Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

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Functional Ecology Cover Article for Grads

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Current graduate students Michael Van Nuland, Rachel Wooliver, Ian Ware, Alix Pfennigwerth, Liam Mueller (all in the Schweitzer and/ or Bailey Labs), and recent graduate Quentin Read (PhD 2016) have an article on the cover of a recent Functional Ecology Special Feature on Plant Soil Feedback. This is a study that emerged from a class at UTK. This is an amazing paper that, for the first time, places ecosystem ecology into an evolutionary framework by linking theory from the Geographic Mosaic Theory of Coevolution and Niche Construction.

“Plant–soil feedbacks: connecting ecosystem ecology and evolution” Michael E. Van Nuland, Rachel C. Wooliver, Alix A. Pfennigwerth, Quentin D. Read, Ian M. Ware, Liam Mueller, James A. Fordyce, Jennifer A. Schweitzer, Joseph K. Bailey.  DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.12690

 

Editor’s Choice for Read

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Quentin Read’s (PhD 2016) recent paper in Oikos has been highlighted as an “Editor’s Choice” article.

The study challenges how we currently conduct biodiversity studies by demonstrating that a high percentage of studies over estimate the effects of diversity and may actually conclude species level effects when those effects are actually driven by hidden nested variation.

“Accounting for the nested nature of genetic variation across levels of organization improves our understanding of biodiversity and community ecology.” (pages 895–904)
Quentin D. Read, Sean M. Hoban, Maarten B. Eppinga, Jennifer A. Schweitzer and Joseph K. Bailey
Version of Record online: 28 JAN 2016 | DOI: 10.1111/oik.02760

Williams, Edwards, and Ramsey in the American Journal of Botany

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Prof. Joe Williams is the organizer of a special issue of the American Journal of Botany and lead author on the cover paper.

The issue also features a paper from Joe that has two undergraduate alumni co-authors (Jacob A. Edwards and Adam J. Ramsey), both now in graduate schools elsewhere.  The work was completed while they were students at UT.

Congratulations!

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!

Burghardt in the News

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Congratulations to Gordon Burghardt – his new paper is getting press on Science Newsline and Phys.org!  The senior author of the paper, Paul Weldon, received his PhD in Zoology at UK.  Gordon was his dissertation adviser.  You can read the UT press release, here..

The paper is called, “Evolving détente: the origin of warning signals via concurrent reciprocal selection,” in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Grad Student Publications

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The McCracken Lab has a new paper in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases (online first).

Riley F. Bernard, Jeffery T. Foster, Emma V. Willcox, Katy L. Parise, & Gary F. McCracken. 2015. Molecular detections of the causative agent of white-nose syndrome on Rafinesque’s big-eared bats (Corynorhinus rafinesquii) and two species of migratory bats in the Southeastern USA. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 51(2).