Biology

Please join me in congratulating Luke on his Emerging Pathogens Institute (EPI), A Vertebrate Model System to Decipher Environmental Impacts on Viral Host Jumps ($40,000). Great job, Luke! Marta

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Catalina Pimiento is the winner of the 2015 Association for Academic Women Emerging Scholar competition which is held in conjunction with the Lockhart Dissertation Fellowship competition.  This recognition includes a cash award of $2000 from the AAW Emerging Scholar fund. Catalina was selected from a large and very strong group of applicants and we are […]

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Fatma Kaplan has just received a three year USDA-NIFA award ($450K) for “Role of Xenorhabdus bacteria on pheromone production by Steinernema nematodes: Impact on nematode fitness and formulation.” (in collaboration with Patricia Stock at the University of Arizona and Rebecca Butcher in the Chemistry Department at UF). Please join me in congratulating Fatma!

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There are three Awards categories: Paper, Service, and Teaching. Applicants for these categories were nominated by their peers and professors based on outstanding work that sets them apart. All of the nominees went “above and beyond” and the committee’s decision was a difficult one. Paper Award: Paul Corogin, New geographical and morphological data for Sideroxylon […]

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Congratulations to several outstanding grant winning graduate students. Awarded grants include: H. Jane Brockmann Graduate Research Award ($1750); Felicity Newell – Does behavioral dominance spatially and/or temporally limit access to resources by subordinate species? A study with Grallaria antpittas in northern Peru. Davis Graduate Fellowship in Botany ($300); Rebecca Stubbs – Using an enigmatic arctic-alpine […]

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Congratulations to Professor Francis “Jack” E. Putz from the Department of Biology who is being honored with the City of Gainesville Nature Centers Commission Star Award. This award honors the volunteer to has contributed the most time, energy, and enthusiasm volunteering in City of Gainesville nature parks of programs during the year. This contribution will […]

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Department of Biology Seminar Seminar Title: “Towards more robust tests of biodiversity maintenance theory” Speaker: Annette Ostling, Associate Professor/University of Michigan Date/Time: Thursday, February 26, 2015 ● 3:30 pm Location: Room 211, Bartram Hall Host: Todd Palmer, Associate Professor /Dept. of Biology Email: tmp@ufl.edu

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Department of Biology Seminar Seminar Title: “Integrating data and models to inform biodiversity decision-making” Speaker: Leah Gerber, Professor/Arizona State University Date/Time: Tuesday, February 24, 2015 ● 3:30 pm Location: Room 211, Bartram Hall Host: Robert Holt, Eminent Scholar /Dept. of Biology Email: rdholt@ufl.edu

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Katrina Cuddy won the the best poster presentation at the recent Florida Genetics Symposium. The title of her poster was “ER localization of a Novel Regulator of Actin Depolymerizing Factor (ADF)”. Wenbin Mei has received a CLAS Dissertation Fellowship funded by the Charles Vincent and Heidi Cole McLaughlin Endowment for Spring 2015.

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provides a powerful example of how predators shape the landscapes in which they live. We showed that predators such as African wild dogs and leopards create a “landscape of fear”, which determines where herbivores like impala congregate to feed on plants. And where those impala do and do not go has a strong impact on […]

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Ebola control: effect of asymptomatic infection and acquired immunity by Steve E Bellan, Juliet R C Pulliam, Jonathan Dushoff, and Lauren Ancel Meyers in The Lancet. Some people clearly have been infected with Ebola, yet do not get sick. However, it is not currently known whether individuals who are infected without getting sick are immune to reinfection […]

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A couple having children can usually expect that they have an even chance of having a boy or a girl. This is generally true in animals, and even plants, where the sex of an offspring is controlled by the inheritance of a sex chromosome. However, this is not always the case. Tatum Norrell, a 2013 […]

Read more "Meiotic sex ratio variation in natural populations of Ceratodon purpureus (Ditrichaceae)"

In an article published online in Economic Botany, undergraduate researcher Alisha Wainwright and Francis E. Putz from the Department of Biology report the results of a taste test comparing tea brewed from a common plant native to Florida (yaupon holly) with its close relative from South America, yerba mate. Through the 1800s, yaupon was a […]

Read more "A Misleading Name Reduces Marketability of a Healthful and Stimulating Natural Product"

In a classic example of the law of unintended consequences, new University of Florida research suggests that wildlife corridors can sometimes encourage the spread of invasive species. Read the full article on the UF News page here.

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Thermokarst lakes formed across vast regions of Siberia and Alaska during the last deglaciation and are thought to be a net source of atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide during the Holocene epoch1. However, the same thermokarst lakes can also sequester carbon5, and it remains uncertain whether carbon uptake by thermokarst lakes can offset their greenhouse […]

Read more "Celebrate the continued excellence of Michelle Mack and her recent paper in Nature"

An exciting paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B from the Kimball lab, including our own Kelly Meiklejohn as well as Rebecca Kimball and Ed Braun, will tell you more! Lots of cool press releases as well such as National Geographic, PHYS.ORG, and in Science Mag Sifter.

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Congratulations to Associate Professor Charles Baer (PI), Assistant Professor José Miguel Ponciano (co-investigator) and Dr. Erik Andersen (Northwestern University, co-investigator) on their new NIH grant titled “Direct determination of the distribution of fitness effects of spontaneous mutations in Caenorhabditis elegans

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