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Sheldon Publishes Research on Dung Beetles and Climate Change

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Assistant Professor Kimberly Sheldon published results from a recent study in Biology Letters that suggest adult dung beetles may be changing their behavior to partially buffer developing offspring from temperature changes related to climate change.

“I developed mini-greenhouses that raised the temperature average and variance in experimental buckets,” Sheldon said. “We put beetles in the buckets and recorded their behaviors, and we found that females buried their offspring farther in the soil to avoid warmer temperatures.”

Will Kirkpatrick, an undergraduate student researcher in the Sheldon Lab, ran the field component.

Read the full paper online in Biology Letters.

Russo Co-Authors Planting for Pollinators

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Assistant Professor Laura Russo is part of a research team that published findings from an experiment to provide evidenced-based recommendations for pollinator-friendly native perennials in eastern Tennessee.

Download the UT Institute of Agriculture Extension Publication: Planting for Pollinators in East Tennessee, authored by Virginia Sykes, Department of Plant Sciences, Karl McKim and Laura Russo, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Amani Khalil, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

For the Love of Plants

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As you walk on the UT campus, you may see the large glass greenhouses overlooking Neyland Stadium. The University of Tennessee Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology greenhouses were first built in 1934 and have gone through multiple renovations. There are still plants from the original collection that are almost 100 years old now.

Recently, the UT Greenhouses received an extremely generous donation from Suzanne Herron and her late husband, Drew Herron. The collection included mostly succulents and cacti plants. Some of the plants are very rare and possess unique traits and modifications. UT Greenhouses were fortunate to receive Herron’s beloved collection.

“Drew Herron knew what UT Greenhouses mission is and he wanted to enhance our outreach and education by donating his collection,” said Jeff Martin, manager of UT Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Greenhouses. “These plants will also be a great addition to our teaching and research.” One example, according to Martin, is demonstrating convergent evolution, which occurs when organisms independently find their way to the same evolutionary solution for the same environmental problem

Martin also just made a donation of one of their own rare flowers to Zoo Knoxville. In July of 2021, the rare Amorphophallus titanum, or more commonly known as the corpse flower, bloomed on UT’s campus. The bloom of the corpse flower only occurs once every 7-10 years and lasts for about a day before wilting. As it blooms, the flower releases a putrid stench that becomes even more potent as the flower’s temperature rises to about 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

After seeing how the corpse flower bloom sparked excitement in the community, Martin chose to donate the flower to the zoo to be placed in the new Arc exhibit with the turtles. Martin hopes that by having the plant at the zoo, it will be able to reach a larger audience outside of East Tennessee. He wants this to be an opportunity to educate more people about the importance of plants and hope to share the positive impact the flower had on UT’s community. 

“We donated one to the zoo because I wanted to continue to share something as interesting and unique as the corpse flower,” Martin said. “We want to take advantage of opportunities we have to educate others about the importance of plants and the natural world. Anything that piques people’s interest in plants is excellent.”

–Story by Sarah Berry

Darwin Day Highlights Evolution Education

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This year, graduate students hosted Darwin Day UT, a series of events on campus to promote awareness of the importance of evolution to the study of biology and scientific research at UT and other institutions. Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809. He is a critical figure in the history of evolutionary biology and during the week of his birthday, graduate students in the UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology celebrate his contributions to science.

Events throughout the week included Evolution Trivia, a graduate student research panel discussion, Darwin’s birthday party full of family fun in conjunction with the McClung Museum, and more. Students and faculty on campus may have also seen the large Darwin puppet mascot on the pedestrian walkway handing out flyers and prizes. These events were led by graduate students in the ecology and evolutionary biology department including Hope Ferguson, Wieteke Holthuijzen, Tara Empson, Nicole Lussier, Lauren Lyon, and Krista De Cooke. More than 300 people attended events throughout the week. 

“Understanding evolution is key to understanding our world. For over two decades, Darwin Day at UT has been a fun, inclusive way to educate people about the topic,” said Dr. Brian O’Meara, faculty advisor for Darwin Day.

