The Harmon-Threatt lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is seeking a motivated, hardworking undergraduate student to join our team for the spring 2020 semester. The successful candidate will work with Dr. Karl Roeder on a recently funded project examining if multifunctional woody polycultures increase insect biodiversity and food web stability. The position will mostlyContinue reading “Job Announcement: Undergraduate research quantifying insect biodiversity and trophic structure of agricultural food webs”
Category Archives: Biodiversity
NEW PAPER OUT! Species Energy and Thermal Performance Theory predict 20‐year changes in ant community abundance and richness
Our newest paper of 2019 and the first NEON ants paper is out in Ecology!!! “In an era of rapid climate change, and with it concern over insect declines, we used two theories to predict 20‐year changes in 34 North American ant communities. The ecosystems, from deserts to hardwood forests, were first surveyed in theContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! Species Energy and Thermal Performance Theory predict 20‐year changes in ant community abundance and richness”
PhD and future postdoc in Illinois!
Over the past few years, I have tried to post once every month or at least every other month with updates from my research or outreach. This came to a crashing halt after BioBlitz last year as I finished off the last few sections of my dissertation and prepared to defend. After a successful defense,Continue reading “PhD and future postdoc in Illinois!”
Oklahoma BioBlitz 2018
Once a year, there is an annual Bioblitz that takes place in different locations, generally parks or natural areas that are protected, around Oklahoma. These have occured for the past 15 years in this state and I think really help bring together a diversity of people who love nature. Priscilla Crawford leads the organization of theseContinue reading “Oklahoma BioBlitz 2018”
Quantifying invertebrate responses to nutrient additions in North American grasslands
A slight delay in posts as I have been gone or busy writing up portions of my dissertation. In September, our lab finished off the last sampling on the SALT grant for the year at three locations in the midwest United States. Having never visited two of these states before, I was quite excited toContinue reading “Quantifying invertebrate responses to nutrient additions in North American grasslands”
The Ants of Oklahoma Project is now funded by The Alongside Wildlife Foundation
We were recently awarded a grant from The Alongside Wildlife Foundation to support our citizen science research project: The Ants of Oklahoma! For the past few years, Diane and I have been talking and writing about some of the cool ants we have discovered in Oklahoma. In 2017, we decided we could do more. BasedContinue reading “The Ants of Oklahoma Project is now funded by The Alongside Wildlife Foundation”
Media coverage of our paper examining how floods impact invertebrate communities
Our recent work on the 2015 flood at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station and its impact on invertebrate communities was just covered in a EurekAlert from AAAS and by the Entomology Today blog hosted by the Entomological Society of America. You can find links to both below. EurekAlert: [CLICK HERE] Entomology Today Blog: [CLICK HERE] Paper:Continue reading “Media coverage of our paper examining how floods impact invertebrate communities”
NEW PAPER OUT! Disturbance mediates homogenization of above and belowground invertebrate communities
Our manuscript about the impact of flooding on invertebrate communities at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station (UOBS) has been officially accepted at Environmental Entomology! This project has some interesting origins. In between my written and oral comprehensive exams, I desperately wanted to be outside doing well….anything. We had heard that an area of the UOBSContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! Disturbance mediates homogenization of above and belowground invertebrate communities”
NEON ANTS Fieldwork Finale
Fieldwork for NEON ants is now complete. From Oregon to Southern California across to Florida and then up to Massachusetts—35 sites were resampled in deserts, grasslands, and forests. There is a hell of a lot of data from this project and I am very grateful that I was able to partake in part of it.Continue reading “NEON ANTS Fieldwork Finale”
NEON Ants 2017: Site 9 and 10 – Organ Pipe National Monument and Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, Arizona
The final leg of the NEON ants 2017 project—an NSF funded project— has come and gone. We visited two beautiful locations: Organ Pipe National Monument and Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch. Both of these sites were in Arizona, a state that harbors some of the greatest ant diversity in North America. Now that the fieldwork is done,Continue reading “NEON Ants 2017: Site 9 and 10 – Organ Pipe National Monument and Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, Arizona”
Roeder Lab 