Note that the following is not a complete list of all possible faculty members. Students may be interested in looking at the departmental website for more information on faculty research interests (faculty listed below are already linked to their personal page, so just click their name). The "potential REU projects" listed below are only example projects; the actual projects will depend on both student and faculty interests, and will be determined by discussions between the student and their mentor.

Past REU faculty mentors, and examples of potential projects that could be or have been performed in their laboratories, are listed below. For additional potential mentors and their research interests, see the EEB home page at http://www.ku.edu/~eeb

1. Helen Miller Alexander, Professor (plant population biology; plant-pathogen interactions; conservation biology).  An REU student could conduct field surveys to determine how smut infection of a woodland sedge species is affected by habitat fragmentation, and to explore how plant-pathogen interactions change at the margins of the host’s range (woodland habitats disappear as one moves from east to west across Kansas).
2. Sharon Billings, Assistant Professor (biogeochemistry; ecosystem ecology; global change). An REU student could assess turnover rates and pool sizes of stable and labile N and C through laboratory soil incubations and extractions, using soils from a successional pine forest exposed to elevated CO2.  This project would provide the student access to Duke University’s FACE facility.
3. Johanna Foster Research Associate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Professor of Biology, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS.  In prairies, mound-building ants (Formica spp) tend aphids for their honeydew.  Aphids' feeding behaviors often have detrimental effects on plants, so it is possible that the ants' tending activities lead to loss of plant fitness in prairie plant communities.  This project will compare the effects of mound-building ants, and their aphid colonies, on the rates of successful flower sets for a native prairie plant species.  It is known that these ants exist on virgin, unplowed prairies, yet are absent on restored prairies.  Understanding the effects that mound-building ants have on prairie plant communities may help managers on prairie restoration projects.  Students' efforts will add to information needed for prairie restoration projects.
4. Jennifer Gleason, Assistant Professor (speciation, evolution of behavior, behavioral genetics, Drosophila courtship behavior).  Both acoustic and olfactory cues play a role in Drosophila courtship behavior.  A potential REU project would focus on testing the parameters of courtship in playback experiments to determine the preferences and discriminatory ability of females.
5. Christopher H. Haufler, Professor  (plant systematics; patterns and processes of speciation in pteridophytes).  Beginning with fern specimens whose DNA has never been examined, students can isolate DNA molecules from the specimens, amplify target regions from this sample, and generate a novel sequence from the amplified region.  These molecular data can be used to infer evolutionary relationships.
6. Rudolf Jander, Professor (animal behavior, navigation).  In both rodents and ants we know virtually nothing about three-dimensional navigation. Students can address questions such as: if animals have to reach a certain height to find a goal, do they know that the walking distance is the shorter the steeper the slope?  When searching for food, do they prefer moving bottom-up or top-down or both?
7. John Kelly, Assistant Professor (plant population biology; quantitative and population genetics; molecular evolution).  The plant Mimulus guttatus exhibits substantial “inbreeding depression” which leads to reduced pollen production.  An REU student could determine whether the reduction of pollen production is constant for all flowers or whether it depends on the order of flower production on the plant.
8. Catherine Loudon, Associate Professor (sensory ecology, biomechanics, insect physiology). Organisms use a variety of sensory clues to gain information about their environment.  An REU student could investigate how bees move their antennae when "smelling," how native Kansas cockroaches find mates in the dark in trees, how water striders communicate with waves, or how snails locate and follow mucus trails.
9. Craig Martin, Professor and EEB Department Chair (physiological plant ecology; whole-plant physiology; stress physiology).  A potential REU project focuses on understanding the biology of thunusual “living stones” (e.g., species of Lithops) that grow in arid Africa.  For example an REU student could study the effect of burial in the soil on CO2 and water vapor exchange with the atmosphere.
10. Raymond Pierotti, Associate Professor (Vertebrate Ecology, Evolution and Behavior).  REU students can conduct studies on the following areas:  1) Behavior and ecology of white-tailed deer, 2) Domestication as an evolutionary process and the relationship between behavior and morphology in the genus Canis, 3) observational studies of birds or fishes.  For these last categories it is hoped that the student has some knowledge of how to collect behavioral data and some knowledge of birds or fishes.
11. Val H. Smith, Professor and Director of the REU program (effects of resource supplies and resource supply ratios on the structure and function of ecological systems; biodiversity; invasion ecology; microbial ecology).  The biotic diversity of natural communities influences its susceptibility to invading new species.  An REU student could test whether a novel species use aquatic microcosms to test whether the plankton biodiversity present at the time of invasion influences invasion success.
12. Edith L. Taylor, Professor (paleobotany, paleoclimate of Antarctica).  A possible project would be the examination of tree rings in fossil wood from Antarctica for paleoclimate signals.  The student would be able to compare climate signals from trees growing at different paleolatitudes and determine whether those at higher latitudes, with longer periods of winter darkness, reflected this environmental stress in their growth rings.
13. James Thorp, Professor (aquatic ecology; aquatic invertebrate ecology; river systems). Until recently, few scientists worldwide have studied the ecology of prairie rivers, but a research group at KU is now developing a major research program to understand relationships among community structure, ecosystem function, and fluvial geomorphology. An REU student could conduct studies on the relationships between hydrologic retention (produced by ephemeral sand bars) and biotic responses such as aquatic species diversity, trophic complexity, secondary production, and/or system metabolism.
14. Joy Ward, Assistant Professor (physiology, population biology, and evolution of plants). There are increasingly strong signs that significant anthropogenic climate change has begun.  A possible project would be to examine how global change factors influence the physiology, population structure, and evolution of plant species.
15. Merlin White/Bob Lichtwardt REU projects:  Mycology/symbiosis.  Fungi that live symbiotically within insects (harpellales) are widespread and evolutionarily interesting.  REU projects, depending upon the interests of the student, could involve field collecting of aquatic insect hosts, dissecting out their gut fungi, and culturing them.  Alternatively, those interested in evolutionary approaches could learn to amplify and sequence fungal DNA to resolve some of the recognized phylogenetic problems.  Information on the biology of these common but unique fungi can find an illustrated book published on the web at www.nhm.ku.edu/~fungi.

The projects listed above are only a few examples of the many potential research topics that are available for REU participants.  A representative abstract from summer 2003 is shown below.

Kadivar, Fatemeh (Mentor:  Larry D. Martin).  Natural Trap Cave in North Central Wyoming provides a 100,000 year sampling of Ice Age mammals. We analyzed population structure in 6 genera of large herbivores:  American camel (Camelops); pronghorn (Antilocapra); bighorn sheep (Ovis); woodland musk ox (Bootherium); bison (Bison); and five species of horse (Equus). We examined age structure and were able to determine behavioral patterns for all six species.  The structure of each population was determined by surveying wear and replacement on deciduous and permanent teeth.  Individuals were categorized as juveniles, young adults, adults, and old adults. Using modern data we were able to determine the number of colts and the ratio of males to females in Equus. We were also able to determine the sex and age of animals that migrated between the basin floor and Natural Trap Cave, an elevation change of nearly 1,000 meters.  The horse population was probably partitioned into small harems of 4-5 adult females and 2 sub-adults accompanied by 1 male. Occupation was limited to the summer and foaling occurred on the basin floor.  This is the first evidence that the late Pleistocene horses of North America shared a wide suite of behavior with their feral relatives.

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