Rate My Professor Natasha Tigreros

Natasha Tigreros is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology at The University of Arizona, where she leads the Stressed Herbivore Lab and contributes to the Nutritional Ecology and Edible Insects research group. Her work focuses on insect nutritional ecology and life history, integrating approaches from physiological, behavioral, and evolutionary ecology. She investigates how herbivorous insects, including beetles and butterflies, respond to environmental stressors such as nutrient limitation, water balance, predation risk, and habitat fragmentation. This research spans scales from individual physiology and behavior to species interactions and landscape-level processes in natural and agricultural systems. Tigreros explores applications of nutritional ecology principles to optimize insect growth, development, and production under varying temperatures, humidity, and diets, supporting sustainable protein sources.

Tigreros has published extensively on topics including flight-fecundity tradeoffs in wing-monomorphic insects ('Flight-fecundity tradeoffs in wing-monomorphic insects,' Advances in Insect Physiology, 2019), nutrition and sexual selection across life stages ('Linking nutrition and sexual selection across life stages in a model butterfly system,' Functional Ecology, 2013), and maternally induced cannibalism as an adaptive response to predation ('Maternally induced intraclutch cannibalism: an adaptive response to predation risk?,' Ecology Letters, 2017). Recent contributions address oxidation and allocation of nectar amino acids during butterfly flight ('Oxidation and allocation of nectar amino acids during butterfly flight,' The Journal of Experimental Biology, 2026), shifts in nutrient allocation in gift-giving butterflies ('Shifts in nutrient allocation in a gift-giving butterfly: a hidden consequence of water balance?,' The Journal of Experimental Biology, 2026), body size impacts on thermal maxima in desert bees (Ecological Entomology, 2023), and habitat fragmentation effects on locomotion (Landscape Ecology, 2023). Her publications appear in leading journals, reflecting influence in nutritional ecology, life-history theory, trophic interactions, and landscape ecology.