News and Events

Congratulations to Kathryn Mickle who has been selected by Graduate Studies to receive the Marnie and Bill Argersinger Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation. Kathryn, co-advised by Hans-Peter Schultze and Ed Wiley, defended her dissertation with honors on April 10, 2012. Her dissertation, Unraveling the Systematics of Palaeoniscoid Fishes - Lower Actinopterygians in Need of a Complete Phylogenetic Revision, has the potential to transform present knowledge of the most diverse group of vertebrates, the ray-fin fishes.

Kathryn will be presented the award at the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 12th at 3:30 p.m. in the Lied Center. The award will include a cash prize.

Doctoral students Michael Walker, mentored by Joy Ward, and Mari Pesek, mentored by Bryan Foster, were just named NSF GK-12 Fellows for the 2012-13 academic year. Michael and Mari will collaborate with science teachers in Kansas City or Topeka middle schools to develop student research. They will also interact with future teachers on the KU campus through a research methods class. For their participation in the program, Michael and Mari will each receive a fellowship and tuition sponsorship.

Katie Becklin, a post-doctoral fellow in Joy Ward's lab, has received one of eleven fellowships from AAUW for one year of post-doctoral funding to support her research. Katie will determine the role that mycorrhizal associations played in plant nutrient uptake during the last glacial period when atmospheric CO2 was low and resources for supporting fungi were expensive to make. Her research will help us to better understand symbiotic relationships across geologic time using the Wells packrat collection.

Congratulations to incoming master’s student Terra Lubin who was recently awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! The fellowship provides a $30,000 stipend each year for three years of graduate study plus an allowance of $10,500 to the university for research expenses. Working with Helen Alexander, Terra will study below-ground processes in crop-wild hybrid sunflowers. Specifically, she hopes to measure mycorrhizal effects on plant fitness and to consider if arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi contribute to context-dependent fitness in the hybrid.

Congratulations to Laci Gerhart, doctoral candidate mentored by Joy Ward, and to Hannah Owens, doctoral candidate mentored by Ed Wiley, who have just learned that their NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant proposals will be funded.

Laci will be awarded $11,740 for “The El Nino Southern Oscillation and Glacial Juniperus Physiology.” This project will analyze ring widths and oxygen isotopic signature of glacial juniper trees from the La Brea tar pits to assess patterns of ENSO strength and frequency in southern California over the last 50,000 years. In addition, the project will compare the physiological impact of ENSO events on glacial and modern trees.

EEB master's graduate Steve Roels will be recognized for his outstanding master's thesis research on May 13, 2012 at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Master's Hooding Ceremony. Steve will be awarded the CLAS Outstanding Thesis Award which includes a monetary prize. His thesis, Not Easy Being Mead's: Comparative Herbivory on Three Milkweeds, Including Threatened Mead's Milkweed (Asclepias meadii), and Seedling Ecology of Mead's Milkweed, has important conservation applications and is certainly worthy of this recognition. Congratulations to Steve for a job well done.

John Kelly has been awarded a grant for about $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund four years of research that uses the Monkey Flower (Mimulus) model system to (1) study the traits of organisms related to fitness, (2) consider how selection influences the maintenance of genetic variation in ecologically important characteristics, and (3) develops a novel procedure for mapping quantitative trait loci in populations. The NIH funding signals that this research on plants will explore very basic considerations of how adaptive evolution is related to mutation and selection, which are questions that are applicable across organisms.

Congratulations to Jennifer Gleason who has been named as a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Science.  The honor is bestowed by virtue of being selected to and enthusiastic participation in the 2011 National Academies Northstar Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology held at the University of Minnesota in June 2011.  Teams from 12 research universities from across the U.S. assembled to focus on enhancing undergraduate education, with themes of active learning, assessment, and diversity as the primary foci.

