Tom Sappington Email & Phone Number

I am a Research Entomologist in the Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research Unit of the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Ames, Iowa. I am also an Affiliate Professor in the Dept. of Entomology at Iowa State University, and a member of the ISU Graduate Faculty. My ongoing research projects encompass the ecology, behavior, management, and population genetics of corn insect pests, especially European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis), and western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera). Before transferring to Iowa in 2003, I served as Lead Scientist for four years in the Integrated Farming and Natural Resources Research Unit in Weslaco, Texas, where I conducted research on pests of cotton, especially boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis).My formal training is as an insect ecologist, and my research interests are quite broad. For the most part, my current research is focused in the area of insect movement as it impinges on agriculture and in the context of insect resistance management. Dispersal of adult insects is inherently difficult to study, because it occurs over a wide range of spatial scales and emerges from a complex array of underlying behaviors that involve movement. Thus, no single technique can provide an adequate picture or explanation of a species' dispersal patterns. I routinely conduct mark-recapture, trapping, flight mill, and population genetics experiments, all techniques with strengths and weaknesses for elucidating patterns of movement at various spatial scales and in various ecological contexts.

Listed skills include Molecular Biology, Entomology, Genetics, Ecology, and 12 others.