-- Colin Donihue, PhD Candidate

As the old adage goes, 6 is afraid of 7, because 7 ate 9! The story might be a bit more complicated though according to Pacifica Sommers over at "Biodiversity: the Blog." Check out her recent post on predation to find out why it's 5 that 6 should be worried about! 

(Thanks for mentioning our work!)



(Photo Credit)

-- Karin Burghardt, PhD Candidate

For most people the trees losing their leaves for the year invokes a bit of sadness for the lost summer, however, I am breathing a sigh of relief. The end of the growing season and loss of leaves means a respite from fieldwork and a chance to reflect on how my experiment is shaping up (and how much more there is to be done).

Last fall the lab helped me with an epic construction project to erect 28 raised beds at my field site and fill them with 20 tons of sand and 20 tons of field soil –accomplished by wheelbarrow (I know I owe them all my first born… but probably they would prefer cookies for life).

In any case this past June I planted into the sandboxes mixtures of goldenrod genotypes known to express different plant defensive traits. The experiment also manipulates soil nutrients and herbivory. Over the next few years I will measure how plant defensive traits, herbivores, and nutrients influence plant and herbivore fitness and competition as well as trace nutrient cycling within the sandboxes. 

As a result, over the summer I spent a lot of time taking plant and nutrient measurements and playing Where’s Waldo with my grasshopper herbivores within the sandbox enclosures.

-- Kevin McLean, PhD Candidate

Jennie, Colin, and Kevin were among the 20 FES Ph.D. students who participated in this year's "Doc Con" on October 4. The Doc Con is the main venue for doctoral students to showcase their research to the FES and Yale community. Jennie gave a fascinating presentation about the latest findings from her predation risk modeling work (look at all those fancy map layers!). Colin, a freshly minted Ph.D. candidate, presented a selection of his preliminary results and proposed research from his qualifying examination (congrats, Colin!). Kevin spoke about the methods he used to construct his movement model and some of the (extremely) preliminary results, which he plans to test in the field this winter. The conference was very well attended, with a packed house for the keynote presentation by Peter Kareiva of The Nature Conservancy. Great job to the Schmitz Lab presenters, we're looking forward to next year's event.