Zakee Sabree

Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Email: zlsabree@email.arizona.edu
Office: LSS 329, (520) 626-8661
Lab: LSS 204, (520) 626-8344

Mailing Address:
1007 E. Lowell Street
Life Sciences South Room 444
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

• Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
• Publications

I am interested in the role of bacterial symbionts of phytophagous insects in nutrient acquisition, phytochemical detoxification and host insect self-defense strategies. To this end, I am developing a model system for examining these three phenomena in Cassidinae (Chrysomelidae) beetles found in Nearctic and Neotropic regions. Many of these beetles are specialist feeders on plants rich in compounds repellent to most generalist phytophagous insects, which demonstrates that they have been able to inhabit a low-competition ecological niche by way of either acquired or retained mechanisms for detoxifying the plant defense compounds. I am interested in elucidating these mechanisms.