Chief Science Officer
Curator of Invertebrate Zoology
Adjunct Faculty, Department of Biological, Geological & Environmental Sciences, Cleveland State University
Research Associate, Field Museum of Natural History
Research Associate, Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
Dr. Gavin Svenson is an entomologist with expertise in the biological diversity and evolutionary history of praying mantises. The results of his research are changing the traditional scientific classification of these insects and revealing new evolutionary patterns among them.
Svenson became intrigued with understanding insect evolution during a college study-abroad program in Australia. He began working with praying mantises, long one of his favorite insects, and their systematics (scientific classification) as a graduate student.
Svenson was named a Museum curator in 2012. He employs modern morphological and molecular-based approaches for his research. Using the Museum’s DNA lab, he isolates DNA sequence information from specimens and, using computer analysis, generates the likeliest scenario for their positions within the praying mantis family tree. The end result is a reorganized classification of praying mantis species that aligns genetics with morphology.
The work of reconfiguring praying mantises’ classification also allows Svenson to address larger questions concerning praying mantis evolution. He can investigate how, where and when praying mantises evolved specific characteristics, such as camouflage and hearing. He also can track when and where certain mantis groups emerged.
Twice each year, Svenson conducts fieldwork internationally to study and collect praying mantis specimens. This work has yielded an abundance of new species and new insights into mantis evolutionary history. He has named 19 new bark mantis species based on specimens he collected on expeditions to eight Central and South American countries and studied on visits to the collections of 25 museums in the Americas and Europe. A fieldwork project Svenson led in the African country of Rwanda has already yielded one new species and likely several more.
Among Svenson’s recent projects is studying the evolution of cryptic features in a subfamily of praying mantis in Central and South America. He has also revised the higher-level taxonomies of flower mantises (ornate mantis species found in the tropics) and a subfamily of tropical mantis.
He is collaborating with researchers from six institutions around the country on a National Science Foundation-funded effort to create a research-quality online database of the Museum’s arthropod and mollusk collection and nine other collections housed at major museums in Illinois, Alabama, Michigan, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
Svenson has overseen graduate student research on: standardizing the morphological nomenclature of praying mantises; a revision of a neotropical mantis group; describing a new mantis species from Africa; completing a checklist of the praying mantis diversity of Rwanda; revising an African lineage in preparation for studying the biomechanics of the praying mantis foreleg; and addressing the systematics of three major mantis lineages.
Contact:
[email protected]; 216-231-4600 x3315
Curriculum Vitae and publication history
Personal research website