Sitvarin et al. (2016) Oikos
I had some ideas bouncing around in my head towards the end of graduate school and used my first few months as a postdoc to formalize my thoughts. What came of all that reading and thinking is an odd concept/synthesis/review paper focused on the role of predators in food webs. Specifically, we highlight the work done (and remaining to be done) on predator effects in decomposition-based food webs. Herbivory-based food webs have been studied more, yet their are strong similarities between these seemingly different systems. We also came up with a new term, "multichannel fear", that posits a novel ecological interaction that has never been documented. This was an exciting paper to write, and the first one I ever did without spending time in the laboratory or field.
Athey et al. (2016) Food Webs
I had the opportunity to co-author this paper with my entire lab group. It was interesting and challenging to write with so many other people, but we got it done. The paper is about ESP, our acronym for early season predation. In agricultural fields where pest populations can explode and reach economically damaging levels, the beneficial impacts of predators are most likely to be realized early in the season. The challenge lies in the fact that pests are rare early on, so they are difficult to detect. Fortunately, molecular gut content analysis allows predators to be screened for pest DNA, which has revealed predators to consume lots of pests, even before the pest populations take off.
Whitney et al. (2018) Molecular Ecology
A rather interesting story line lead to this publication, though I will leave out distracting details. A former graduate student had yet to publish his work when I began some follow-up research built from his collections. We ended up deciding to publish together after new analyses, interpretations, etc. came to light. This study investigates how spider diets change seasonally, using molecular gut contents (i.e., DNA from ingested prey) to track what they eat. It turns out that spiders eat through the cold winter and that they are somewhat selective feeders; they don't just grab whatever they happen upon.
Athey et al. (2018) Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society
An ambitious combination of laboratory and field experiments along with modern molecular techniques. Can lynx spiders contribute to the control of an invasive herbivore pest, the brown marmorated stink bug? The answer: probably! The spiders ate the stink bugs, but only reluctantly, which may be attributed to their stinkiness. The hesitance to feed on this defended prey combined with the quick breakdown of DNA inside the spider’s gut makes detection of consumption difficult. It is highly likely that the lynx spiders do contribute to biological control, though the actions of other predators and parasites may be necessary to appreciate the full effect.
Rosenwald et al. (2020) Proceedings of the Royal Society B
There are bacteria that live inside(!) the cells of many arthropods, including spiders. These bacteria hang out there and can do very strange things: sabotage reproduction depending on the nature of the infection in the male and female spider, kill embryos, or even turn male embryos into females. All of these bacterial meddlings help the bacteria to survive, even if it might not be in the best interests of the spider host. We found a bunch of different kinds of bacteria living in a little sheet-weaving spider collected from agricultural fields. Importantly, we show that one of the bacteria types present causes reproductive interference, and it is the first time it has been shown to do so.
Pending paper from my postdoc
"Molecular assessment of seasonal fluctuation intraguild predation among wolf spiders" - Thomas Whitney and I will have one more manuscript encompassing some of his master's degree and follow-up molecular work I conducted. We will show how patterns in intraguild predation among Schizocosa spp. wolf spiders change over time.
Pictures
