Bigger than bugs

Daniel Duran, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Environmental Science, taxonomist and entomologist in the School of Earth & Environment as well as the Gloucester County Naturalist, built his reputation—and much of his career—studying evolutionary relationships among insects.

One of the world’s leading experts on beneficial tiger beetles, Duran has discovered and named 14 of more than 3,000 known species and this year published an article detailing a new method for discovering species with enhanced DNA techniques and other methods that integrate information from life histories, body structures and geographical distributions.

His March 19 paper in the journal Nature Scientific Reports illustrated how established methods used to classify insects can be modified to identify not just more insects but all manner of life.

Duran, who’s published 19 papers over the past five years, sees the preservation of biodiversity, which extends far beyond the world of insects, as his calling.

“You can’t conserve biodiversity if you don’t know what the units of biodiversity are,” Duran said recently. “While I tend to focus on insects, I also work on plants, birds and other organisms.”

Many scientists like Duran believe there is not just an existential climate crisis, in which the planet is dangerously warming, but a biodiversity crisis exacerbated by climate change in which many species are disappearing at an alarming and unsustainable rate.

Working with researchers in Texas, Duran believes they may have recently discovered a new species of milkweed, a plant that’s important to the survival of other species, including the monarch butterfly.

That’s important, he said, because “we are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. Biodiversity helps us survive, and the greater the biodiversity, the more it’s capable of doing things like filtering water and helping with pollination.”

Duran has published nine papers in the past 24 months on such disparate topics as taxonomy (the science of describing and classifying organisms), understanding evolutionary changes in the appearance of insects and how climate change may impact biodiversity in New Jersey.

As county naturalist, Duran teaches about the rich biodiversity on display at Scotland Run Park in Clayton.

Rowan University researchers are passionate about what they do. Find more at Meet Our Researchers.