Sean Schoville
he/him
Professor and Department Chair
Interests: Molecular ecology, population genetics, climate change, alpine biology
(608) 262-2956
839 Russell Labs
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Faculty Profile
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Research interests
Research in my lab focuses on species diversity, determining the role of ecological and evolutionary processes in generating this diversity, and developing management and conservation strategies that incorporate these processes. We develop and apply genetic approaches to address research questions, often integrating spatial environmental data, ecological studies, physiological experiments, and morphological variation.
The major research themes of my lab include:
Publications
Online Profiles
Recent Publications
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Pest management science. pmid:42410328, doi:10.1002/ps.71109
BACKGROUND Crop pests can significantly damage crops, cause economic loss, and reduce the sustainability of agroecosystems. Control of pests is challenging because of the development of pesticide resistance, increasing environmental variation, the continual emergence of invasive pests, and growing demand for sustainable production. New ecoinformatic approaches are needed to understand the drivers of pest population dynamics and improve pest management practices. Here we analyze spatiotemporal…
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Pest management science. pmid:42316476, doi:10.1002/ps.71027
CONCLUSION: These findings support the presence of phenotypic cross-resistance in L. decemlineata, however, transcriptomic analyses of a subset of metabolic detoxification genes did not reveal consistent expression patterns across populations, treatments, or doses, limiting definitive inference about the contribution of detoxification pathways to this response. Variation seen here in gene expression across populations underscores the complexity of resistance evolution and the need for further…
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Molecular ecology. pmid:42227270, doi:10.1111/mec.70417
The Hawaiian Drosophila radiation exemplifies rapid adaptation and species diversification. Many factors have been attributed to these phenomena, including allopatry, sexual selection, and ecological specialization. In recent years, the microbiome has come to the forefront as an important driver of adaptation that is capable of facilitating host survivorship, enhancing resilience to local environmental challenges, and enabling the use of different dietary resources. To determine the factors that…
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The Journal of heredity. pmid:41400510, pmc:PMC13326406, doi:10.1093/jhered/esaf093
The Sierra Nevada Parnassian (Parnassius behrii W.H. Edwards, 1870) (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) is a high-elevation specialist butterfly endemic to the Sierra Nevada, California. We present a genome assembly for P. behrii, representing the first major genomic resource for the species and greater Parnassius phoebus species complex. The assembly consists of two haplotypes, 1.59 Gb and 1.46 Gb in length, with contig N50 values of 10.93 Mb and 11.84 Mb, scaffold N50 values of 52.56 Mb and 51.90 Mb,…
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Ecology and evolution. pmid:41132808, pmc:PMC12541286, doi:10.1002/ece3.72360
Since the 1970s, the Midwestern USA has experienced an expansion of blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), the primary vector of Lyme disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, leading to increased Lyme disease incidence. Public health surveillance indicates that Northwestern Wisconsin has served as refugia for these ticks, seeding an expansion into neighboring states such as Michigan. However, the process of re-emergence and invasion remains unclear. To improve tick management, we examine whether…
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bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology. pmid:40654961, pmc:PMC12247688, doi:10.1101/2025.05.06.652154
The Hawaiian Drosophila radiation exemplifies rapid adaptation and species diversification. Many factors have been attributed to these phenomena, including allopatry, sexual selection, and ecological specialization. In recent years, the microbiome has come to the forefront as an important driver of adaptation that is capable of facilitating host survivorship, enhancing resilience to local environmental challenges, and enabling the use of different dietary resources. To determine how microbial…
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The Journal of heredity. pmid:40442020, doi:10.1093/jhered/esaf033
Characterizing functional connectivity is an important challenge in the face of ongoing environmental change. Approaches combining landscape-genetic and network methodologies have shown promise in allowing for simultaneous identification of strong and vulnerable populations, and the landscape factors that may inhibit or facilitate population connectivity. Here we leverage these tools to assess the genetic structure and functional connectivity of Parnassius clodius butterflies in three protected…
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Zootaxa. pmid:40173769, doi:10.11646/zootaxa.5589.1.29
