Biology

Biology Professor Michael Miyamoto and co-instructor Michelle Tennant led a 6-week Study Abroad course to Madagascar this summer.   Together with 12 UF students, they travelled in one of the world’s most biologically diverse landscapes and explored the many conservation issues the country faces.  The students participated in a number of valuable projects, including planting more […]

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Congratulations to Dr. Jane Brockmann who received the 2016 Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Award at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society in Columbia, Missouri.  This is the Society’s most prestigious award recognizing an outstanding career in the field of Animal Behavior.  

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Congratulations to Assistant Professor Jeremy Lichstein who has been named a 2016 Florida Climate Institute Fellow.  This award recognizes Jeremy’s influential research on the effect of climate change on forests and his contributions to UF’s interdisciplinary communities of climate science.  Great work, Jeremy!

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Congratulations to Professor and Department Chair of Biology Marta Wayne and Professor Benjamin Bolker of McMaster University (previously of UF Zoology). You can read the blog post written about their book Infectious Disease: A Very Short Introduction by clicking this link.

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Congratulations to Associate Professor Todd Palmer, who has received a Colonel Allen R. and Margaret G. Crow Term Professorship for 2016-2017.  “Competition is always very stiff for this award”, but Todd’s amazing research and teaching profile rose to the top. Great work Todd!

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Douglas Soltis explains the interrelation of all species on earth with a beautiful, brilliant, constantly-evolving map. Dr. Soltis is currently studying what we know as the “Tree of Life.” His awards and accomplishments alone could fill a book, including over 450 publications, the 2016 Darwin-Wallace Medal and more than eight million dollars in grants and […]

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Former graduate student Oscar Tarazona and two of his undergraduate mentees (along with Biology graduate alumn Jun Zhang) have a paper in today’s issue of Nature, highlighting the ancient nature of cartilage. The genetic network underlying cartilage production pre-dates the split between Ecdysozoa, Lophotrochozoa, and Deuterostomia: 700 million years of evolution! Read about it here.

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This issue of symbiosis is all about the research of undergraduate students. Download the PDF here.

Read more "e-symBIOsis, The Biology Spring News Letter"

Congratulations to seniors Kayla Ventura and Becca O’Toole for receiving Young Botanist Awards from the Botanical Society of America.

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Congratulations to Dr. Jeanne A. Mortimer who recently received a very prestigious honor, the “Lifetime Achievement Award”,  from the International Sea Turtle Society.  Mortimer, often referred to as ‘Madanm Torti” or the Turtle Lady, has over 40 years of experience working with sea turtles. See the article about her work and award in the Seychelles News Agency. Again, congratulations […]

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Congratulations to Emily Woodruff and Arianna Harrington along with their advisors & collaborators.  They have a paper out in Nature, describing the first fossil Monkeys in N. America.

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Art-Science Exhibition opened on April 15-August 15, 2016 at the Libby Gallery here on campus (details below).  The exhibit features creative works that combine elements of art and science in new and interesting ways. These works represent the outcomes of semester-long collaborations between art and science students as part of my class that I co-teach […]

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Otar Akanyeti, a 4th year postdoc in the Liao Lab, has a first-authored publication in Nature Communications (with featured photo) on how fishes can optimize multiple behaviors (swimming, flow sensing and respiration) simultaneously without apparent trade offs. Read more in Nature Communications.  

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Biology’s latest international option for undergraduates:  The opportunity to study in Aberdeen, Scotland! The University of Aberdeen is a public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland and is the fifth oldest university in the English speaking world. Students may attend in the fall, the spring, or for the entire academic year. Curriculum and course substitutions have been specially […]

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Public health officials are drawing on expertise from many disciplines to determine whether the Zika virus is indeed responsible for a surge in birth defects. UF scientists Derek Cummings, Professor in the Department of Biology, gives expertise on how Islands can offer a uniquely revealing picture of outbreaks. The full story can be found here in the […]

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Congratulations to Mike Gil and Joe Pfaller on a recent front page article in the Gainesville Sun regarding their research. The University of Florida researchers discovered that diverse communities of rafting animals can inhabit even the smoothest pieces of plastic debris if barnacles step in first to create complex habitat, similar to trees in a rainforest or […]

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The National Geographic Society has just issued its first press release about the opening of this new traveling museum exhibit on crocodilians, which will open later this month at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C. Dr. Kent Vliet served as the principal scientific advisor for the development of this exhibit, produced by Peeling Productions […]

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Symbiosis, the Department of Biology newsletter’s Fall 2015 edition is available for PDF download here! This issue of Symbiosis provides updates about the research of some of our emeritus faculty and undergraduate students.

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A comprehensive introduction to vascular plant phylogeny, the Fourth Edition of Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach reflects changes in the circumscription and placement of several families in order to represent monophyletic groups, following the classification of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (and recent phylogenetic analyses). Appendices cover botanical nomenclature as well as field and herbarium methodology. […]

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Eleven CLAS Biology majors and one Zoology major were elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest honor society. These students have exceptional GPAs (3.75 for graduation candidates; 3.90 for “rising seniors”) as well as significant breadth of study in the liberal arts and sciences outside of their major discipline (a minimum of 36 hours). They have […]

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