Meet the Scientist

Name: Margaret K. Thayer
Position/Title: Assistant Curator of Insects
Department: Zoology

1. What do you study related to biodiversity (what are your research questions, what organisms do you work on)?

I am interested in phylogenetics, evolution, and biogeography: exploring how organisms and their distributions have evolved over geological time. Understanding any aspect of evolution within a group requires taking into account the phylogeny, or lines of descent, within the group, so phylogenetic analysis is a fundamental part of my research. In most of my work, I concentrate on rove beetles (Staphylinidae), a huge worldwide group containing over 47,000 described species and thousands more remaining to be studied, named, and understood. Partly because staphylinids are poorly known in most of the world, in addition to my phylogenetic and biogeographic studies I am vitally interested in inventory work and in producing identification tools to help foster research on the group by others.

2. How do you study biodiversity (for example, what technological tools and methodologies do you use in your research)?

Field equipment is an essential category of tools for me, because in most of the world so little is known about what insects and other arthropods are present. What I use includes a variety of traps (flight intercept, baited pitfall, and UV light are the main ones) and devices such as sifters and Berlese funnels for extracting specimens from leaf litter and humus.

To work with specimens after they have been collected, I use microscopes: a dissecting microscope for lower-power work in identifying and dissecting specimens, a compound microscope for more detailed study of microstructures, and a scanning electron microscope for even higher magnification and 3-dimensional study of how the parts of a beetle may interact. I take digital images of specimens (using all three of these) for use in my analyses and publications (technical or non-technical articles and books, web publications).

I use computers constantly, for: image capture, creation, editing, and storage; storing and manipulating specimen and taxonomic data, including mapping geographical distributions; analyzing phylogenetic relationships and biogeographic history among my study groups; seeking and downloading information from the Internet; writing papers, book chapters, and books; and communicating with colleagues all over the world via email and web publishing.

3. Where do you study biodiversity?

I am currently focusing most of my attention on the austral parts of the world (Australia, New Zealand, Chile and southern Argentina, and South Africa), where numerous subgroups of staphylinids have now far-flung distributions that may have derived from the breakup of the ancient southern continent Gondwana in the late Mesozoic and early Tertiary. I have also worked with the North American fauna, around Chicago and elsewhere, and with Mexican staphylinids.

4. How might your research have implications for biological conservation?

Rove beetles are a very species-rich and abundant group in most terrestrial environments, especially forests. A large patch of degraded woodland in the Chicago area has been found to contain around 200 different species, and species numbers are even higher in richer forest environments. Although some rove beetle species are widespread, many others appear not to disperse so well and have much smaller geographical ranges. These more restricted species may be good indicators of areas of endemism that also contain other species with restricted distributions. In order to use staphylinids for ecological assessment, however, more background work on distributions and habitat associations is needed, and tools for identifying them more readily are needed. This kind of basic research is a fundamental part of my work.

5. How did you become interested in science? What made you want to be a scientist, and how did you get to The Field Museum?

I was exposed to science from a very early age by various family interests in natural history and by having a biochemist father. I guess this exposure always made me wonder about how things work in nature. After studying evolution and natural selection in my high school biology course, I was always trying to figure out how features of the plants and animals I saw could have evolved –what might be the advantages of those features, and what did they come from?

I got some valuable independent research experience in college, but it wasn't until after finishing my B.Sc. in biology that I got involved with insects—and systematics—and then began doing my own research. That led me to work on my Ph.D., and I wound up finishing my dissertation in a rush in order to move to Chicago when my husband was offered a curatorial position at the Field Museum. It was only later that I was appointed a curator here, although I had been continuing my research all along, partly with museum support and partly with support from the National Science Foundation.

6. Describe important collaborations for your scientific endeavors (describe your work with other researchers, organizations, or scientific groups, local or indigenous peoples, etc.)

Collaboration and communication with colleagues and students is an important aspect of my work, and I often have days when I communicate (usually by email) with people in half a dozen different countries around the world. In my current program of field work, in addition to cooperating with fellow museum curators in our target countries, I am involving a local participant directly in the field work in each area in an effort to help develop local capabilities and collaborative ties.

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