March 2026 News

• On March 20th, Annie Finneran’s paper based on the first chapter of her dissertation, titled “Food Web Similarity Increases With Productivity Similarity at a Continental Scale,” was published online in Ecology Letters (link). This work was also highlighted in a Rice News article published April 6th (link).
• On March 28th, Iliana, Annie, Liza, Modeline, Saheed and Alex hosted an exhibition table at Reach For The Stars STEM Festival, an outreach event focused on introducing middle schools girls to STEM research and inspiring them to pursue science. The table featured mites, springtails and ants under the microscope, a live springtail terrarium, a springtail-building activity, a guess-how-many-organisms-in-the-jar activity, and stickers designed by Liza. The event was a hit, with hundreds of children and parents attending, and our table garnered a lot of interest!
• Also on March 28th, Matt McCary co-authored a new publication in Urban Ecosystems, titled “Management matters: homogenized plant-soil linkages constrain carbon cycling in urban green spaces” (link).