Research Spotlights:
Midges connect aquatic and terrestrial food webs
Insects live in virtually every freshwater habitat and can be extremely abundant, composing a large part of the animal biomass in lakes and rivers. Aquatic insects have important roles in food webs, acting as decomposers and consumers of aquatic plants. Many are in turn consumed by crayfish, fish, and other predators. But aquatic insects can [...]
Pest control benefits of diversified agroecosystems – From top to bottom
When are multiple species better than one? This question has intrigued ecologists for over a century, and has relevance both for conservation and agriculture. Recently, Ben Werling, Claudio Gratton and their coauthors published work examining the benefits of diversifying potato agroecosystems, both at the top and bottom of the food chain. Looking down from the [...]
Landscape structure influences pest predation at organism-specific spatial scales.
At which scale should conservation of non-crop habitat take place to sustain such important ecosystem services as the control of crop pests? To help understanding the consequences of land-use decisions, Ben Werling and Claudio Gratton examined the impact of local and broad scale landscape structure on the predation of two insect pests of potatoes in [...]
Latest:
Undergraduate Poster Session
Yesterday the annual Biology 152 poster session took place in Union South, and three of the more than three hundred and sixty posters in Varsity Hall came from the Gratton Lab. Heidi, Rachel, and I have been mentoring undergraduates through independent research as part of this course. It is a lot of fun and very [...]
How do artists approach ecological restoration?
This question is a focus of the recently aired Perpetual Notion Machine show on WORT 89.9 FM, a science radio program based out of a local station here in Madison. The episode was produced and hosted by Kaitlin and showcased examples of art/science collaborations. Two fellows of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery Emerging Interfaces Award, [...]
How is this crazy weather affecting plants, pollinators, and farmers?
We have had some extreme weather in Wisconsin this spring. Throughout the Northeast and Midwest, an unusually long warm spell propelled us into spring in early-mid March. While many of us were hoping that the warm weather would last, we were not so fortunate. Multiple nights of hard frost and daytime temps barely and rarely [...]
