For Brad Rence, professor of biology, the study of insects is more than a research interest, it is a passion.
A specialist in insect behavior and physiology, he has published extensively in Physiological Entomology, The Physiologist, and Science on the neurobiology of circadian rhythms in crickets. In 1998, he was a visiting scientist at the Division of Entomology of the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization in Canberra, Australia, where he continued his research on the control of the Australian field cricket, a major threat to that country's agriculture.
Another of his research areas is the distribution, diversity, and abundance of prairie insects of the Upper Midwest. The Summer 1999 issue of Lawrence Today magazine described his work with several Lawrence students at field sites in the Brillion Marsh Wildlife Area and a railroad embankment in Kaukauna. This particular project, aimed at monitoring and comparing the insect populations among restored and original prairie sites, became part of a larger United States Fish and Wildlife Service federal grant to collect data over five states in the Midwest. Rence's work with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on this endeavor has more recently broadened beyond those first prairie sites to encompass 13 sites in Winnebago, Green Lake, and Marquette Counties.
In the fall of 1999, he joined Richard Nikolai and Lawrence students Marie Shoemaker, '01, and Neil Wenberg, '99, in making a presentation titled "Examining sustainability at the consumer level: Resilience of East-Central Wisconsin prairie insects to periodic fire and grazing" at the Ninth Annual Prairie Invertebrates Conference at the Wise Nature Reserve, Fall Creek, Wisconsin. "A longitudinal study of insect diversity and abundance on remnant and restored prairie areas in East Central Wisconsin," co-authored with Nikolai, Ellen Turner, '99, and Julie Majewski Carroll, '98, was also published in Ecological Restoration.
In addition to his demanding research and teaching endeavors, Rence played a major role in the construction of Science Hall, serving as faculty construction coordinator and chair of the Science Building Committee.
Read more about Professor Rence
View other faculty profiles from the president's annual report