Daniel Young

Education:
Ph.D. Entomology – Michigan State University, 1981
M.S. Entomology – Michigan State University, 1973
B.S. Entomology – Michigan State University, 1971

Affiliations:
I have directed the Wisconsin Insect Research Collection (WIRC) since 1993, overseeing activities of the Academic Curator, student employees, and volunteer, setting and administering WIRC policies and long range plans, developing and approving budget expenditures, and preparing proposals for outside funding. I also serve as Chair to the UW Natural History Museums Council.

Research Interests:
I focus primarily on the systematics, taxonomy, phylogeny, biodiversity, and natural history of insects, with an emphasis on Coleoptera. I am the world expert on Pyrochroidae and Ischaliidae and will continue my “regional-to-international” research focus for these taxa.

I have a growing international research project on the anthicid genus Lemodes; I presently hold about a dozen undescribed species from New Guinea and biogeographically related Pacific island archipelagos. In 1997, I was invited to deliver a symposium paper entitled: “Wisconsin’s Species Diversity: The State of Scientific Knowledge.” In doing so, I entered into a new direction for personal research and undergraduate-graduate training. Wisconsin’s insect fauna is very poorly known compared to those of neighboring states and the region. The absence of a Wisconsin insect inventory has contributed to a critical lack of consideration of insects from biodiversity or conservation biology standpoints and the equally dangerous scenario of habitat management recommendations in these arenas based upon but a few insect species.

My presentation, identified three research priorities: 1) basic taxonomically and habitat/site based sampling and inventory work, 2), training the future generation of taxonomic experts that will be increasingly called upon to form research partnerships with ecologists and conservation biologists, and 3) supporting the state’s natural history collections as the repositories of our natural heritage, to insure their necessary growth, and to support data management (bioinformatics) that is inherently a part of their use. These three priorities have accounted for at least half of my efforts during the past 12 years and will continue to do so.

Research Category: Organismal