Welcome to Chad Johnson’s Urban Arthropod Ecology Website!
Lab News
08/2021- Much has happened in the past two sabbatical/pandemic years. Our crew has turned over entirely. Welcome to Tommy Pornmany, Hasti Hasrari and Jared Rusnak as Barrett STEM research scholars. Also, welcome to Damara Willis.
Several new publications have come out on black widow development and behavior in response to the urban heat island (see publications list).
08/2021- Hasti Asrari is leading a new project in the lab to look at the microbiome of urban and desert black widows. Here is a video of her describing the work. Financial support from Barrett, the Honors College, New College and NSF CAP-LTER. Very excited.
05/2019 - Dr. J was honored to receive New College’s award for outstanding student mentoring, as well as being asked to serve as Marshal for New College’s Spring 2019 convocation
04/2019 -
Great funding news storm:
Undergraduate researcher Sarah Lindley received a summer fellowship from both New College and an REU from CAP LTER.
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Graduate student Ryan Clark received a summer research grant from CAP LTER to study behavioral differences between urban and desert black widows in the field.
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Dr. J received summer salary from CAP-LTER to begin study on urban black widows from other cities.
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Dr. J also received a supplement to Eileen Hebets’ NSF grant to help them collaborate on studies of mating system evolution in Dolomedes fishing spiders during his upcoming sabbatical in the Hebets lab at U. Nebraska, Lincoln
01/2019 - New work out from the widow lab led by former MS student Trish Trubl: desert widows are higher in Phosphorus (but not Nitrogen) and lab supplementation with cannibalism boosts Phosphorus (but not Nitrogen). If you are wondering if desert spiders are more cannibalistic—stay tuned.
01/2019 - Chad, Ryan, Chris, Keaton, and Colin attend the central Arizona Phoenix long-term ecological research project’s all scientists meeting and poster symposium.
10/2018 - Colin Clay joins the widow crew as a STEM research assistant funded through Barrett, the Honors college.
9/2018 - Dr. J has gotten a symposium funded on Urban animal behavior for the 2019 Animal Behavior meetings to be held in Chicago, IL.
6/2018 - Ryan joins the widow crew as a Masters student through ASU Tempe’s School of Life Sciences.
Don’t miss out on any lab news and updates.