The tradition of Darwin Day celebrations at UT go back to 1997. UT prides itself on being among the most active institutions in celebrating and promoting evolution education, which is possible with support from several units at UT.

“Darwin Day has historically been an interdepartmental event with generous donations, volunteers, and coordinators from other UT departments. It’s been great working with colleagues across the campus to think of innovative activities, especially during the pandemic,” said Krista De Cooke, Darwin Day President 2020-2022. 

–Story by Sarah Berry

 

Gross Investigates Relationship Between Climate Change Beliefs and Risk

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Louis GrossLouis Gross, Chancellor’s Professor in the UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, recently co-authored an article, “Determinants of Emissions Pathways in the Coupled Climate-Social System” published in the journal Nature, which investigates whether or not there is a link between humans’ belief in climate change risk and the Earth’s changing climate. 

“This research indicates that there are significant feedbacks between the physical climate system and human behavioral, societal and economic responses that affect our ability to project future climate,” said Gross. “Our research demonstrates that these feedbacks can somewhat reduce the negative impacts of climate change that are projected to occur when the feedback to human behavior and societal responses are not taken into account.”

This research focuses on how social, political, and technological factors are all critical for predicting the degree our climate will change overtime. Gross explains how this research can be a driving force for society to take more progressive steps to help reduce the negative impact of climate change. People’s beliefs in climate change and its relevance can affect the policies in place. This along with other factors will ultimately have an impact on the earth’s climate.

This research was supported by the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), which is headquartered at UT. It was funded by the National Science Foundation with additional support from UT.

“This research is part of a set of collaborative efforts which began several years ago through the support of the NIMBioS. It fostered a highly interdisciplinary group of researchers, with backgrounds in economics, public policy, psychology, mathematics, ecology and climate science, which allowed this effort to be successful,” said Gross.

The collaborations established through Gross and his colleague’s research is continuing using new models, alternate theories, and approaches to enhance climate projections that account for societal responses.

–Story by Sarah Berry

Doctoral Student Lauren Lyon Publishes Chapters on Red Panda Conservation in East Tennessee

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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.

Two of the male Red Panda cubs, Vali and Marvin, at the Zoo Knoxville.

“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

Local University Joins Global 4-day Effort to Digitize Centuries of Data About Life on Earth

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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. 

But they need your help. 

The University of Tennessee Herbarium invites members of the public to  one of the many virtual transcription parties that will be held next week during the Worldwide  Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections (WeDigBio) Event.  The WeDigBio Event will transform the often handwritten or typewritten data sequestered on the labels of plant, insect, fish, and fossil specimens into an open, globally accessible, digital resource with the  help of the 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 University of Tennessee Herbarium (TENN) is a member of The GLOBAL Bryophyte & Lichen Thematic Collections Network (TCN). This collaboration of 25 universities, museums, and botanical gardens located across the United States is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with the goal of digitizing almost 1.2 million bryophyte (moss) and lichen specimens. It is the first large scale project to image physical specimens in addition to labels and focuses on specimens collected outside of North America. These specimens document the distribution and natural variation of species that form the basis for important ecological communities across the globe. Digitized data will be shared freely online, making these specimens available to researchers, teachers, students, and communities around the world.

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.

More information about the GLOBAL Bryophyte & Lichen TCN WeDigBio Event can be found on the project website, https://globaltcn.utk.edu/crowdsourcing/.

The Knoxville-based virtual transcription party will take place from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, Oct. 15, and Saturday, Oct. 16. Activities will include virtual presentations and collections tours from the TENN herbarium and five of their GLOBAL partner institutions. Volunteers can register to participate here: https://tinyurl.com/WeDigBioGlobal.

Contact:
Jessica M. Budke, Assistant Professor & Herbarium Director
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Tennessee
(865) 974-6204
jbudke@utk.edu

https://globaltcn.utk.edu/crowdsourcing/

Sheldon Receives NSF CAREER Award

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SheldonKimberly Sheldon, an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB), was awarded a highly-competitive Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award is NSF’s most prestigious recognition for early-career faculty members and recognizes individuals “who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.”

