Doctoral Student Lauren Lyon Publishes Chapters on Red Panda Conservation in East Tennessee
Millions of years ago, Red Pandas used to roam the hills of East Tennessee. Now, Zoo Knoxville leads one of the most successful captive breeding programs of Red Pandas in the world. Lauren Lyon, a PhD candidate from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in collaboration with ETSU researchers, Steven Wallace and Andrew Joyner, recently published two chapters in the book, Red Panda. Her chapters focus on the conservation of Red Pandas and the reconstruction of Red Panda fossils that were discovered in Tennessee. In her research, Lyon has been able to work closely with Zoo Knoxville and the Gray Fossil Site in Gray, Tennessee. Observing the Zoo Knoxville’s captive breeding program helped aid Lyon and Wallace in the reconstruction of the Red Panda fossils at the site.
“Red pandas are part of our Tennessee heritage,” Lyon said. “They roamed here long ago living much like raccoons do today, and perhaps this long and storied history is part of why Zoo Knoxville is so successful breeding red pandas today. Locals should take pride in knowing what a beautiful animal once lived in their backyard and that we have even more discoveries to make.”
In other countries, researchers have only been able to identify a few teeth and jaws from Red Panda fossils. At the Gray Fossil Site, researchers recovered the two most complete fossils in the world, a male that is 75% complete and a female that is 98% complete. Lyon’s publications focusing on Red Panda conservation are used by biologists, zoo staff, and conservationists all over the world.
“Close proximity both to the zoo and the national park have been critical. UT’s ecology and evolutionary biology department has funded my doctoral research and allowed me to be in close proximity to the zoo. Because UT has done such a great job with departmental funding, this is research that will be continuing and that you will be hearing about in the near future!” said Lyon.
Lyon’s research with the Appalachian Red Panda is important for understanding Red Panda evolution. It helps researchers piece together how we ended up with this endangered bamboo eating Red Panda in Asia that is well known today. Moving forward, Lyon is working on her dissertation, which focuses on climate change and its effect on endangered species in the Smokies and Appalachian Mountains. She is working with several conservation agencies and hopes to spread awareness on this pressing issue.
“I want people to know that they can make a difference even with minimal effort,” Lyon said. “It’s up to us to preserve these animals for our future. It is very easily an achievable goal that we can all benefit from, but to start we need to simply raise awareness.”
-Story by Sarah Berry
For centuries, scientists have explored and documented the natural world, collecting the billions of specimens housed in museums, universities, and field stations worldwide. And now, the University of Tennessee and other institutions across the globe want to help make that information available to the general public. 
“Natural history collections are a physical record of our planet’s biodiversity across space and time,” said Budke, who is also an assistant professor in the UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “These specimens not only serve as records of the past, but they are a critical resource for our future. They help us to answer important questions surrounding invasive species, conservation biology, and help us to describe species that are new to science.”
The WeDigBio Event emerged within the museum community to accelerate the rate of digital data creation about the historical what, when, and where of the perhaps 9 million species on Earth. It has a core leadership team that includes researchers from the Smithsonian Institution, the Australian Museum, Florida State University, University of Florida, and the major online transcription platforms, including the U.S.-based Smithsonian Transcription Center, Notes from Nature, and Symbiota, the Australia-based DigiVol, the UK-based Herbaria@Home, and the France-based Les Herbonautes.
This one-of-a-kind event will be held from October 14-17 at locations across the globe. Members of the public can contribute at any time from anywhere during the event at one of the participating online transcription platforms.
Being a 25+ year employee at UT has allowed me to experience several academic units. In all of the departments, it has been a pleasure to work with students and faculty from different regions of the world. The EEB department, however, has been a constant advocate for adding and bringing more diversity to the department, which has resulted in recruitment of some very intelligent (and active) faculty and students. Overall, a great department to be a part of!”
“Having worked in higher education for most of my career, I knew that UT has a wonderful reputation for research and education and employees rank the university as one of the best places to work in the state. It is the place I wanted to ‘hang my hat.’ 
“I had worked at the university for 22 years, but never in an academic department before given the opportunity to work in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary. I knew this would push me mentally and to continue to learn the other side of how the university functions.
