.: Department of Biology: Merrill Sweet

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Merrill Henry Sweet, II (b. 1935, in Chicago Heights, Illinois) graduated in 1954 from Housatonic Regional High School in Connecticut. He received his B.S. Magna cum Laude and with distinction in Zoology in 1958 and his Ph.D. in 1963 in Entomology from the University of Connecticut. He came to the Biology Department of Texas A&M University in 1963, became Professor in 1982, and Professor Emeritus of Biology in 2003. He has been on three sabbatical leaves for fieldwork in southern Africa (1967-68); southern South America (1981-82); and Australia, New Zealand, and Cape of South Africa (1997-1998). He has taught General Zoology, General Biology, Ecology, and Biology of Insects; and on the graduate level, Principles and Methods of Systematics, Zoogeography, Terrestrial Ecology, Aquatic Ecology, and Aquatic Entomology. He received the Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching in 1982. He is presently teaching Ecology and is active in his research in retirement.

Merrill Henry Sweet

Merrill Henry Sweet
Professor Emeritus

3258 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3258

Office:
Biological Sciences Building East 324
Fax: 979-845-3347
Email: msweet@mail.bio.tamu.edu

Systematics and Ecology

Surprisingly little is known about most of the millions of species forming the diverse ecosystems that are ultimately our life support systems. Dr. Sweet's laboratory focuses on learning more about the ecology, ethology, systematics, and biogeography of such species. He and his students have studied in field and laboratory a wide variety of subjects ranging from marine copepods to aquatic beetles, from cave and spring invertebrates to insect-plant interactions. His own research on the ecology of seed bugs (Lygaeoidea) has taken him from northern coniferous forests to tropical jungles, from seashores to alpine slopes in different continents.

His specialty, the insect order Hemiptera, is a diverse assemblage of some 100,000 species ranging from tiny parasitic scales to giant predaceous water bugs, from plant bugs in the forest canopy to water striders skimming the surfaces of lakes and seas. We seek to understand the evolutionary relationships among these varied insects, utilizing all sources of information from traditional comparative anatomy to molecular analyses.

Sweet, M. H. and J. A. Slater 2004. An analysis of species-groups of the genus Plinthisus Stephens (Hemiptera: Rhyparochromidae) in the Ethiopian Region with the description of eight new species. Zootaxa 533: 1-56.

Sweet, M. H. and C. W. Schaefer 2002. Parastrachiinae (Hemiptera: Cydnidae) raised to family level. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 95 : 441-448.

Sweet, M. H. 2000. Economic importance of the Seedbugs and the Chinchbugs (Lygaeoidea) Chapter 6. Pp.143-264 in C.W, Schaefer and A R. Panizzi (eds.) Heteroptera of Economic Importance. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.

Sweet, M. H. 2000. Economic importance of predation by big-eyed bugs (Geocoridae). Chapter 30. Pp. 713-735 in C.W, Schaefer and A R. Panizzi (eds.) Heteroptera of Economic Importance. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.

Raymond, A., P. Cutlip, and M. H. Sweet 2000. Rates and processes of terrestrial nutrient cycling in the Paleozoic: The world before beetles, termites and flies. Chapter 10. Pp. 235-283 in Warren D. Allmon and David J. Bottjer (eds.) Evolutionary Paleoecology: The Ecological Context of Macroevolutionary Change. Columbia University Press, New York

Gould, G. G. and M. H. Sweet 2000. The host range and oviposition behavior of Ochrimnus mimulus (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae) in Central Texas. Southwestern Naturalist 45 (1): 15-23.

Sweet, M. H. 1996. Comparative external morphology of the pregenital abdomen of the Hemiptera. In C.W.Schaefer, (ed.) Studies on Hemipteran Phylogeny. Thomas Say Publications in Entomology: Proceedings. 119-158.

Sweet, M. H. 1992. A new genus and species of Rhyparochrominae (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae) from western North America. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 99: 471-477.

D.W. Killebrew and M. H. Sweet. 1989. Enzyme variability in an intertidal anomuran Clibanarius vittatus (Bosc) (Crustacea: Decapoda). Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 16: 199-201.

Sweet, M. H. 1986. Ligyrocoris barberi (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae). A new seedbug from the southeastern United States with a discussion of its ecology, life cycle, and reproductive isolation. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 94: 281-290.