Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

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Faculty News and Updates

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From publishing books to winning national awards, our faculty have made their mark on the field of ecology and evolutionary biology over the past year. Below is a sampling of articles from our EEB blog. We hope you enjoy reading about our fantastic faculty!

Michael Blum’s research on rats was featured on The Atlantic’s CityLab website. Read More.

Gordon Burghardt was featured in a Discover magazine article about play behavior in non-mammalian animals. Read More. He has also been featured in the Knoxville News Sentinel, on NPR, and the Observer.

Todd Freeberg’s behavioral ecology study was featured in an article in Natural History. Read More.

Sergey Gavrilets coauthored paper about a new study that sheds light on the power of norms and the origins of cooperation. Read More. Gavrilets also authored a paper in Science Reports that is getting international attention. Read More.

Louis J. Gross has been chosen as a member of the inaugural class of fellows of the Society for Mathematical Biology. Read More.

Colleen M. Iversen has been named as an Ecological Society of America Early Career Fellow for 2017. Read More.

Brandon Matheny authored Fungi of Australia: Inocybaceae. It is a major revision and describes a total of 137 recognized species, of which 101 are new to science! Read More. He also received an award from the Daniel E. Stuntz Memorial Foundation to revise the taxonomy of species of mushroom-forming fungi called Inocybe. Read More. Finally, Matheny’s research about hallucinogenic mushrooms and their insect-repellent properties received some attention this year. Read More.

Matheny Lab graduate students published papers that ended up on the cover of two scientific magazines. Read More.

Gary McCracken published a paper about a new study demonstrating Brazilian free-tailed bats are faster than previously documented. Read More.

Beth Schussler is co-PI on collaborative NSF S-STEM grant, which will provide scholarships and research opportunities for STEM-focused students from rural Appalachia to attend UT. Read More.

Kimberly Sheldon was featured in Entomology Today for her work on climate and thermal limits in beetles. Read More.

Daniel Simberloff, the Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Science, received the Honorable John C. Pritzlaff Conservation Award at the 2016 California Islands Symposium. Read More. Simberloff and postdoc Christy Leppanen received a grant from the Eppley Foundation for hemlock woolly adelgid research. Read More. Simberloff was also featured in Wired and Slate magazines.

UT’s Etnier Fish Collection Featured in Research

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Adjunct Assistant Professor Ben Keck just published two articles, each describing a new species of fish that relied on specimens from the David A. Etnier Ichthyological Collection at UT.  Congratulations, Ben!

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320335877_Phylogenetic_and_Morphological_Diversity_of_the_Etheostoma_zonistium_Species_Complex_with_the_Description_of_a_New_Species_Endemic_to_the_Cumberland_Plateau_of_Alabama

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320335880_A_New_Species_of_Logperch_Endemic_to_Tennessee_Percidae_Etheostomatinae_Percina

 

Herbarium Awards and Fellowships Available, 2017

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The EEB Collections Committee is pleased to announce the following three awards from the Hesler Fund to support and enhance herbarium-based research at UTK. Please share these award announcements with any students, colleagues, and collaborators who might be interested in applying.

Student Research Awards – http://tenn.bio.utk.edu/HeslerInternalFacultyAwards.pdf

Awards are available for research in the areas of systematics, ecology, biogeography, conservation, and biodiversity of plants and fungi to undergraduate and graduate (Masters and Ph.D.) students currently working under the supervision of a faculty member affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville. Projects must be herbarium-based, either using or vouchering herbarium specimens or analyzing herbarium specimen data. This includes but not limited to, taxonomic revisions using herbarium specimens, phylogenetic analyses using data from herbarium specimens, ecological studies that will result in vouchers deposited in the TENN herbarium, and biogeographic studies using spatial data from herbarium specimens. A maximum of four Undergraduate (up to $1000 each) and six Graduate Student awards (up to $2000 each) will be given out in the 2018 competition.

