Personality and plasticity in black widows

We are interested in the factors that allow some organisms to thrive in the wake of human disturbance (e.g. urbanization), while others are driven locally extinct.  Widows and Phoenix's alteration of the Sonoran desert provide an excellent model system for this.  In particular, we are interested in testing the hypothesis that behavioral plasticity is a critical feature of urban pests.

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Johnson JC, Halpin, R, *Stevens, D *Vannan, A, *Lam, J & *Bratsch, K.  (2015).  Individual variation in ballooning dispersal by black widow spiderlings: The effects of family and social rearing.  Current Zoology, 61(3): 520 – 528.  Link Here

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*Halpin, R & Johnson, JC  (2014)  A continuum of behavioral plasticity in urban and desert black widows. 

Ethology, DOI: 10.1111/eth.12297 Link Here