Congratulations to Caroline Chaboo and Andrew Short, Assistant Professors in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology were awarded two out of four National Science Foundation Digitization Grants aimed to bring “dark data” to the light. Dr. Chaboo’s award involved “Plants, Herbivores and Parasitoids: A Model System for the Study of Tri-Trophic Associations.”  Dr. Short’s award involved “InvertNet—An Integrative Platform for Research on Environmental Change, Species Discovery and Identification.”  (see:  http://biodiversity.ku.edu/newsroom/grant-help-fund-digitization-collections)

Congratulations to Rafe Brown and San Francisco State University colleague, Vance Vredenburg who recently received funding for a United States Forest Service, Wildlife Without Borders - Amphibians in Decline proposal entitled, Can we prevent a chytridiomycosis epidemic in the Philippines? The funding will support the PIs during the collection of preliminary data for submission of a major NSF Ecology of Infectious Disease Program grant proposal in the coming year.

Congratulations to Lena Hileman who recently received the "Mentor of the Year" award from the Office of Diversity in Science Training at the University of Kansas. The award is given annually to an outstanding mentor who has been nominated by one or more of their students. Dr. Hileman was chosen based on her record of mentoring students in The Diversity of Science Training programs.

An interdisciplinary team of 12 KU collaborators has received a $330,000 award from the National Science Foundation to develop greenhouse-based research capabilities and to construct associated support facilities at the University of Kansas Field Station, north of Lawrence. The team is led by Sharon Billings, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and associate scientist at the Kansas Biological Survey. The multi-user research and teaching facility will include: *a 2,160-sq-ft greenhouse used for controlled-environment experiments *a 432-sq-ft, all season greenhouse *a 1,200-sq-ft multi-purpose building *a fenced research garden near the structures The larger greenhouse will permit terrestrial and aquatic studies to be conducted in a more controlled fashion than is possible in the field, while enabling more natural conditions than laboratory studies permit.

Congratulations to Joy Ward who has been invited to participate in the first Arab-American Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine symposium (October 2011), hosted by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) in Kuwait. This is the first time that the U.S. National Academies and KISR are bringing together some of the best young scientists, engineers, and medical professionals from the United States and the countries of the Arab League. The Arab-American Frontiers symposium intends to bring together researchers from many different disciplines. Thus, the topics are designed to explore the Frontiers of research in the fields of water, dryland agriculture/food security, renewable energy, and diabetes.

Congratulations to EEB doctoral candidates Sarah Bodbyl-Roels and Cameron Siler who have both published papers in the September issue of Evolution. Sarah's paper, "Rapid evolution caused by pollinator loss in Mimulus guttatus", is co-authored by her faculty mentor, John K. Kelly. One of Cameron's dissertation chapters has been published in the same issue. His paper, "Evidence for repeated acquisition and loss of complex body-form characters in an insular clade of southeast Asian semi-fossorial skinks", is co-authored by Rafe Brown, chair of Cameron's dissertation committee.

EEB doctoral candidate Andrew Schwendemann was recently featured in the news for his paleobotanical research in Antarctica. Fossils collected during an expedition last winter record a symbiotic relationship between prehistoric conifers and fungi that outdates the prior fossil evidence of the relationship by more than 100 million years. Read the full story here.

Congratulations to Andrew Schwendemann for his paper that just appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-authored with Anne-Laure Decombeix, Thomas Taylor, Edith Taylor, and Michael Krings, and titled, "Morphological and functional stasis in mycorrhizal root nodules as exhibited by a Triassic conifer." Andrew collected the fossils that led to this discovery while in Antarctica last December and January. The root nodules that he describes contain fungi that form a symbiotic association with the plant -- in modern coniferous plants, the fungus delivers critical nutrients to the plant and receives a carbon reward in the mutualistic partnership. The fact that these 240 million year old fossils contain evidence of such an association pushes back the origin of the symbiosis by 100 million years!

