Brown's Research Featured in KU Today

Rafe Brown’s research project funded by the National Science Foundation was featured in KU Today’s Headlines for June 13, 2013.  Dr. Brown, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and curator-in-charge of the herpetology division of the Biodiversity Institute is featured in the article, Digitizing the calls of the wild which describes the importance of sounds to biologists in determining species.  The $200,000 funded project will digitize, archive and make available thousands of field recordings of animal sounds at KU, and tie them with the specific specimens that were recorded.  KU is one of 11 research institutions to digitize audio recordings through this effort.  For full story go to:  https://news.ku.edu/2013/06/06/project-will-digitize-archive-animal-sounds

Marianna Simoes Awarded Ernst Mayr Fellowship

Congratulation to Ms. Marianna Simoes (mentor: Caroline Chaboo) has been awarded an Ernst Mayr Fellowship to study specimens, including types, in several European museums this summer. This award along with grants from the Panorama and Entomology endowment funds, will permit travel to entomological collections in Manchester Museum (UK), Paris, and Stokholm.

Brown and Moyle receive RIC award from Office of the Provost

Rafe Brown and Rob Moyle learned recently that their proposal "Phylogenomics of Adaptive Radiations in Island Archipelagos of the Pacific" has received funding from the Research Investment Council (RIC Level II award) of the Office of the Provost. RIC awards are intended to invest in multidisciplinary collaborations that increase synergy, enhance intellectual interactions, and boost competitiveness for extramural funding at KU. Brown and Moyle will use their $50,000 award to train a cohort of EEB, BI, MB, and ITTC researchers and students in an emerging new approach of Next-Generation DNA sequencing data capture and analysis of via the UltraConserved Elements (UCE) strategy. The majority of the award will be used to support EEB students on research assistantships during their training and subsequent dissemination of information to the wider KU research community. For details, see:http://ultraconserved.org/.

Jamie Oaks Awarded Graduate Studies Summer Research Fellowship

Congratulation to Jamie Oaks who was awarded the 2013 Graduate Studies Summer Research Fellowship for his research proposal “Improving methods for testing models of shared evolutionary history.” The award provides Jamie with a $5000.00 stipend to support his research during the summer semester. Jamie is co-advised by Rafe Brown and Mark Holder.

Fautin's Research Featured in KU Today

Daphne Fautin's research project funded by the National Science Foundation is featured as the lead story on KU Today for April 26, 2013. Her project shows that a greater number of sea anemone species live at the planet’s mid-latitudes, roughly the position of California, Virginia, Portugal, or New South Wales, and less diversity is apparent within the anemones’ group toward the equator and poles.  According to the news article, Fautin’s research will appear in the May issue of The Biological Bulletin, vol. 224, no. 2.  Her peer-reviewed paper is co-authored by KU colleagues Lacey Malarky and Jorge Soberon. 

Gleason directs NSF REU Summer Program

The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology has been awarded an NSF funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) beginning summer 2013. The program directed by Dr. Jennifer Gleason will bring 10 undergraduate students to the KU campus for 10 weeks to provide professional training and hands-on research experience.  Primarily biology and mathematics majors, the students will participate in independent biology research under the supervision of KU faculty members in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. The REU program in EEB joins four other programs at KU funded by the National Science Foundation.