Dr. William H. "Bill" Cade is a biologist and a former president of the University of Lethbridge. He researches the role of acoustic signals in field cricket mating behaviour.
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Cade completed his BA (1968), MA (1972) and PhD (1976) in Zoology at the University of Texas at Austin. For his Master's degree he worked with Professor Osmond Breland on unusual aspects of insect sperm cell. Cade's doctoral work was on the evolution of mating behavior in insects and he studied with Professor Daniel Otte
Cade has done research in evolution of animal behavior, insect reproductive behavior, acoustic signals in cricket, cockroach mating behavior, and parasite-prey coevolution.
In 1975, together with his wife, Elsa Salazar Cade, Cade discovered the parasitic fly Ormia ochracea is attracted to the song of male crickets. Only female flies are attracted to the song, and they deposit living larvae on and in the vicinity of calling males. The larvae burrow into and eat the cricket who dies in about 7 days when the flies pupate. This was the first example of a natural enemy that locates its host or prey using the mating signal of the host/prey.[1]
In late 2006, research by Marlene Zuk revealed the relationship between the cricket and the fly as one of the fastest examples of evolution ever recorded. Pressure from the O. ochracea has caused the crickets to evolve a silent male with wings that look like female wings.[2]
Cade has a long collaboration with Dan Otte collecting and studying the crickets and grasshoppers of Africa.[3]
When he was an undergrad at Texas he was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.
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| Preceded by Howard E. Tennant |
President of University of Lethbridge 2000–2010 |
Succeeded by Michaelb J. Mahon |