Congratulations to Joy Ward who was featured in the June edition of the SCIENCE in KANSAS: 150 years and counting sesquicente3nnial project shows. Honorees range from the founder of one of the big three U.S. auto companies to a scientist developing biomaterials to help the body regrow bone to an inventor who wanted to give his ice cream shop customers a slushy cool drink. Its goal is to inspire Kansas youth in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. And to recognize Kansas' science legacy. Over the course of 2011, information on a broad mix of 150 Kansans in STEM fields, both past and present, can be downloads as trading cards from the Ad Astra Kansas Initiative website: www.adastra-ks.org. Each month new cards will be added until the collection is complete. Cards are geared towards grade 5 on up.

Congratulations to Cameron Siler who was selected to receive the 2010 Kennedy Student Award from the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR)! The award is presented for the most significant student-authored paper published in the Journal of Herpetology in the previous year. Cameron is being recognized for his paper “A new loam-swimming skink, genus Brachymeles (Reptilia: Squamata: Scincidae) from the Bicol faunal region, Luzon and Catanduanes islands, Philippines” on which he was the primary author. The award carries with it a cash prize of US $200 or the winner’s selection of any SSAR publications valued at twice that amount.

Daphne Fautin, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, has been selected as a program officer at the National Science Foundation. The appointment will begin August 1, 2011. Fautin will head the improvements to Biological Research Collections program (http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5448) in the Division of Biological Infrastructure. Program officers craft solicitations, talk to potential and actual applicants responding to a solicitation, organize the review of proposals received in response to a solicitation and inform successful and unsuccessful applicants of the outcomes of the review. In addition to promotion the National Science Foundation and its activities, program officers also actively maintain their research

Congratulations to EEB doctoral candidate Sarah Bodbyl (scheetah@ku.edu) who recently was selected to receive two awards.

Sarah was chosen by KU's Office of Graduate Studies to receive a Summer Research Fellowship. The fellowship provides a $5,000 stipend to outstanding graduate students to assist them in achieving their summer research plans.

For the upcoming academic year, Sarah has been selected to participate in the NSF GK-12 Fellows Program. Sarah will collaborate with a science teacher in a Kansas City or Topeka middle school to develop student research. She will also interact with future teachers on the KU campus through a research methods class. For her participation in the program, Sarah will receive a fellowship and tuition sponsorship.

KU student entomologists won awards and cash prizes for posters and talks at the recent annual spring meeting of the Kansas (Central States) Entomological Society.

Oral Student Presentations Winners:

Graduate Student Choru Shin (mentor CS Chaboo). Title: Phylogenetic revision of Stoiba Spaeth 1909 with description of a new species, Elytrogona riley in. sp. Shin & Chaboo (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Mesophaliini)

Graduate Student Taro Eldredge (mentor AEZ Short). Title: The Mrymecophiles of Kansas

Student Posters:

Undergraduate student Joseph Jalinsky (mentor CS Chaboo). Title: Natural history and immature stages of Chrysochus auratus Fabricius 1775 (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Eumolpinae)

EEB doctoral candidate Andrea Crowther has been recognized for outstanding presentations twice this April. Andrea won first place in the advanced Ph.D. category for her oral presentation in the annual KU Sigma Xi student paper competition. She also was awarded first place in the Ph.D. category for her oral presentation at the annual meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science.

Congratulations to Joy Ward who is featured in the April issue of The Scientist. The article features her studies on how plants handle global climate change.

Congratulations to Lisa Tiemann who has been selected by KU’s Office of Graduate Studies for the 2011 Graduate Student Distinguished Service Award. The award was established in 1983 to recognize a graduate student who demonstrates a genuine commitment to serving the University of Kansas while maintaining a high level of academic achievement.

Lisa has a strong record of service at KU, including serving as the EEB GSO president, participating on departmental committees, being an active member of the KU Field Station Executive Committee, and participating in public science education and outreach. These activities only hint at Lisa’s truly exceptional service contribution while maintaining an excellent research program.

