News
Happy Halloween from The Buckley Lab!
Bravo, Julia!
Congratulations to our graduate student, Julia Smith, for giving the talk, “Modeling shifting energy budgets of grasshoppers along an elevational gradient,” at the SAFS Quantitive Seminar. Great work!
Let the 2024 summer field season commence!
The 2024 Field Season is upon us! Our team in Seattle has hit the ground running, delving into efforts for the WARP Project. Meanwhile, a few of us will be heading to the CO Mountain Research Station. It is shaping up to be a fantastic summer full of science!
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JUNE 2024 NEWS
We are thrilled to congratulate Jared Haar, a member of the Buckley Lab, on his recent graduation from the University of Washington. Jared earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology with Honors and was nominated to be a Dean’s Medalist. Outstanding work, Jared! We are excited to have Jared join us for a second summer helping out with the Washington Resurvey of Pierids (WARP) Project.
MAY 2024 NEWS
Congratulations to Jared Haar for his outstanding presentation at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium! We also enjoyed the excellent poster presentations from Dr. Gwen Shlichta’s students from Edmonds Community College who presented at the symposium as well. Great work everyone!
WELCOME BEN, April 2024
Welcome Ben! Ben will be coordinating field work efforts part of the Washington Resurvey of Pierids Project (WARP). We are thrilled to have Ben be apart of the team.
WARP Project and Dr. Gwen Shlichta featured on Cascade PBS
We’re excited to share that Dr. Gwen Shlichta, a valued collaborator for the WARP (Washington Resurvey of Pierids) Project, recently took center stage in an episode of the captivating “Human Elements” series featured on Cascade PBS. The episode highlights the unique aspects of the WARP Project and sheds light on the challenges scientists like Dr. Shlichta face. Watch the episode here.
2024 SICB Annual Meeting
The Buckley Lab group had a remarkable experience at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) Annual Meeting held in Seattle, WA, this year. The week-long event was an opportunity for networking and a platform to delve into cutting-edge scientific discussions and discoveries.
Drs. Lauren Buckley and Monica Sheffer showcased their expertise in the “Global change: Life history evolution” session. Dr. Buckley captivated the audience with her talk, “Insect size responses to climate change vary across elevations and life histories,” Dr. Sheffer explored the intriguing topic of “Montane grasshopper fitness constraints in changing environments.” Julia Smith, a key member and graduate student of our lab, presented a poster titled “Diel thermoregulation in grasshoppers: where to be, when to feed.”
TrEnCh-ed at the Washington Climate Education Summit, May 2023
Julia and Lauren enjoyed meeting K-12 educators excited to teach climate change and sharing the TrEnCh-ed resources.
WELCOME TAYLOR, April 2023
We’re excited that Taylor is joining the group to coordinate our new butterfly resurvey project. Stay turned for our adventures setting up a farm plot at the Center for Urban Horticulture.
RESEARCH TECHNICIAN: butterfly evolutionary responses to climate change, Jan 2022
We’re recruiting a research technician to manage, coordinate, and conduct research activities for a project repeating historical butterfly research to examine ecological and evolution responses to climate change. See the bottom of our opportunities page for further details.
Undergraduate research opportunity, Jan 2022
We’re recruiting undergrads for some ambitious lab projects for the first time in a while… The UW Biology research group led by Professor Lauren Buckley (https://huckleylab.github.io/) has paid positions open (winter and spring 2023) for UW undergraduate students to contribute to one or both of the following resurvey projects examining insect responses to recent climate change.
Grasshopper resurvey project: The grasshopper resurvey project uses field and lab experiments integrated with genomic and physiological approaches to examine how survival and fecundity constraints influence responses to environmental change. Students will primarily assist with rearing grasshoppers in environmental chambers and with physiological measurements under the mentorship of Dr. Monica Sheffer.
Butterfly resurvey project: The butterfly resurvey project is testing how selection on butterfly traits has shifted in response to recent climate change. Students will primarily assist with rearing butterfly larvae in environmental chambers and in an experimental garden at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture and with physiological measurements under the mentorship of Professors Gwen Shlichta (Edmonds College) and Lauren Buckley.
Students will learn about biological responses to climate change, gain familiarity with a variety of approaches in physiological ecology and evolution, and receive exposure to academic research and related career opportunities. Students may progress to conducting independent research and presenting the research at UW venues and beyond. There may also be opportunities to participate in summer research in Seattle and Central Washington (butterfly resurvey) or in Colorado (grasshopper resurvey).
See our opportunities page for further details.
Assistant Professorship in Integrative Physiology, September 2022
Lauren is chairing the search for an Assistant Professor in Integrative Physiology and excited for a physiologically inclined colleague. Applications due here October 1.
Position description: The University of Washington (UW) Department of Biology is seeking to hire a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor in integrative physiology. A successful candidate would take innovative and collaborative approaches while working in an organismal framework to address integration of physiological processes across 1) biological levels, 2) organisms and ecosystems, and/or 3) ecological or evolutionary timescales. Example topics include physiological responses to environmental change and variability, maintenance of homeostasis, the molecular basis of metabolic adaptation, physiological interactions between organisms, and mechanisms of physiological evolution. In keeping with our department’s broad taxonomic breadth (plants, animals, fungi, microbes), we welcome candidates from a variety of backgrounds.
Farewell Chris, June 2022
Farewell to Chris Johnson who has wrapped up his work on the TrEnCh project and moved on to work with Sabine Rumpft at the University of Basel. Stay tuned for a great paper exploring how well directly applying thermal performance curves predicts fitness responses to climate change relative to a population dynamic model that considers the thermal sensitivity of fitness components. Best wishes to Chris and family!
Off to the CO Mountain Research Station, May 2022
Most of the group is off to CU’s Mountain Research Station to launch a grasshopper reciprocal transplant experiment examining survival and fecundity constraints along an elevation gradient.
Farewell Abby, February 2022
The pandemic delay to Abby starting a fellowship in Greenland is finally over. We’re grateful that the delay allowed Abby to make amazing contributions to our TrEnCh project and are excited to follow Abby’s Greenland adventure.
Welcome Monica, February 2022
We’re excited to welcome Monica as a postdoc to work on the NSF Rules of Life project examining grasshopper fecundity and survival constraints. Up soon for Monica will be orchestrating an ambitious field reciprocal transplant project.