Inon Scharf
PhD Student
Ben-Gurion University
Dept. of Life Sciences
POB 653
Be’er Sheva 84105, Israel
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 +972-8-6461359
+972-8-6479231
+972-8-6472648
schari@bgu.ac.il

 

 

 

Research Interests

  My work focuses on two major themes in evolutionary ecology: 1) Searching behavior, a process by which animals find resources; 2) Life history and phenotypic plasticity of antlion populations.  
I explore the factors influencing searching behavior and the effects of the searching process itself on the individual, population, inter-specific interactions and the environment. More specifically, I intend to test the effect of external environmental factors, such as food spatial distribution, on searching behavior; the effect of internal condition, such as hunger level; and the influence of the target properties, such as prey mobility. I will examine if and to what extent these factors induce adjustments in searching behavior, characterized by movement velocity and directionality. Moreover, I will test whether animals using distinct searching patterns interact differently with their environment. Searching animals have different probabilities of locating food items and reaching particular patches. Therefore, even similarly sized species should respond differently to intrinsic and extrinsic factors, depending on their perceptual scale. 

In addition, because pit-building antlion larvae are sit-and-wait predators and do not change their location often, they can serve as an adequate animal model for studies in phenotypic plasticity and variation in life history traits. As a part of the antlion project taking place in our lab, I study the effect of origin, growth temperature, density, feeding regime and predation risk on life history and morphological traits of the antlion larvae and adults. For instance, body size is smaller in desert antlion populations compared with Mediterranean populations, and the latter also exhibit higher levels of plasticity in additional traits (such as time to pupation and growth rate), when grown under different regimes. 

Curriculum Vitae

  Date of Birth: June 20, 1980
Place of Birth: Ashdod , Israel
Nationality: Israeli
Marital status:  Single
Military Service: 1998-2001

 

2001-2004: B.Sc., with distinction, Department of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
2004-2006: M.Sc., with distinction, Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
2004-2009: Ph.D., Department of Life sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

Awards Received

2001-2004: "Amirim" fellowship for students in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, The Hebrew University.
2006: A scholarship from the Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, for excellence in teaching and studying.
  2008: Kreitman prize for an excellent PhD student.
  2008: Merav Ziv prize for an excellent PhD student.
  2008: Aharon Katzir student travel fellowships.
  2009: Rothschild fellowship for post-doctoral studies.
  2010: Minerva fellowship for post-doctoral studies.

Presentations at Scientific Meetings

1. June 2006: Annual meeting of the American society of naturalists ("Evolution 2006"), Stony Brook, NY (talk).

2. October 2007: Entomological society of Israel – annual meeting, The Hebrew University, Rehovot, Israel (talk).

3. April 2008: Department of zoology, Stockholm University, Sweden (talk).

4. June 2008: Ecological society of Israel – annual meeting, The Technion, Haifa, Israel (poster).

5. September 2008: German society of zoology – annual meeting, University of Jena, Germany (talk).

6. October 2008: Institute of Zoology, University of Zurich, Switzerland (talk).

7. May 2009: Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel (concluding PhD seminar).

8. August 2009: European society of evolutionary biology – 12th congress, Politecnico di Torino, Italy (poster).

Links

 

Publications

  1. Scharf, I. and Ovadia, O. 2006. Factors influencing site abandonment and site selection in a sit-and-wait predator: A review of pit-building antlion larvae. Journal of Insect Behavior 19:197-218. [pdf]
  2. Scharf, I., Nolman, E., Ovadia, O. and Bouskila, A. 2006. Efficiency evaluation of two competing foraging modes under different conditions. American Naturalist 168: 350-357. [pdf]
  3. Scharf, I., Filin, I., Golan, M., Buchshtav, M., Subach A. and Ovadia, O. 2008. Phenotypic variation and plasticity in antlion populations: Effect of climate on adult body size and wing loading. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 21:162-172. [pdf]
  4. Scharf, I., Hollender, Y., Subach, A. and Ovadia, O. 2008. Effect of spatial pattern and microhabitat on pit construction and relocation in Myrmeleon hyalines (Neuropetera: Myrmeleontidae) larvae. Ecological Entomology 33:337-345. [pdf]
  5. Loria, R., Scharf, I., Subach, A. and Ovadia, O. 2008. The interplay between foraging mode, habitat structure and predator presence in antlions. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology 62:1185-1192. [pdf]
  6. Scharf, I., Filin, I. and Ovadia, O. 2008. An experimental design and a statistical analysis separating interference from exploitation competition. Population Ecology 50:319-324. [pdf]
  7. Scharf, I., Ovadia, O. and Bouskila, A. 2008. Prey encounter rate by predators: Discussing the realism of grid-based models and how to model the predator's foraging mode: A reply to Avgar et al. American Naturalist 172:596-598. [pdf]
  8. Scharf, I., Subach, A. and Ovadia, O. 2008. Effect of light on foraging behavior and microhabitat selection in pit-building antlion larvae. Animal Behaviour 76:2049-2057. [pdf]
  9. Scharf, I., Kotler, B. and Ovadia, O. 2009. Consequences of food distribution for optimal searching behavior: an evolutionary model. Evolutionary Ecology 23:245-259. [pdf]
  10. Scharf, I., Filin, I., Ben-Yehoshua, D. and Ovadia, O. 2009. Phenotypic plasticity and variation in morphological and life history traits of antlion adults. Zoology 112:139-150. [pdf]
  11. Scharf, I., Golan, B. and Ovadia, O. 2009. The effect of sand depth, feeding regime, density and body mass on the foraging behavior of a pit-building antlion. Ecological Entomology 34:26-33.  [pdf]
  12. Scharf, I., Filin, I. and Ovadia, O. 2009. A trade-off between growth and starvation endurance in a pit-building antlion. Oecologia 160:453-460.  [pdf]
  13. Subach, A., Scharf, I. and Ovadia, O. 2009. Foraging behavior and predation success of the sand viper (Cerastes vipera). Canadian Journal of Zoology 87:520-528. [pdf]
  14. Scharf, I., Barkee, E.D. and Ovadia, O. 2009. Response of pit-building antlions to repeated unsuccessful encounters with prey. Animal Behaviour (Accepted)
  15. Scharf, I., Filin, I., Subach, A. and Ovadia, O. 2009. A comparison between two desert populations of a sit-and-pursue antlion: differences in morphology and life-history. Naturwissenschaften (Accepted)
  16. Filin, I., Scharf, I., Subach, A. and Ovadia, O. 2009. Life-history, stochastic growth, and growth-autocorrelation in experimental populations of antlion larvae, under different environmental regimes. Journal of Animal Ecology (In review)
  17. Barkae, E.D., Scharf, I., Subach, A. and Ovadia, O. 2009. Short term behavioral and developmental responses of pit-building antlion larvae to sand disturbance, competition and intra-guild-predation. Population Ecology (In review)