The award will be presented to Lisa at the 2011 Graduate Student Awards Ceremony on Monday, April 25th at 3:30 p.m. in the Kansas Room of the Kansas Union. The award includes a monetary prize.

Congratulations to Sarah Schmidt who has recently been awarded a GK-12 fellowship (stipend, tuition, and travel expenses). This fellowship will allow her to improve her general teaching skills (for her eventual goal of becoming a professor at a college or university) and to enhance her abilities to link research knowledge at universities with science instruction at middle and high school levels. She will serve as a mentor for a middle school teacher in either Topeka or Kansas City and will assist in teaching a research methods course to undergraduates. Sarah is a graduate of Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri and is studying algal communities and ecosystem function in the Kansas River and other Great Plains rivers for her Ph.D. Her mentor at KU is Prof. James Thorp.

Congratulations to Jacob Carter, doctoral aspirnat in Joy Ward's lab, who has been invited to participate in KU's C-CHANGE IGERT Program. C-CHANGE Fellows participate in an interdisciplinary program of climate change studies and receive stipends in the second and third years of graduate study in the amount of $30,000/year in addition to tuition sponsorship.

As part of a major grant from the National Science Foundation, Rafe Brown has recently been following in the footsteps of a previous KU collector in the Philippines.  Featured in the Lawrence Journal World, Dr. Brown has collected more than 400 new specimens, some of which were those reported by Edward Taylor whose early 20th century collections were destroyed by bombing during World War II.  Future fieldwork is anticipated to generate an even better record of the many uncollected species in this diverse part of the world. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jan/24/ku-herpetologist-working-recover-lost-specimens/

EEB assistant professor Andrew Short recently discovered 20 new species of water beetle in the pristine rainforest of Suriname, the small country on the northern coast of South America. Read the full story here.

During a collecting trip at the Baker Wetlands, located on the southeastern edge of Lawrence, EEB graduate student Taro Eldredge discovered a new species of rove beetle, Myrmedonata heliantha. The article was published by ZooKeys. Read the full story here.

EEB doctoral candidate Cameron Siler was honored recently with a Henri Seibert Award for his presentation at the Annual Meeting for Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Providence, Rhode Island. Cam won the competition for best student oral presentation in the Systematics and Evolution category. The honor includes a $200 prize.

The Henri Seibert Awards were initiated by the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR) in 1992. The awards are provided to recognize the best student papers presented at the annual meeting of the SSAR. To be eligible, the paper must be the result of research conducted by the presenter. Research must have been conducted while the student was enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program.

Congratulations to Yong-Chao Su and Hannah Owens who were recently recognized by KU's Undergraduate Biology program for their outstanding records as graduate teaching assistants in biology laboratories. Yong-Chao received the Richard H. Himes Gradute Teaching Assistant Award, and Hannah received the Michael S. Gaines Award for Excellence in Teaching Principles of Biology Laboratory.

Nat Evans, who recently completed his master's degree with Paulyn Cartwright, was selected to receive the 2010 Outstanding Thesis Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at KU. Nat's thesis, "The phylogenetic placement of two engimatic metazoan parasites: Polypodium hydriforme and Myxozoa", documets an impressive body of work investigating the evolutionary history of two intracellular fish parasites. Nat will be recognized as a recipient of this award at the CLAS Master's Hooding Ceremony.

Nathaniel Evans, an August 2009 graduate of KU-EEB’s master’s program, was awarded Best Student Paper for the Systematics and Ecology division for the talk he gave at the 2010 annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology.  Nat’s talk was based on his master’s research completed at KU with Dr. Paulyn Cartwright and was entitled, “Phylogenetic placement of Myxozoa:  An exploration of conflict between phylogenetic and rDNA molecular data”.  Nat is currently completing a doctoral program with Dr. Gustav Paulay at the University of Florida.