Cailtin Creak

My name is Caitlin, I have done my undergraduate, honors and now my PhD at UNSW, I am a north western Sydney local and am thrilled to be studying a species I grew up around.

Project: The behaviour and Ecology of the Sydney Funnel Web Spider

Supervised by: A/Prof Michael Kasumovic, Prof Mike Letnic & Dr Bruno Buzzatto (Flinders university)

Project Description: My research will investigate little known aspects of Atracid behavior, ecology and biology. Using radio tracking systems I will discover how far males travel to find females, and whether this movement is impacted by environmental conditions. I will also explore courtship and mating behavior as well as maternal care with the use of self built Raspberry Pi video camera traps. Lastly, I will be investigating the utilization of burrows in this species, and the protection these structures might offer in extreme conditions such as low intensity bush fires, or heavy rain and flooding events.