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Wildflower Pilgrimage April 19-23

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The 66th Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage will take place8_Trillium_0996thumb April 19-23 2016.  For more information, please select one of the following links:

Thanks to Ken McFarland for organizing this spectacular event!

Photo credit: Trillium undulatum 0996, The Botanical Photography of Alan S. Heilman, copyright Alan S. Heilman, copyright The University of Tennessee Libraries, 2011.

 

 

NSF DDIG for Van Nuland

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Michael Van Nuland (Schweitzer Lab) has been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation.

The goal of his project is to understand the mechanistic basis of plant genetic-by-soil microbial phylogenetic-by-abiotic environment interactions that will determine plant and soil function across important gradients of global change (e.g., temperature, H2O, and soil nitrogen [N]). The results will provide managers fundamental insights into how plants, as mediated by the diversity of the soil community, respond to abiotic stress and new tools to mitigate environmental change by identifying genotypes with high plant productivity, accelerated phenology, consistent soil conditioning, and positive feedbacks in different environments. Identification of soil microorganisms that influence plant traits, such as signaling the timing of bud break and initiation of the growing season, will be applicable to a wide range of global change issues.

Congratulations, Michael!

Welch Receives ESA’s Graduate Student Policy Award

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The Ecological Society of America announced the six 2016 recipients of its annual Graduate Student Policy Award, and the list includes our own Jessica Welch (McCracken and Simberloff Labs)!  The award winners will travel to Washington, DC, to participate in policy training sessions and meetings with their US Representative and Senators.  On Capitol Hill, they will team with other scientists to discuss with lawmakers the importance of federal funding for the biological sciences, particularly the National Science Foundation.

To view the full press release, please click here.

Darwin Day 2016

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Darwin “Day” is all next week at UTK: we have events Tuesday (croc evolution), Wednesday (invasion of land, with NIMBioS postdoc Sandy Kawano, and a talk on the Gray Fossil Site), and Thursday (Andy Kramer on anti-evolutionism and human paleontology). Our keynote is Thursday, Feb 11 at 7 pm: Neil Shubin, of Tiktaalik fame (also author of the Your Inner Fish bestselling book and star of the PBS series). There will also be giant Darwin and Wallace puppets roaming campus, Darwin Day swag for sale near the library, outreach to teachers, and much more.   All events are free and open to the public.  Please visit darwindaytn.org for more information!

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Science Article for Borstein

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Sam Borstein (O’Meara Lab) is a coauthor on a new article in Science called “A pharyngeal jaw evolutionary innovation facilitated extinction in Lake Victoria cichlids.”

This paper looks at how the pharyngeal jaw apparatus in cichlids, widely considered an evolutionary innovation allowing them to feed on a variety of prey items, doomed piscivorous cichlids when the Nile perch invaded Lake Victoria in the 1950’s. The results suggests that competition in conjunction with predation by the introduced Nile perch drove hundreds of endemic cichlid species to extinction.

Congratulations, Sam!