Sheldon’s and Mamantov’s research featured in National Parks Magazine
The award-winning National Parks magazine shares stories about our beloved and diverse National Park System.
Kimberly Sheldon’s Research Featured on CBS
Kimberly Sheldon’s research on climate change effects on dung beetles was featured on CBS Saturday Morning, as part of a segment on insect declines in the Anthropocene.
EEB Spring 2023 Awards Video
Faculty, staff and students from EEB gathered on May 18, 2023 to celebrate the end of the semester, recognize award-winners, and honor retirees. Check out this YouTube video to see all of the winners, along with some photos from the celebration.
Sheldon Publishes Research on Dung Beetles and Climate Change
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.
NSF Award and Recognition for EEB
EEB undergraduate Justin Baldwin and EEB graduate student Maggie Mamantov (Sheldon Lab) both received honorable mentions in the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. This program selects early career students with high potential in science.
Amanda Wilson Carter (postdoc, Sheldon Lab) was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology! Using dung beetles, she will integrate thermal plasticity across life stages with maternal behavior to understand the mechanisms driving responses to increased temperature variation.
Congratulations!
50th Anniversary of Island Biogeography Studies
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the seminal Simberloff and Wilson island biogeography studies, the Bulletin for the Ecological Society of America published a special extended edition of their “Paper Trail” series in October. In this series, young researchers tell stories of how a particular paper influenced them, and the original authors of the papers in turn describe their experiences with the paper.
For this special edition, a collection of researchers, ranging from graduate students to full professors, describe how the Simberloff and Wilson 1969 papers influenced their careers. From our department, Jeremiah Henning, Jordan Bush (graduate students), Christy Leppanen (lecturer and post doc), and Kimberly Sheldon (assistant professor) all contributed to this section. Dan Simberloff and Edward O. Wilson then wrote a reflection on the original paper, complete with photographs and stories from the mangrove experiments.
A Pioneering Adventure Becomes an Ecological Classic: Editor’s Note
(overview, by Young, Stephen L.)
A Pioneering Adventure Becomes an Ecological Classic: The Arising and Established Researchers
(Authors: Henning, Jeremiah A.; Leppanen, Christy; Bush, Jordan; Sheldon, Kimberly S; Gotelli, Nick; Gravel, Dominique; Strauss, Sharon)
A Pioneering Adventure Becomes an Ecological Classic: The Pioneers
(Authors: Simberloff, Daniel; Wilson, Edward)
Graduate Student Senate Awards 2017
Congratulations to the EEB grad students who won Graduate Student Senate awards this year. There are a few different categories:
Research: This award is presented to graduate students who have received national and/or international recognition in their fields and show professional promise in their areas of research and creative achievement.
- Sam Borstein (O’Meara Lab)
- Angela Chuang (Riechert Lab)
- Aaron Floden (Schilling Lab)
- Alanni-Grace Grant (Kalisz Lab)
- Chloe Lash (Kwit Lab)
- Brian Looney (Matheny Lab)
- Margaret Mamantov (Sheldon Lab)
- Austin Milt (PhD 2015, Armsworth Lab)
- Morgan Roche (Kalisz Lab)
- Michael Van Nuland (Schweitzer Lab)
- Rachel Wooliver (Schweitzer Lab)
Service: This award is presented to graduate students who are extraordinary campus leaders or participate in service learning and other community initiatives.
- Christine Dumoulin (Armsworth Lab)
Teaching: This award is given to graduate teaching assistants for extraordinary performance in teaching.
- Amanda Benoit (Kalisz Lab)
- Liam Mueller (Schweitzer Lab)
- Tyson Paulson (Fordyce Lab)
EEB a Large Presence at STEM Symposium
The 3rd Annual Women in STEM Research Symposium was held Tuesday, March 21, 2017 in Hodges Library from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.. Hosted by Pipeline–Vols for Women in STEM, the symposium featured over 90 presentations from UT graduate students doing research in STEM-related fields, from Animal Science, Kinesiology, and Nursing, to Chemistry, Physics, and Zoology.
EEB had a large presence at the event, thanks to Kimberly Sheldon (pictured far right) participating in the panel discussion, Jen Schweitzer, Mike Gilchrist, Ed Schilling, and postdoc Sergei Tarasov serving as judges, and many EEB students contributing oral presentations and posters.
Sheldon Featured in Entomology Today
Kimberly Sheldon was recently featured in Entomology Today for her work on climate and thermal limits in beetles. This is a cool example of outreach to a broader population (many entomologists are not focusing on evolution and ecology).
The feature was based a study Sheldon published in 2014: