University of Florida Homepage (opens in new tab)
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (opens in new tab)

Biology
Make a Gift (opens in new tab)
Make a Gift (opens in new tab)

News

Ed Braun publishes in Nature AND PNAS on same day

Posted on

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 […]

Read more "Ed Braun publishes in Nature AND PNAS on same day"

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

Posted on

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

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

Stefanie Gazda and Brenda Such publish article on course design

Posted on

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 […]

Read more "Stefanie Gazda and Brenda Such publish article on course design"

Promotional News

Posted on

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.

Read more "Promotional News"

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

Posted on

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 […]

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

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

Posted on

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 […]

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

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

Posted on

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 […]

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

The Gabon Biodiversity Portal

Posted on

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 […]

Read more "The Gabon Biodiversity Portal"

Are Gophers Farmers?

Posted on

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 […]

Read more "Are Gophers Farmers?"

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

Posted on

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!

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

First study to investigate the mechanism of coordination in a role-specialised behaviour in a marine mammal

Posted on

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, […]

Read more "First study to investigate the mechanism of coordination in a role-specialised behaviour in a marine mammal"