With funding from NKU's Center for Integrated Science and Mathematics (CINSAM), five students and three professors from Northern Kentucky University are studying an assemblage of mites and flies that inhabit carnivorous pitcher plants.  Evidence indicates the association between the plants and the arthropods, some of which are undescribed, may result from a long history of cospeciation.  The team collected arthropods from a variety of pitcher plant species in the southeastern U.S.A.  Team members are analyzing the degree of host specificity of these arthropods, describing the new species, and examining aspects of sexual selection in the flesh fly associates.  Our investigation integrates plant systematics, arthropod systematics, and evolution, with the help of statistical analyses.  It involves both field work, and laboratory work.

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