The Caterpillar Effect: How a Decades-Long Partnership Transformed Careers and Uncovered a Biodiversity Crisis

The Caterpillar Effect

How a Decades-Long Partnership Transformed Careers and Uncovered a Biodiversity Crisis

Thanks to �� donors, scientists like Dr. Lee Dyer are advancing vital ecological research—and inspiring the next generation.

In the heart of the Costa Rican rainforest, a chance partnership has enabled scientists to understand how climate change is impacting the delicate balance between caterpillars, their host plants, and their natural predators—relationships that are vital to a healthy ecosystem. It has also helped to uncover one of the most alarming insect decline discoveries in history, with implications for us all.

A MEETING THAT SPARKED A DECADES-LONG PARTNERSHIP

In the early 1990s, Dr. Lee Dyer, then a young assistant professor, was searching for a way to continue his caterpillar research in Costa Rica. He was eager to understand which species were present in the forest, along with their natural history and ecological role, much of which was entirely unknown at the time. But Lee was struggling to find the support he needed to maintain his research.

In 1996, while attending a scientific conference, Lee learned about ��. He immediately saw that the organization offered something rare: not just funding opportunities, but a way to invite the public to be a part of the science. “Few organizations so effectively merge scientific impact with societal engagement,” he said.

Lee’s first �� grant launched a partnership that has fueled nearly three decades of research, education, and outreach across multiple countries, contributing to large-scale biodiversity projects and vital research around global insect decline. Since 2000, data collected from �� teams have resulted in over 100 scientific papers that have documented thousands of novel interactions, new species, and new chemical compounds, while providing detailed ecological insights.

But this was just the beginning of the story, and �� donors have been helping write the next chapters ever since.

A SHOCKING DISCOVERY

One of the most striking examples of the impacts of this long-term research came in 2020 when one of Lee’s graduate students, Danielle (Dani) Salcido, discovered something alarming.

Dani had first met Lee after receiving a fully funded �� teacher fellowship to join one of his expeditions in Ecuador. She’d enjoyed the experience so much that a few years later, she wrote to Lee to ask if she could further assist his research as a graduate student.

Lee was thrilled to have her support, and she soon began working with him at his various research sites, helping to analyze decades of data on caterpillars. But while she was reviewing data collected at La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, Dani determined that caterpillar diversity had declined by almost 40 percent, while parasitoid—the wasps and flies that prey on caterpillars—diversity had dropped by a whopping 55 percent.

I National Geographic May 5, 2020 cover nsect declines, and the resulting declines in interactions between insects, can cascade through food webs, threatening the health of entire ecosystems, not to mention the crops that humans depend on. Back in 2006, a team of scientists calculated that the in the U.S. alone, including biological control by parasitoids, adds up to a staggering $57 billion.

Dani and Lee’s findings became part of a about global insect decline. A photo of moths on a light trap—set up by �� participants in Arizona—was featured on the cover of the magazine.

Most long-term data about insects comes from temperate regions like the U.S. and Europe, noted the article’s author, Elizabeth Kolbert (best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Sixth Extinction), even though roughly 80 percent of all insect species live in the tropics.

The decades of data collected by Lee, Dani, and thousands of �� participants were—and are—essential to understanding the true and devastating impacts of insect declines.

THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE IT HAPPEN

For Lee, who is now an ecologist and biology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, one of ��’s most powerful contributions—in addition to the funding support that provides the nuts and bolts of long-term data collection—is the people. “Participants are a key part of every step of our field research.”

Each year, �� volunteers contribute more than 4,000 hours to Lee’s field projects—collecting and photographing caterpillars, processing data, cleaning rearing containers, curating specimens, and assisting with lab and field experiments—and their contributions have fueled high-quality research.

During the early years of Lee’s partnership with ��, he led a variety of teams, including teachers, corporate groups, and members of the public. He was such an effective leader and educator that �� asked if he’d be open to working with younger audiences.

At first, he was hesitant. “Teenagers were kind of terrifying,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I could do that.” But it wasn’t long before Lee faced his fears and began hosting teams of teen volunteers.

Over the years, Lee’s mentorship of young �� participants has paid dividends in lives changed. Perhaps the best example is that of Moria Robinson.

MORIA’S JOURNEY: FROM TEEN PARTICIPANT TO PROFESSOR

Moria Robinson was a nature-loving teen with a passion for bugs. In 2006, she joined one of Lee’s research expeditions in Arizona, thanks to a fully funded �� fellowship. She arrived full of curiosity. She left knowing she wanted to become a scientist.

“Moria was fired up about butterflies,” said Lee. “Her experience helped supercharge her existing passion for natural history.”

Working alongside Lee and his field team, Moria and her fellow high school students collected data to better understand the relationships between caterpillars, their host plants, and their natural predators—parasitoids.

“When you’re out there and young, it’s all very overwhelming,” Moria later recalled. “But the exciting part was seeing for the first time how formal scientific methods can be applied to my passion for understanding what’s out there.”

One of the best moments in the field for Moria was realizing how critical her role was to supporting the research, something Lee and his research team repeatedly emphasized. “They made an effort to convey just how important we are out there,” she said. “It was empowering for a young person.”

Moira in Costa Rica observing a nocturnal visitor to the UV light - a sphinx moth!

Four years after her first expedition, Moria joined another of Lee’s teams as an �� teen facilitator, mentoring a new cohort of student fellows. She loved having the opportunity to share her passion for the research with the students and to watch their transformations. “Most students start from a place of being disinterested in science or maybe wishing they had been assigned a different project,” said Moria. “But by the end, everyone is so engaged. I love seeing that transition in some students—from a disinterest to being so excited that they’re drawing their favorite caterpillar.”

Moria’s passion for science, combined with her experience in the field, inspired her to pursue a Ph.D. in population biology at the University of California, Davis, where she ran her very own caterpillar research lab.

Amazingly, ��’s ripple effects didn’t end there. One of the young �� volunteers, Moria, mentored in Arizona, later joined her lab at UC Davis as an undergraduate research assistant.

Today, Moria is an assistant professor of biology at Utah State University, where she continues to study the relationships between caterpillars and their host plants while mentoring young scientists. In 2023, Moria served as first author on a paper published in the prestigious journal Science, which included a considerable amount of data collected by �� teams. Lee, who served as a co-author, was thrilled for Moria. “Having a paper in Science that early on in your career is hard to do,” he said.

A MODEL THAT WORKS—FOR SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

What began for Lee Dyer as a desperate search for research funding has become a career-defining partnership. “�� is more than a funding mechanism,” he said. “It’s a partnership that fosters the best possible science, outreach, and cross-cultural learning.”

Thanks to this partnership, Lee and his research teams have helped to reveal the complexities of caterpillar-plant interactions, advanced climate and biodiversity research, furthered the careers of scientists and educators like Dani, and launched the careers of scientists like Moria.

YOU Make This Possible

Donors are the backbone of everything �� does. Your gifts enable researchers like Lee to conduct critical conservation science and offer people of all ages the life-changing experience of conducting real science in the field.

Donate today to support vital science, mentorship, and a better future for generations to come.

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