I'm looking for a Ph.D. student to join my lab at Oklahoma State University in Fall 2016. I currently have 2 Ph.D. students: one studying nutrition and sexual selection in jumping spiders and the other studying the role of spiders in ecosystem dynamics and nutrient cycling. We also have 6 undergraduates in the lab working on projects ranging from sugar as a nutrient source for spiders to the conversion of elemental nutrients to macronutrients by plants.
I'm interested in a wide range of questions and use arthropods as study systems because they are easy to work with and have diverse life histories. Most of my work focuses on carnivore behavior and ecology including nutrient-limitation of predators in nature, using nutrition to gain a more mechanistic and predictive understanding of food web dynamics, spider digestive physiology, and consequences of diet for lifespan and reproduction. I'm also interested in a wide range of other questions using arthropods as model systems and we've recently been culturing plants and caterpillars in the lab to begin looking at nutrient transfers through food webs and applied questions related to crop pests. Please see my website for more information and email me if you're interested in joining the lab. http://wildershawn.wix.com/wilderlab