“Getting a job at the university was something I very much wanted to do. I was fortunate enough that my wealth of experience allowed me the opportunity to obtain a job at UT in the EEB department. I think it is wonderful seeing such a diverse group of people working in our office and in our department. I have been made to feel very welcome here at UT, which is one of the many reasons I chose to work for UT and EEB specifically.
It’s got the largest cluster of flowers—sometimes more than eight feet tall—of any plant in the world. It doesn’t flower often—maybe once every seven to 10 years. And when it does decide to flower, it emits a foul smell like the rotting body of an animal. 
Tomatoes are the heart of many backyard gardens. Tomato crops are also an important economic revenue in North America. The vegetable we all know as the “T” of a great summer BLT, however, may be in jeopardy due to a decline in its pollinator species because of climate change.
For decades, scientists have worked to understand the intricacies of biological diversity – from genetic and species diversity to ecological diversity.
Katherine Whitaker graduated magna cum laude in May 2021 as a biology major, concentrating in ecology and evolutionary biology. Katie excelled in both her course work at UK and as a successful undergraduate researcher. 
Kayci Messerly graduated from EEB in May 2021 with a minor in statistics. She completed a research study in the Derryberry lab on heat stress effects on the behavior of zebra finches in collaboration with graduate student Casey Coomes. Her hundreds of hours scoring behavioral videos paid off with presentations at two national conferences, The Animal Behavior Society and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. 
Members of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology recognize and are proud of the long history of programs for conservation of natural resources and the promotion of human welfare that Tom Gilbert (BA ‘50, MS ‘52) has envisioned and led throughout much of the world. 
In 2020, EEB underwent a ten-year Academic Program Review to evaluate the entire program including our culture, and all aspects of the research and teaching missions of the department. The review committee (with folks from inside and outside of the university) noted that one of the “strongest cultural aspects of the department are its collegiality and collaborative spirit that infuses all they do.” 
During this past unusual year we have drawn on this collaborative spirit to help support one another and our students in many ways. With over a year of largely online learning, faculty and staff have helped each other navigate online teaching by sharing digital expertise, sharing slides and teaching materials, and supporting each other by checking in to see how everyone is doing. We have worked hard to support our students through creative methodologies for courses that may have normally been taught in person in the field or lab, by keeping in contact through virtual meetings and social events and increased communication and sharing of health, mental health and career resources. The excellence of our staff members have kept the main office productive and helpful, have maintained our research and teaching resources and collections and have found new and creative ways to support the department. Graduate students pivoted to teach online while also still figuring out ways to do research safely during a pandemic. Moreover, a motivated diversity committee has worked hard to educate and talk about critical social issues through a virtual diversity reading group to change and improve our understanding as well as create action plans to improve diversity and create a culture of true inclusion and safety within our community. 
While distancing, learning, and working in sometimes very challenging conditions in our homes, EEB has continued to be the collegial and productive department that was noted in our program review. We have graduated more than 45 undergraduate and graduate students over the last year, offered professional development and training for students and have taught all of our normally scheduled courses – even if the format was greatly modified – to prevent bottlenecks that might limit student success. 
Our research mission has continued and expanded with faculty and students working on reviews, new virtual collaborations, backyard experiments, and many other creative ways to create and apply knowledge in ecology and evolutionary biology. This year EEB students and faculty have 68 active grants from multiple agencies totaling more than $6 million (Professors Budke and Sheldon both won prestigious NSF CAREER awards), fellowships (Maryrose Weatherton won a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship), and national and local awards (Amanda Hyman won the Cheek Graduate Student Medal of Excellence, Professor Derryberry won Professional Promise in Research & Creative Achievement awards). The list is too long to include here, but we include here a list of all the award winners in the 2020-21 academic year. Our faculty and students have continued to publish important and high-profile papers. 
Laura Russo
For example, activity bags were built as a collaboration between Biology in a Box, McClung Museum, the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS) for Darwin Day 2021. Previously, in-person activities were organized for a family fair on Darwin Day. The challenge in 2020 was to create an activity for kids that could be done at home. McClung Museum organized the concept and layouts while EEB and EPS faculty created the content. 
More than 120 Darwin Day activity bags were distributed through the local Boys & Girls club, which included students enrolled from Inskip Recreation Center, Norwood Elementary, and Deane Hill Center. Similar activity bags will be distributed through two local schools as an ongoing collaboration between McClung Museum and Biology in a Box.