The multi-year, $1.3 million grant will support Sheldon’s project examining behavioral shifts of temperate and tropical dung beetles in response to temperature change. In addition, the grant will provide internships for UT undergraduate students and research opportunities for Native American high school students.

“Dung beetles remove and recycle waste and are thus both ecologically and economically valuable, but these beneficial insects may be in trouble,” Sheldon said. “Like all insects, dung beetle development and survival are impacted by temperature. Researchers predict that warmer temperatures will result in population declines and tropical insects, which make up the vast majority of biological diversity on Earth, may be particularly at risk.”

dung beetleInsects might compensate for temperature increases by shifting their behavior to use cooler microclimates within their environment. Sheldon’s research team will spend the next five years investigating how dung beetles in Tennessee and Ecuador respond to warmer and more variable temperatures and how that behavior impacts their offspring’s development and survival.

“We will expose tropical and temperate dung beetles to temperature changes using lab experiments and field manipulations,” Sheldon said. “After observing the dung beetles’ responses, we will build a model to predict impacts of temperature change on insect populations.”

This work fits into Sheldon’s overall research program aimed at understanding the processes leading to the distribution and abundance of organisms and applying this knowledge to predict the impacts of climate change on biological diversity.

As part of the award, Sheldon will lead STEM education initiatives for students from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. She will work with a collaborator from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) to support science programs for Native American high school students. Her lab will also host undergraduate interns with the goal of increasing STEM literacy through field-based inquiry.

“This type of hands-on experience can increase interest in STEM fields and help students gain confidence to pursue advanced degrees,” she said.

Sheldon, who joined the UT faculty in 2016, credits the backing she received from her colleagues and the college for her successful grant proposal.

“I was given the encouragement and freedom to pursue my research goals and develop the education program that led to the CAREER award,” Sheldon said. “I also have great collaborators in Ecuador and with the EBCI who have supported the research and education goals, and talented lab members who gathered some of the preliminary data that went into the proposal.”

Sheldon received her bachelor’s degree in natural resources from the University of Michigan and her PhD in zoology from the University of Washington before completing an NSF postdoctoral fellowship in biology. She received the 2020 Faculty Academic Outreach Research and Creative Activity Award from the UT College of Arts and Sciences.

Budke Receives NSF CAREER Award

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BudkeJessica Budke, an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and director of the UT Herbarium, received a highly-competitive Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This multi-year, $1.4 million grant will support Budke’s work on parent-offspring conflict in mosses.

“The conflict is a striking paradox where parents have to balance limited resources between investing in their offspring and reserving resources for their own survival and future reproduction,” Budke said. “Moss plants are an ideal system to study this conflict since their offspring remain physically attached and nutritionally dependent on the parent plant throughout their lifespan.”

mossesUsing field-collected plants and natural history specimens, Budke will use an innovative and integrated research approach that incorporates comparative analysis of function morphology, physiology, and evolution to explore and understand the processes that have led to diverse adaptations for regulating parental-offspring resource allocation across species.

During an engaging May-term course that will be offered multiple years at UT, students will be in the field, laboratory, and behind the scenes of natural history collections, such as the UT Herbarium, where field collections and specimen-based research will be essential components of the class.

“Undergraduate students will also have the opportunity to work with graduate students and postdocs and see the stages of an early-career scientist, which could get them excited about joining the lab and pursuing a career in science,” Budke said.

mosses2Budke and her students will use the experiences and data from the course to build educational modules and activities for UT programs at natural history museums and local public botanical gardens. They will host sessions about mosses and specimen research for students grades 3-12 and will build an educational module for the UT Biology in a Box program to engage kids with natural history collections and moss biology.

This research will lay the groundwork for future biodiversity studies in mosses and improve the body of knowledge and understanding of parent-offspring relationships broadly across plants.

