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Biology Professor Todd Palmer featured in UF News & Nature Magazine

What happens when a new lizard predator moves to your idyllic island community? If you are its prey, fear takes over and causes increased competition— and thus a fundamental change in community structure and the ability of prey species to coexist. Read more about this non-intuitive result from Professor Todd Palmer and colleagues here. Original […]

Ant-Plant Mutualism Press Release

Palmer Lab’s recent research in ant-plant mutualism: In a study published May 16 in the journal Ecology, University of Florida researchers Ryan Tamashiro and biology professor Todd Palmer show that ant-protected plants are much more vulnerable to herbivores during the cool hours of early morning and evening.  In a study published May 16 in the […]

Biology Professor Robert Holt Receives Eminent Ecologist Award

The Ecological Society of America has awarded its highest honor, the Eminent Ecologist Award, to Robert Holt, Biology Eminent Scholar and Arthur R. Marshall, Jr., Chair in Ecology.  The Eminent Ecologist Award from the ESA “honors a senior ecologist for an outstanding body of ecological work or sustained ecological contributions of extraordinary merit.”  Bob joins […]

BIOLOGY PROFESSOR ANA LONGO PUBLISHES GLOBAL STUDY ON AMPHIBIAN DECLINE

Biology Assistant Professor Ana Longo is part of a global team that is assessing the effect of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis on amphibian populations.  This worldwide amphibian pandemic has resulted in the decline of over 500 amphibian species and caused 90 extinctions over the past 50 years.   Many species are still in decline.  Wildlife trade is […]

Biology Staff Receive Superior Accomplishment Awards!

Congratulations to Biology staff members Pete Ryschkewitsch and Mike Gunter! They are recipients of 2019 Superior Accomplishment Awards. This university-wide program recognizes staff members who contribute outstanding and meritorious service to their departments. Pete and Mike were singled out for their extraordinary work in coordinating the renovations of the introductory biology labs last summer, an […]

Congratulations to this year’s BGSA award and grant winners!

The department extends its warmest congratulations to this year’s BGSA award and grant winners. A huge thanks goes to our faculty advisors, Karen Bjorndal and Jamie Gillooly, for their guidance in reviewing and ranking applications, as well as Marta Wayne and John Dew for their help organizing the funding for the awards/grants. Here are all […]

BIOLOGY GRADUATE STUDENT ROBERT JOHNSON WINS AWARD

Robert Johnson, a Ph.D. student in Karen Bjorndal’s Lab., received the Archie Carr Best Student Paper Award at the 39th International Sea Turtle Symposium for his paper “Green turtle grazing causes a consistent response in seagrass ecosystem metabolic carbon capture across Caribbean meadows.”    The meeting was held in Charleston, SC and attended by more than […]

Biology Professor receives prestigious fellowship

Biology Eminent Scholar and Professor Robert Holt has been awarded the Batsheva de Rothchild Fellowship from the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities.  He will visit Ben-Gurion University, Hebrew University and Tel-Aviv University to initiate new research collaborations with Israeli scientists in the areas of endo- and ectoparasitism, foraging, risk management and community structure. 

Biology undergrad wins top honors!

Aaron Sandoval, an undergraduate research student in Malcolm Maden’s Lab, won first prize in the Life Science competition at the National Collegiate Research Conference.  His poster described his research on skin regeneration in spiny mice.  Over 200 undergraduate students from 81 universities attended this national conference held at Harvard University in January 2019. Aaron, a […]

BIOLOGY GRADUATE STUDENT KELSEY LEWIS WINS AWARD

Kelsey Lewis, a Ph.D. student in Martin Cohn’s lab, won the Best Student Paper Aubrey Gorman Award at the 2019 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meeting in Tampa, FL.  The award is from the SICB Division of Comparative Endocrinology.  Kelsey’s talk described her research on how “The anti-androgenic fungicide vinclozolin disrupts sexual differentiation […]

BIOLOGY PROFESSOR EMILY SESSA RECEIVES CAREER GRANT

Biology Assistant Professor Emily Sessa will be receiving a highly competitive CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for her research on African ferns.  The continent of Africa contains fewer fern species in general than regions in the Neotropics or Old World tropics. Her study will address “Resolving a paradox of global botanical biodiversity: why […]

PALMER LAB PUBLISHES GLOBAL STUDY ON HERBIVORE-PLANT INTERACTIONS

 The Palmer lab is part of a global study to examine the effects of herbivores on plant biodiversity.  The study, published recently in Nature Ecology and Evolution (2:1925-1932), was written up in Futurity.  This international team of plant and animal scientists synthesized results from large-herbivore exclusion studies across a wide range of habitats around the […]

Climate change research featured

Tao Zhang, a Post-Doc in Jeremy Lichstein’s lab, was featured in The Wire for his research on the response of forests to climate change.  For more information see: https://thewire.in/environment/climate-change-is-reducing-the-ability-of-forests-to-store-carbon  Link to the original article in the April 5, 2018 issue of Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature26152  

Biology Professor Vander Zanden Receives Prestigious Award

Biology assistant professor Hannah Vander Zanden has been named an Early-Career Research Fellow by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences.  The award recognizes emerging scientific leaders who share an interest in improving the well-being of coastal communities and ecosystems. Her research program will focus on gaps in our knowledge about sea […]

Recent Biology Ph.D. receives career award

 Dr. Clare Rittschof (Ph.D. 2011, supervised by Jane Brockmann) received the Outstanding New Investigator award from the Animal Behavior Society.  This award recognizes an outstanding contribution in animal behavior by a new investigator.  Clare is an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky (Department of Entomology) studying how experience and social interactions influence behavior.  Her […]

Biology Grad Students Win Awards at National Meetings

Ryan St. Laurent (advised by Akito Kawahara) won the prestigious Harry K. Clench Award for the best student paper given at the joint meeting of the Lepidopterists’ Society and the Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica in Ottawa Canada.  Mark Sandfoss (advised by Harvey Lilywhite) won best talk in Ecology at the Ichthyologists and Herpetologists meeting in Rochester, […]