Visiting Scholar Fellowships –  http://tenn.bio.utk.edu/HeslerVisitingResearcherAward.pdf

Visiting Scholar Fellowships provide opportunities for scientists to use the collections at the University of Tennessee Herbarium (TENN) to enhance and facilitate a biodiversity-focused research project in collaboration with an EEB-affiliated faculty sponsor. Graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, and independent researchers from any country are eligible to apply. Funds are for travel, housing, and other visit-related expenses while conducting research at the TENN Herbarium. A maximum of two awards ($3000-$5000 each) will be given out annually.

Internal Faculty Awards – http://tenn.bio.utk.edu/HeslerStudentAwards.pdf

Internal Faculty Awards are available to support activities that directly result in improvements to the TENN herbarium. Possible uses include funding of student workers to database specimens, costs associated with improving collections management, and validation of species designations using DNA or other procedures.  One to two awards will be granted annually for a period of one year for a maximum of $5000.

If you have any questions about these awards, including the fit of your proposal for the award, please contact Jessica Budke <jbudke@utk.edu>.

Teaching Resource Development Award for Poppenwimmer

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Tyler Poppenwimer (Gross & Bailey Labs) won an award to develop online teaching resources to enhance the teaching of Math 152 in spring 2018.

The award, offered by UT’s Office of Information Technology, is open to Graduate Teaching Associates (GTA). The grant is awarded for the enhancement of a course by utilizing OIT-supported technologies and innovative instructional strategies in the redesign of a course or course component to be delivered via the web.

More information about the grant can be found at https://oit.utk.edu/instructional/gtaoit/gtaoit-call/.

 

 

Press for Burghardt: Snakes that recognize whether they are venomous

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Professor Gordon Burghardt has a new article out in Journal of Comparative Psychology with Akira Mori called, “Do tiger keelback snakes (Rhabdophis tigrinus) recognize how toxic they are?” (DOI: 10.1037/com0000075)

The findings of the article have been picked up by places like New Scientist. Tiger keelback snakes do not make their own venom; they store and use toxins from the food they eat.  Individuals that have been fed a diet of toxic toads display more aggressive behavior when threatened, unlike their non-toxic brethren, who typically slither away.  This raises the question of how the snakes know whether they are toxic or not.

 

Milt (PhD 2015) Recognized by Conservation Biology

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Austin Milt (PhD 2015, now a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin) won third place in Conservation Biology’s ‘Rising Star’ award for his manuscript, “The Costs of Avoiding Environmental Impacts from Shale-Gas Surface Infrastructure.” The Rising Star award considers all student led papers published in Conservation Biology in 2016. This award is judged by a group of Senior Editors and aims to recognize outstanding student researchers and communicators.

Press Takes Interest in New Blum Article

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Associate Professor Mike Blum has a new paper out in the journal Ecosphere this month, called “Socioecological disparities in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.”  Some science news outlets have picked up on the article:

The paper’s findings are particularly topical as communities in Texas and Florida begin to rebuild after recent hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

New Book from Matheny

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EEB’s Brandon Matheny, together with Neale Bougher from the Western Australian Herbarium, authored a book that came out in June 2017 called Fungi of Australia: Inocybaceae.  This major revision describes a total of 137 recognized species, of which 101 are new to science!  Read the full description from the publisher, below.

From Csiro Publishing

The family Inocybaceae are a diverse cosmopolitan group of gilled fungi. Until now, only a small number of species had been described from Australia, but with this major revision a total of 137 species are recognised, of which 101 are new to science. Ninety per cent of these species (121 of the 137) are found only in Australia. Phylogenetic work shows that the family can be divided into seven main groups, of which six are now recorded from Australia, making this country one of the major centres of diversity for the family. They are all thought to be ectomycorrhizal, that is they form mutually beneficial associations with the roots of plants, and are found on soil and amid litter in wet- and dry-sclerophyll shrublands, woodlands and forests, and cool- or warm temperate rainforests. Many are small and easily overlooked, but their diversity of colour and delicate structure make them attractive to those with an eye for detail.­ This authoritative account provides a major advance in knowledge for this diverse and widespread group, with detailed descriptions, identification keys and phylogenetic trees based on DNA sequences generated during the work. Every species is illustrated with coloured plates and/or line drawings of microscopic features.

Fungi of Australia: Inocybaceae is a useful reference for professional and semi-professional mycologists in Australia and around the world.