Biography

Julia Berliner is a 2nd year PhD student in the Koltz Lab within the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned her M.S. in Entomology at the University of Georgia. In both her master’s and her PhD research, Julia has focused on how food webs are mediated by nutrient availability. In the past year, Julia has traveled to the Texas coast and to the Alaskan Arctic to sample invertebrates that are likely important prey for migratory shorebirds. She has been trained in and is developing methods for quantifying fat and protein content of small insects (~.1 mg), which present methodological challenges, yet make up the majority of insect prey available to shorebirds on the Texas coast.