Karen T. Lee's research interests

My Research Interests

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I have always been fascinated with arthropods, particularly marine crustaceans like lobsters and crabs. I began working on lobsters as a graduate student, at Northeastern University in the laboratory of Joseph Ayers. There I worked on the feeding behavior of the American lobster, Homarus americanus and the relationship of feeding behavior to movements of the foregut.

As a postdoc at Bryn Mawr College, I took a brief foray into frog behavior, working on describing the variability of prey orienting movements in Leopard Frogs, in Paul Grobstein's lab.

I spent the next 2 years working at Connecticut College in New London, CT. There I began my current work on the population dynamics of the Green Crab, Carcinus maenas and the Japanese Shore Crab Hemigrapsus sanguineus. Both of these crabs are introduced species that have successfully invaded the southern New England coastline.

Last July I took a job here at UPJ. Though I am spending most of my time teaching at the moment, I am planning to continue research this summer. I will spend some time in CT continuing my work on Carcinus and Hemigrapsus. I am also hoping to begin work on local crayfish species. Crayfish are underutilized as a model species. They are also abundant locally. Thus, I plan to begin a long term project on the neurobiology and behavior of crayfish, since I am currently land-locked.

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