Karen Bjorndal elected AAAS Lifetime Fellow!

Posted on April 23, 2024

Congratulations to Department of Biology Professor Karen Bjorndal who was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) as a Lifetime Fellow for the 2023 Class. The Lifetime Fellows program celebrates Karen’s many accomplishments, mentorship and acknowledges her professional impact in marine ecology and sea turtle conservation. https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-welcomes-502-scientists-and-engineers-who-join-ranks-fellows

Undergraduates Present Their Research at the 2024 URAP Symposium

Posted on April 16, 2024

Biology Department undergraduates presented their scientific research on Friday, April 12, 2024 at the department’s annual Undergraduate Research Assistantship Program (URAP) Symposium. The students, representing 5 labs in the department, presented 12 posters and fielded questions from and audience of faculty, post-docs, and graduate students. Their research encompassed conservation biology, animal physiology, genetics, and medicine. […]

Ed Braun publishes in Nature AND PNAS on the same day!

Posted on April 11, 2024

Congratulations to Ed Braun, publishing related manuscripts in both Nature [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07323-1] and PNAS [https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2319506121] on the same day – April 1st! Ed’s PNAS paper is entitled “A region of suppressed recombination misleads neoavian phylogenomics”. Ed and his colleagues found that it is possible use computational methods to detect a strong signal of chromosomal rearrangements that occurred […]

Amanda Subalusky and Christopher Dutton Receive Press for Research Programs in ACS Central Science

Posted on February 22, 2024

UF Biology Assistant Professors Amanda Subalusky and Christopher Dutton received some popular press coverage for their overall research programs in ACS Central Science, a print publication of The American Chemical Society.

Study By Todd Palmer And Colleagues Shows Link Between Invasive Ants and Ecological Domino Effect

Posted on February 22, 2024

A study by Todd Palmer and colleagues published in Science (January 25th), makes the link between invasive big-headed ants and an ecological domino effect that has led to the disruption of important mutualistic connections that unite native ants, acacia tress, elephants, zebras and lions, in the complex savannah ecosystem. Read more below: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg1464 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn3484 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/25/how-invasive-ants-are-impeding-lions-hunt

Stand Up & Holler – Giving Day

Posted on January 31, 2024

Please consider supporting the Department of Biology’s efforts to provide experiential learning opportunities through research and Immersion courses with a gift on Gator Nation Giving day!

Forests and Climate Change

Posted on January 31, 2024

UF Biology researchers, Postdoctoral Associate J. Aaron Hogan and Professor Jeremy Lichstein, published a new study on the response of US forests to climate change in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Department of Biology 2023 Research Output

Posted on January 9, 2024

The Department of Biology had a bumper quarter for research output at the end of 2023. Congratulations to all contributors! Click for a list of the research articles published October through December 2023.

Stefanie Gazda and Brenda Such publish article on course design

Posted on December 5, 2023

The Department of Biology’s Stefanie Gazda and Brenda Such (from COIP) published an article on course design for BSC2010/2010L and BSC2011/2011L. These courses were redesigned three times over three years, based on multiple different factors, and targeting 4 main parts: clear instructions, interactions, engaging activities, and versatile learning materials. Stephanie and Brenda found that multiple […]

Herbivory limits success of vegetation restoration globally

Posted on November 3, 2023

Professor Todd Palmer from the Department of Biology, contributed to a new paper out today in Science Magazine. “Herbivory limits success of vegetation restoration globally.”

My quest for hidden treasures in Sri Lanka’s flora

Posted on November 3, 2023

Graduate student Manasee Weerathunga, in the Burleigh Lab, wrote an article for the “where I work” careers section in Nature.

How the Hammerhead Shark got its hammer!

Posted on October 2, 2023

A new manuscript by Biology Graduate Student Steven Byrum (from the Gareth Fraser and Gavin Naylor Labs) has won a Research Promotion Initiative Award, offered by UF Strategic Communications & Marketing.

Promotional News

Posted on August 10, 2023

We are pleased to announce that Biology Faculty member Dr. Gareth Fraser has been granted promotion and tenure by the University of Florida Board of Trustees to Associate Professor of Biology.

Quite a Tail: A Mouse Has Been Hiding Its Armor All This Time

Posted on May 30, 2023

Researchers just discovered that the spiny mouse was concealing bony plates beneath the skin over its tail. www.nytimes.com A new study shows that bony plates (Osteoderms) commonly found in the skin of reptiles, and only known in mammals from the skin of armadillos, have now been discovered in the tails of a subfamily of rodents, the […]

Dr. David Duffy, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics, and his lab’s Nature Ecology and Evolution paper published

Posted on May 30, 2023

Title: Inadvertent human genomic bycatch and intentional capture raise beneficial applications and ethical concerns with environmental DNA The paper outlines the relative ease of collecting human DNA nearly everywhere they looked. “We’ve been consistently surprised throughout this project at how much human DNA we find and the quality of that DNA,” Duffy said. “In most […]

Biology Researcher, Hua Yan, Ph.D., Awarded NIH Grant to Study Neural Development and Plasticity

Posted on January 11, 2023

Dr. Hua Yan receives the NIH R01 grant, 2023.

Dr. Hua Yan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, was awarded a National Institutes of Health R01 grant to study neural development and plasticity that are essential for chemosensory-mediated social behavior. The project aims to understand how neuroplasticity, the capacity of adaptive changes of neurons and neural circuits in response to environment, is […]

Biology Post-Doc Highlighted in CLAS Publication

Posted on January 3, 2023

Biology Post-Doc Alexandra Gulick was recently highlighted in the CLAS Publication of Ytori for December. Below is a link to the article: Rebounding Green Sea Turtle Populations Reshape Coastal Ecosystems

The Gabon Biodiversity Portal

Posted on August 25, 2022

Dr. Greg Jongsma, a recent UF Biology PhD graduate, has been working with a team of Gabonese and American scientists to launch the Gabon Biodiversity Portal, a public online database of digitized biodiversity data collected in Gabon. Gabon is embarking on an effort to digitize and publish all of its natural history collection data and […]

Are Gophers Farmers?

Posted on July 14, 2022

Veronica Selden, an undergraduate researcher who graduated in May 2022, and her advisor Dr. Jack Putz, published a study suggesting that southeastern pocket gophers are the first non-human mammalian farmers. The study has been covered by the New York Times, National Geographic, and other international news sources. Links to the study and to some of […]

Whitney’s Christine Schnitzler Promoted to University of Florida Associate Professor of Biology with Tenure

Posted on June 29, 2022

We are pleased to announce that Whitney Faculty Dr. Christine Schnitzler was granted promotion and tenure by the University of Florida Board of Trustees to Associate Professor of Biology. She is now tenured faculty in the University of Florida Biology Department!

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