“We are trying to think about this in terms of how plants live in the world,” Budke said. “Evolution can occur over long periods of time, but with this research, we are zooming in on a single generation to understand how parents influence their offspring, specifically how they provide the resources they need to survive, thrive, and produce the next generation of mosses.”

The CAREER award is NSF’s most prestigious accolade for early-career faculty members and recognizes individuals “who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.”

UT students interested in research opportunities with this grant should contact Jessica Budke to learn more.

Why Are Some Mushrooms Poisonous?

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Poisonous or edible? Ekaterina Morozova/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Karen Hughes, University of Tennessee

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Why are some mushrooms poisonous and some are not? – Alice T., age 11

You may have noticed that mushrooms pop up in your yard or in parks right after a rain but don’t last for long.

A mushroom is the above-ground part of a fungus. Most of the time, fungi live as threadlike structures called hyphae underground or in materials like wood. For fungi to reproduce, a mushroom must form above ground.

Some mushrooms are poisonous for the same reason some plants are poisonous – to protect themselves from being eaten so they can reproduce. Other mushrooms use the opposite strategy. They need animals to eat them in order to spread spores through poop. Still other mushrooms have completely different game plans.

Finger shaped fungi release spores that look like smoke.
The candlestick fungus, Xylaria hypoxylon, releases its spores. Jasius/Moment via Getty Images

Spreading spores

Mushrooms develop when the temperature is right and there is enough water. They usually consist of a cap and a stalk. On the underside of the cap, mushrooms produce spores that, like the seeds of plants, produce new fungi.

If you peek under a variety of mushroom caps, you will notice they are not all the same.

Some mushrooms have gills that look like a pleated sheet of paper. Some have pores that look like sponges. And some have toothlike structures. All of these surfaces produce spores. To create a new generation of fungi, spores need to get to new areas – and there are many fascinating ways mushrooms accomplish this.

For some mushrooms, spores simply fall from their caps and are carried to new homes by air currents.

A cluster of mushrooms glow in the dark.
The ghost fungus, Omphalotus nidiformis, at night in an Australian driveway. Louise Docker Sydney Australia/Moment via Getty Images

Other mushrooms attract insects by glowing at night. The glow from fungi in the woods at night can be very strong and is sometimes called foxfire. Insects, which are attracted to the light, inadvertently pick up spores as they investigate the glow and carry them elsewhere when they move on.

Some mushrooms never form an above-ground structure. Instead the mushroom stays underground and is eaten by squirrels and mice, which spread the spores by taking pieces back to their nests and by pooping. Such mushrooms are called truffles, and sometimes people will pay a lot of money for them.

A window of opportunity

Since mushrooms don’t last long, it’s important they spread their spores quickly. This is where poisons and toxins can come in.

Mushrooms are pretty tasty to snails, some insects, beetles, chipmunks, squirrels, deer and people. If an animal eats a mushroom, usually its spores are lost – unless they’re the type encased in a protective covering meant to be carried to a new neighborhood in poop.

Scientists have figured out that insects and snails avoid eating mushrooms that contain poison. Some mushroom poisons may make the eater only sick enough to avoid that species in the future, but some can be fatal.

A white gilled mushroom lies on its side in the grass.
A deadly poisonous mushroom, Amanita virosa. gailhampshire/Flickr, CC BY

There are many different mushroom poisons. One kind belongs to a group of very beautiful mushrooms, the amanitas, also called “destroying angels” because they are both pretty and deadly. Amanitas are often mistaken for mushrooms that can be eaten, and they cause several deaths worldwide each year.

People use some mushroom poisons in medicine. The poison of the ergot fungus, for example, was developed into a drug used to prevent migraine headaches.

Approximately 1%-2% of mushrooms are poisonous to humans. The common term for such a mushroom is a “toadstool,” but there is no easy way to distinguish a poisonous mushroom from one that is edible. So it’s not a good idea to eat mushrooms you find, because it’s hard to be sure whether they’re poisonous or not.

Many mushrooms are healthy and delicious. Just make sure you get them from a store or from someone who is a mushroom expert.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.The Conversation

Karen Hughes, Professor of Mycology, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.