Ros had a new paper come out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on sexual selection on female ornamentation in dance flies from her doctoral research.  It’s been receiving some great press including this article from New Scientist.  Well done Ros!

Celina has had a new paper from her thesis accepted at Ecosphere!  This paper “Natal habitat conditions have carryover effects on dispersal capacity and behavior” (Baines & McCauley) presents results from a large experiment Celina conducted last year which found that the developmental conditions notonectids experienced had strong effects on dispersal behavior.  Nice work Celina!

Dr. Dachin Frances gave an outstanding exit seminar and thesis defense today!  Seeing all of her research come together was a wonderful experience.  She made the lab proud!

Well done Dachin!

The first paper from our experimental ponds project has been accepted!  This paper examined patterns of phenotype dependent colonization in green frogs arriving at these new ponds.  This research was led by former PDF Chris Searcy and the paper will appear in the Canadian Journal of Zoology. Well done Chris!

Searcy, C. A., B. Gilbert, M. Krkosek, L. Rowe, and S. J. McCauley. Positive correlation between dispersal and body size in green frogs (Rana clamitans) naturally colonizing an experimental landscape. Canadian Journal of Zoology, Accepted

Sarah successfully defended her PhD today!  The newly minted Dr. French started with a fantastic talk and had an excellent oral exam as well.  Well done Sarah!

Ilia Ferzoco received word that she has received a Grant-in-Aid-of-Research from Sigma Xi for her research proposal Does a competition-colonization trade-off enable the regional coexistence of two congeneric insects?

Well done Ilia!

Celina Baines has received a grant from the Animal Behavior Society to study the dispersal behaviour of water striders in Andy Sih‘s lab at UC Davis.  Well done Celina!

Sarah French and Dachin Frances both had papers accepted today!  Sarah’s paper “Canopy cover affects habitat selection by adult dragonflies” has been accepted by Hydrobiologia.  Dachin’s paper “Warming drives higher rates of prey consumption and increases rates of intraguild predation” is accepted at Oecologia.  Congratulations to both them!

Our paper “Simulated climate change increases larval mortality, alters phenology, and affects flight performance” based on research from California that Karen Mabry, John Hammond, and I have been collaborating on to document the effects of warming on odonates was just accepted by Ecosphere!

Just got back from giving a seminar at the University of South Dakota.  Had a wonderful time talking to folks in the department and hearing about some of the exciting research they’re doing!  Also got to spend some time with Dan Soluk (a UTM/Erindale alum!), Kris Pitcher and other members of Dan’s lab seeing the amazing work they’re doing with the Hine’s emerald dragonfly.