2026-2027 Friday Seminar Schedule

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Jennifer Güler, PhD
Associate Professor of Biology, University of Virginia
Güler Malaria Lab

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Christine Merlin, Phd
Professor of Biology, Texas A&M
Merlin Lab

Hosted by Iggy, Provencio, PhD

Molecular and Cellular Bases of Seasonal Migratory Physiology and Behavior in Monarch Butterflies

About the speaker

Dr. Christine Merlin is a Professor in the Department of Biology and Presidential Impact Fellow at Texas A&M University. Prior to joining TAMU in 2013, she obtained a Ph.D from the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, France, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. Research in her lab addresses two fundamental and intertwined questions: how animals measure time and use it to control daily and seasonal biology, and how animals migrate seasonally. By developing the migratory monarch butterfly as a genetically tractable model system and applying integrative approaches, her lab has made contributions to our understanding of the molecular and neurogenetic mechanisms underlying circadian and seasonal rhythms, animal seasonal migration, and animal magnetoreception. Dr. Merlin’s lab is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Abstract

The seasonal migration of eastern North American monarch butterflies is fascinating. Every fall, millions of monarchs move ahead of the upcoming harsh winter at their northern breeding sites by embarking on a virgin migratory journey to their overwintering grounds in Central Mexico. They fuel this long travel south by entering a state of reproductive quiescence (i.e. diapause) and use orientation mechanisms that rely on the sun position, their endogenous circadian clocks, and the Earth’s magnetic field to pinpoint their destination with uncanny precision. In the spring, after becoming reproductive and mating, they fly back north and make their way to their breeding sites in several successive generations. The seasonal switches in physiology and behavior are triggered by environmental changes, but the underpinning molecular and cellular mechanisms have remained largely unknown. Owing to the development of CRISPR/Cas9-targeted mutagenesis in monarchs, we exploit unique and ecologically relevant features of their biology that are not easily studied in standard animal models to tackle unanswered questions of general importance. In this talk, I will focus on recent work that highlight the molecular and cellular bases of the photoperiodic induction of reproductive diapause and the seasonal cold-induced reversal of flight orientation.