Every April the Biology department at the University of Oklahoma hands out awards to graduate students for either teaching or research they have done during the last scholastic year. This year our paper in Ecology, “From cryptic herbivore to predator: stable isotopes reveal consistent variability in trophic levels in an ant population” was awarded the bestContinue reading “Student Research Award and a Little Update for the Summer…”
Category Archives: Ecology
NEW PAPER OUT! Sodium co-limits and catalyzes macronutrients in a prairie food web
“Nitrogen and phosphorus frequently limit terrestrial plant production, but have a mixed record in regulating the abundance of terrestrial invertebrates. We contrasted four ways that Na could interact with an NP fertilizer to shape the plants and invertebrates of an inland prairie. We applied NP and Na to m² plots in a factorial design. AbovegroundContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! Sodium co-limits and catalyzes macronutrients in a prairie food web”
NEW PAPER OUT! From cryptic herbivore to predator: stable isotopes reveal consistent variability in trophic levels in an ant population
We are incredibly excited to announce that our work on fire ants and isotopes has just been accepted in Ecology! The work primarily revolves around understanding trophic variation across a population of one of the model organisms of myrmecology: the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Essentially, we are looking at where you rank in aContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! From cryptic herbivore to predator: stable isotopes reveal consistent variability in trophic levels in an ant population”
NEW PAPER OUT! A checklist and assemblage comparison of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma
I am excited to announce our first paper of 2016! This was a really fun project that we worked on in the latter half of 2015 with new county and state records for a number of ant species. We also found interesting differences in patterns of local diversity between habitat types. We hope to follow this work upContinue reading “NEW PAPER OUT! A checklist and assemblage comparison of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma”
Summer heat and mid field season update!
This summer has been quite the adventure. I have been trying out a few different techniques, reading a ton of literature, and trying not to go crazy with all of the ideas. As of this week my first dissertation chapter was submitted and I just got the acceptance letter for our Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge AntContinue reading “Summer heat and mid field season update!”
Ant Ecology in New Mexico
New Mexico is a beautiful state. Despite its proximity to both Texas and Oklahoma, I really haven’t spent much time here. At the end of May, I was fortunate to join a team from the Kaspari lab who are resurveying ant transects that were initially measured 20 years ago. They are doing a lot of really cool,Continue reading “Ant Ecology in New Mexico”
Corrie Moreau visits Oklahoma
Every year the graduate students in the Biology department at the University of Oklahoma get to nominate a seminar speaker that they would like to host. This year, I had the pleasure of hosting Corrie Moreau and it was awesome! Corrie is a evolutionary biologist with interests in the origin, evolution, and adaptation of species and maintenanceContinue reading “Corrie Moreau visits Oklahoma”
Ant Ecology at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station (UOBS)
Labor day weekend brought about an interesting opportunity. Jelena Bujan, ant lover and fellow lab mate in Mike Kaspari’s lab, brought forth an idea about measuring the thermal performance of ants in Oklahoma. We jotted down a rough sketch for the project and then headed to the University of Oklahoma Biological Station (UOBS). Having been stationed there all summer, IContinue reading “Ant Ecology at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station (UOBS)”
Summer Research 2015 – University of Oklahoma Biological Station and Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
Check out my research on ants, size, and stable isotopes (CLICK ME)! Besides working on understanding how size affects an ant’s stable isotope signature, I have also been collecting, identifying, and creating species lists of ants at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station and the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. So far we have found new recordsContinue reading “Summer Research 2015 – University of Oklahoma Biological Station and Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge”
Roeder Lab 