Wang Named Spring 2019 Cory Undergraduate Award Recipient

Over the last two semesters, Betsy has analyzed spider communities in the Hawaiian Islands in Dr. Gruner’s lab. Her goal is to gain a better understanding of which ecosystem factors influence the assemblage of a predator community. Because Hawaii is made up of several volcanic islands of differing ages, it is a good system for studying differences in communities at different stages of primary community assembly. She says, “So far, I have found that age is not a good predictor for abundance of most spider families; instead, their abundance may be based on other environmental factors, like canopy structure or available plant types. Recently, I have also joined a project studying parasitoids of the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive pest in the United States.”

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