Wise Lab at UIC

Accepted in Ecological Applications!

Modeling the impacts of life-history traits, canopy dynamics, and establishment location on woodland shrub invasions

Basil V. Iannone III, Moira L. Zellner, and David H. Wise

The Charlotte goes to Space team received our Nanorack tube back from NASA on Tuesday Nov 27. With the school administrators and teachers as audience, the students and Cristian opened the spider containers to investigate the results. The experiment was a partial success with the girls determining that yes, our spider egg sacks did survive launch, yes they can develop and hatch, and it appears that they may have predated upon each other while in space (preliminary results from observations). Unfortunately no spiders survived the trip back, but to our surprise when we opened the spider test tube we found a partial detrital community of fungal mold, Mites, Nematores and Collembola, all of which hitched a ride on the leafs the egg sacks were attached to. I have added a picture of our "astronaut" collembola (Lepidocyrtus sp.)