After one year of surveying semiaquatic earthworms (Oligochaeta, Sparganophilidae), we describe Sparganophilus jenkinsi sp. nov., S. carveri sp. nov., S. oconeeae sp. nov., S. williamsae sp. nov., S. muskogee sp. nov., S. youngae sp. nov., and S. borgesae sp. nov. based on extensive differences in morphological characters and molecular data. Three additional species are described morphologically but not formally named due to limited material. The species of Sparganophilus described here can be…
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Ecology and evolution. pmid:39975703, pmc:PMC11839267, doi:10.1002/ece3.70986
A critical step toward uncovering generalizable patterns of phenotype-niche relationships is understanding how functional traits have evolved as species occupy new habitats. Ecomorphological traits impact how organisms function in their environment and are predictive of habitat use and niche. Studying ecomorphological variation in the context of strong environmental filtering can provide opportunities to understand the role of convergent evolution in forming trait-habitat use patterns. By…
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PLoS biology. pmid:39886774, pmc:PMC11783300, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3002805
Body size declines are a common response to warming via both plasticity and evolution, but variable size responses have been observed for terrestrial ectotherms. We investigate how temperature-dependent development and growth rates in ectothermic organisms induce variation in size responses. Leveraging long-term data for six montane grasshopper species spanning 1,768-3 901 m, we detect size shifts since ~1960 that depend on elevation and species’ seasonal timing. Size shifts have been…
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The Journal of heredity. pmid:39275847, pmc:PMC12130438, doi:10.1093/jhered/esae051
We describe a highly contiguous and complete diploid genome assembly for the Chryxus Arctic, Oeneis chryxus (E. Doubleday, [1849]), a butterfly species complex spanning much of northern and western North America. One subspecies, the Ivallda Arctic (O. c. ivallda), is endemic to California’s Sierra Nevada and of particular biogeographic interest and conservation concern. Extreme alpine habitats occupied by this subspecies include the summit of Mt. Whitney, California, representing the highest…
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Genome biology and evolution. pmid:39235033, pmc:PMC11421661, doi:10.1093/gbe/evae195
Biological invasions carry substantial practical and scientific importance and represent natural evolutionary experiments on contemporary timescales. Here, we investigated genomic diversity and environmental adaptation of the crop pest Drosophila suzukii using whole-genome sequencing data and environmental metadata for 29 population samples from its native and invasive range. Through a multifaceted analysis of this population genomic data, we increase our understanding of the D. suzukii genome,…
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Molecular ecology. pmid:38963031, doi:10.1111/mec.17460
Tick vectors and tick-borne disease are increasingly impacting human populations globally. An important challenge is to understand tick movement patterns, as this information can be used to improve management and predictive modelling of tick population dynamics. Evolutionary analysis of genetic divergence, gene flow and local adaptation provides insight on movement patterns at large spatiotemporal scales. We develop low coverage, whole genome resequencing data for 92 blacklegged ticks, Ixodes…
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Molecular biology and evolution. pmid:38935588, pmc:PMC11247348, doi:10.1093/molbev/msae130
The pace of current climate change is expected to be problematic for alpine flora and fauna, as their adaptive capacity may be limited by small population size. Yet, despite substantial genetic drift following post-glacial recolonization of alpine habitats, alpine species are notable for their success surviving in highly heterogeneous environments. Population genomic analyses demonstrating how alpine species have adapted to novel environments with limited genetic diversity remain rare, yet are…
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Genome biology and evolution. pmid:38662498, pmc:PMC11076180, doi:10.1093/gbe/evae086
Nonbiting midges (family Chironomidae) are found throughout the world in a diverse array of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, can often tolerate harsh conditions such as hypoxia or desiccation, and have consistently compact genomes. Yet we know little about the shared molecular basis for these attributes and how they have evolved across the family. Here, we address these questions by first creating high-quality, annotated reference assemblies for Tanytarsus gracilentus (subfamily Chironominae,…
Selected Publications
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Presentations
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Teaching
Teaching Schedule
- Entomology/Environmental Studies 201: Insects and Human Culture
- Entomology/Genetics 472: Molecular Evolution
- Entomology/Genetics/Zoology 624: Molecular Ecology
- Entomology 875: Landscape Genomics Seminar
Courses Taught
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Service
Professional Societies
- Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE)
- Entomological Society of America (ESA)
- Society for Conservation Biology (SCB)