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 […]
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 […]
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!
UF Biology Lecturer Stefanie Gazda and Rebecca Hamilton, the graduate student she co-advised with Richard Connor at U. Mass. Dartmouth, have a new paper out in Behavioural Processes on our very own Cedar Key dolphins. They have a unique feeding behavior wherein one individual drives mullet in a circle towards a “barrier” of other dolphins, […]
On June 18th from 10am-3pm, we will be set up at the Florida Museum of Natural History with sea turtle specimens, a scavenger hunt around the museum, and a 15-minute virtual reality experience where you get to experience life as a sea turtle!
On June 16th at 6:30pm we are hosting a fun night of sea turtle talks at Cypress & Grove brewery. We’ll have a range of sea turtle experts and three talks on topics like the importance of seagrass beds, fibropapilloma tumors, and sea turtle migrations. Talks will begin at 7pm. Grab a beer and engage […]
Read more "World Sea Turtle Day 2022 @ Cypress & Grove Brewery!"
Drs. Allison Edgar, José Miguel Ponciano, and Mark Martindale published a paper in the Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) – “Ctenophores are direct developers that reproduce continuously beginning very early after hatching.” A substantial body of literature reports that ctenophores exhibit an apparently unique life history characterized by biphasic sexual reproduction, the […]
The research, conducted by mathematics and botany senior Camille Sicangco, has been accepted for publication in Current Biology and shows the plant exerts force on its own, not just in response to external forces such as climate and soil.
The 40th Annual Sea Turtle Symposium (ISTS) was held entirely online in March. During the conference, Alan Bolten was posthumously awarded the ISTS Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors an individual who has had a significant impact on sea turtle biology and conservation through the course of their career. April 2022
Microbes inhabit and sustain all habitats on Earth. In the oceans, microbes capture solar energy, catalyze biogeochemical transformations of important elements, produce and consume greenhouse gases, and provide the base of the food web. The purpose of these awards is to help launch the careers of outstanding investigators in the field of marine microbial ecology and evolution who will […]
Department of Biology graduate students, Alexandra Gulick and Renato Bruno (Bjorndal Lab / Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research), received awards for their presentations at the International Sea Turtle Symposium! Newly minted PhD, Dr. Alexandra Gulick, received the award for Best Student Poster for her presentation titled “Recovery of a cultivation grazer: A mechanism […]
The course (ZOO4926 | ZOO405 Animal Behavior) taught by Stefanie Gazda, Ph.D, was awarded a 2021 Exemplary Course designation. The course content is about the comparative evolutionary and biological study of animal behavior and the scientific method. Students study non-human and human animal behavior in the conceptual framework of evolution by natural selection. The course […]
Read more "Dr. Stefanie Gazda’s Online Course, designated a 2021 Exemplary Online Course"
Department of Biology and Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience Faculty Joseph Ryan, Mark Martindale and James Strother have been awarded $1.5 million from the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, to better understand the brains and nervous systems of animals and humans by studying gelatinous ocean comb jellies. This award will support early-stage research that is unlikely to receive […]
Read more "UF Biology Faculty study translucent sea creatures to understand early brains"
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Sixue Chen, Biology’s newest American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Fellow! AAAS awards Fellow status to “a distinguished cadre of scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized for their achievements across disciplines, from research, teaching, and technology, to administration in academia, industry and government, to excellence in communicating […]
The Department of Biology and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is proud to announce Dr. Connie Rich has been recognized the 2021-2022 CLAS College Teaching Award! The 2021-2022 College Teaching/Advising Awards honor the exceptional teachers and advisors in each college for the difference they make in students’ lives. Congratulations to Dr. Connie Rich!
Department of Biology Professors Malcolm Maden (PI) and Brad Barbazuk (Co-PI) have been awarded $1M from NSF Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) to study heart regeneration using single-cell RNAseq in spiny mice, Acomys. The grant ‘Investigating cardiac repair in a new adult mammalian model for regeneration, the spiny mouse, Acomys cahirinus’ is for 3 years. For more […]
Department of Biology and Whitney Laboratory of Marine Bioscience Graduate Student, Elias Lunsford (from the Liao Lab) won the Best Student Paper competition at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting last week in the Division of Neurobiology, Neuroethology and Sensory Biology! His in-person talk described how he used first principles to upend a longstanding assumption […]
Cabbage palm (Sabal palmetto), the dominant species acrossmany wild and domesticated landscapes on the southeasterncoastal plain and the state tree of both Florida and SouthCarolina, is threatened by an introduced pathogen (16 SrIV-Dphytoplasma) transmitted by a native insect (Haplaxius crudus).Larvae of this plant hopper thrive in turfgrass thatch […] Read More
Read more "Save Cabbage Palms: Stop Lethal Bronzing Disease (LBD)"
A new study led by Department of Biology postdoctoral associate Christopher Dutton, sheds light on the Hippo “meta-gut” – pools of hippo excrement that act as an extension of the hippo gut – allowing microbes and bacteria to be shared among congregating animals. This work has been Published in Nature’s Scientific Reports. The team includes UF Assistant Professor […]
Read more "Hippos’ Constant Defecating Turns African Pools into Communal Guts"
New research published in Science shows that as populations of people gain immunity to dengue, it drives evolutionary pressures that select for viral evolution—and newly susceptible hosts.
Read more "Dengue’s dance: host immunity drives viral evolution"