogeny, and spatial distribution of Amazonian Canopy Mordellidae (Coleoptera)
  • Trichoptera Systematics & Phylogenetics (specific focus on the World Hydropsychidae subfamilies and genera)

My general research interests are in insect systematics and phylogenetics.  I am working with Terry Erwin on the Ecuador Canopy Biodiversity Project, which began 1994 to monitor the effects of road construction on the insect fauna in Yasuni National Park.  Over 400 morphospecies of tumbling flower beetles (Coleoptera: Mordellidae) have been collected from two hectares of forest during the 12-year study, which is over one quarter of the total number of mordellid species described worldwide.  I will combine phylogenetic tools, DNA barcoding, and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to ask if the apparent radiation of Mordellidae in the canopy is related to the high tree richness (70+ families, 300+ genera, 1000+ species) in the Yasuni region.  I also study Trichoptera systematics and the use of caddisfly larvae as indicators of water pollution.  My dissertation revised the phylogeny and classification of the World subfamilies and genera of Hydropsychidae (manuscripts in prep).

Publications

Erwin, T.L. and C.J. Geraci. 2009. Amazonian rainforests and their richness of Coleoptera, a dominant life form in the Critical Zone of the Neotropics. Pages 49-67 in Insect Biodiversity: Science and Society, 1st edition. R. Foottit and P. Adler, (eds.), Blackwell Publishing, USA.

Erwin, T.L., and C.J. Geraci. 2008. New Genera of Western Hemisphere Pseudomorphini (Insecta: Coleoptera, Carabidae) with notes on their distributions and relationships. In: Proceedings of the 13th European Carabidologist’s Meeting, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. L. Penev, T.L. Erwin, and T. Assmann, (eds.) Pensoft, Bulgaria.

Geraci, C. J. and J. C. Morse.  2008.  New species of Cheumatopsyche (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) from North Sulawesi, Indonesia.  The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 84(1): 1-8.

Geraci, C.J. and R.C. Laughlin. 2006. Examining Trichoptera genitalia with confocal laser scanning microscopy. Nectopsyche 3: 1-4. pdf

Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., and C.J. Geraci. 2006. Two new species of Acutogordius (Nematomorpha), with a brief review of literature data of this genus. Systematics and Biodiversity 4(4):427–433. PDF link icon

Geraci, C.J., K.M. Kjer, J.C. Morse, and R. Blahnik. 2005. Phylogenetic relationships of Hydropsychidae subfamilies based on morphology and DNA sequence data. Pages 131 – 136 in Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Trichoptera, K Tanida and A Rossiter (eds.), Tokai University Press, Japan. PDF link icon

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