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New Research in Journal of Animal Ecology

6/9/2020

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Multiple dimensions of dietary diversity in large mammalian herbivores -- a new article from the lab -- was featured on the cover of the June issue of Journal of Animal Ecology.
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Congratulations all around!

5/14/2020

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The lab has much to celebrate as we close out another semester, even despite the disruptions of COVID-19.
  • Congratulations to Patrick Freeman for earning a Masters based on a thesis comparing ecological hypotheses about the distributions of plants and large herbivores in Kenya!
  • Congratulations to incoming Voss postdoc Colin Donihue for publishing several high-impact papers, including one featured on the cover of PNAS (generating a buzz in the NY Times and elsewhere) and one in Nature Ecology and Evolution!
  • Congratulations to Courtney Reed for winning a grant from the American Philosophical Society’s Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration & Field Research!
  • Congratulations to seniors graduating with amazing research accomplishments: Amanda Lyons (Honors), Catherine Porter, and Violet Sackett!
  • Congratulations to Amanda Lyons '20 for admission into Brown's 5th year Masters program to conduct research on diamondback terrapins in collaboration with governmental and non-profit partners, and with generous support from a Diamondback Terrapin Working Group Grant!
  • Congratulations to Cate Porter '20 for admission into the University of Virginia's Environmental Science graduate program!
  • Congratulations to Jen Guyton (Princeton PhD) for earning the cover of Nature Ecology and Evolution based on our work to understand and restore the ecosystems of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique!
  • Congratulations to Ashley Bang '19 on her upcoming position in Lian Pin Koh's lab at the National University of Singapore!
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Grad student honors and awards

3/25/2020

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Honors and awards are rolling in...
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Congratulations to Bianca Brown for a 2020 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Honorable Mention!
Congratulations to Courtney Reed for a 2020 Animal Behavior Society Student Research Grant!
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Welcoming Chrishen Gomez

3/5/2020

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Chrishen Gomez is the recipient of a prestigious 2019 Merdeka Award Grant from Malaysia, which was established “to reward citizens and organizations who have made outstanding contributions in their respective fields to the people of Malaysia.” 

Chrishen joins the lab for three months as a Visiting Research Associate affiliated with EEB. During his visit, Chrishen will collaborate on DNA-based analyses of animal diets and genetics. Chrishen aims to apply these approaches and his affiliation with the Bornean Carnivore Program to establish a conservation genetics research program that focuses on the Sunda Clouded Leopard in Malaysia.

Check out Chrishen's Merdeka Award acceptance speech to learn about his amazing research and conservation efforts in Borneo!
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Visitors from the Rhode Island School of Design

2/4/2020

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Bianca Brown gives a lab tour to students from RISD, January 2020.
Bianca Brown -- Ph.D. candidate, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, microbiomics extraordinaire -- recently invited 22 undergraduate students from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to tour the lab. Bianca gave a lecture on strategies for using art to communicate science. The group discussed several ongoing projects in the Kartzinel Lab as examples of how art can be used to better aid the public's understanding and engagement in science. Bianca led students on lab tour where they learned about how we get DNA out of animal dung and blood samples in the course of our work. The Brown-RISD connection is a unique and special part of living and working in Providence. 
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Recent papers highlighted for impact

12/6/2019

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A pair of recent papers from the lab were highlighted for the creative use of DNA metabarcoding to solve problems and ask new questions in fields that span ecology and biomedical science.

1. Our recent paper documenting variation in diet-microbiome linkages in African megafauna was highlighted on the cover of PNAS, Brown University's news, The Division of Biomedicine's 'Kudos' memo, and in the media. This open access paper reflects the results of a long-term collaboration with Rob Pringle from Princeton, Paul Musili from the National Museums of Kenya, a creative honors thesis by Julianna Hsing, and the microbiome-bioinformatics chops of current grad student Bianca Brown.

2. ​Our recent paper in mSystems creatively translated the DNA metabarcoding approaches that we've been using for wildlife research into a biomedical context to evaluate the plant component of human diets. Using DNA-based evidence of human diet composition could be highly complementary to the current standard of asking human subjects to maintain diet logs in research on human health and nutrition. The paper was highlighted as Editor's pick in the area of Clinical Science and Epidemiology by the journal, as well as in a thoughtful commentary by Frank Maixner, who further highlighted the connections between this work and the fields of archaeology and ancient DNA. The paper was co-led by Aspen Reese based on samples from a prior experimental study investigating the influences of diet interventions on human gut microbiomes, which was led by Lawrence David.
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Joint EEB/oSTEM Seminar

12/5/2019

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The lab was thrilled to host a special set of seminars by Prof Karen Warkentin this week. The special seminars were co-organized by EEB and oSTEM, Brown's chapter of the national non-profit professional society that aims to empower LGBTQIA+ folks working in STEM fields. At Brown, 24% of undergraduates and 18% of graduate students reported that they identified as LGBTQ+, according to the 2018 climate survey. 

The EEB-hosted seminar focused on adaptive variation in hatching time by tropical frogs -- "Proximate and ultimate causes of plastic hatching timing" -- a classic system in evolutionary ecology, and a connection to our lab's research roots in the wet tropics of Central America.

The oSTEM-hosted seminar told -- in part -- Prof Warkentin's personal story and perspective on the value of diversity in STEM. It was modeled after the Opening Plenary at the 2019 ESA meeting, and entitled "Different people ask different questions: A queer perspective on studying diversity in life history and behavior." Videos of the ESA plenary and related talks can be viewed here.

Both seminars were attended by a broad cross-section of folks at Brown. Thank you, Prof Warkentin, for making the visit! Thank you, oSTEM, for partnering with our group and EEB to make this special visit such a success!

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Diamondback Terrapin Working Group Meeting

10/28/2019

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Amanda Lyons presented a poster at the recent 2019 Diamondback Terrapin Working Group meeting in Wilmington, NC. The presentation shared information about Amanda's innovative turtle-trapping methods, the benefits of capture-mark-release studies for understanding the ecology of the species, and new work in the Kartzinel Lab to apply molecular tools to our understanding of terrapin biology. The presentation was co-authored by grad-student mentor Bianca Brown, and earned a prize as one of the best student presentations--a testament to the impacts of our conservation research and Voss Undergraduate Fellows programs. Congratulations to Amanda and Bianca for this excellent contribution!
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New NSF Award

8/5/2019

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Testing predictions of the core-satellite and resource-breadth hypotheses in small mammal communities: field tests of a macroecological pattern. Together with collaborator Jake Goheen, the lab earns NSF support to study the relative influences of dietary generalism/specialism and dispersal limitations on the diversity of small mammal communities in Kenya. This research leverages Project BASEPAIR, the UHURU experiment, and our new DNA sequencing facility at Mpala Research Centre. Grant: 1930820.

Of note:
Colleague Dr. Jake Goheen from U. Wyoming is recruiting a grad student (MSc or PhD) to collaborate on our NSF-funded research on small mammal communities and food webs in Kenya. This is an outstanding new opportunity (application deadline: October 1, 2019); Dr. Goheen is a fantastic mentor. ​
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Paper featured on the cover of Nature & in media

6/5/2019

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New research combining large field experiments and molecular ecology published today in Nature. The paper is featured in a Nature News & Views article by Oswald Schmitz, a 3-min Nature Video, a great PBS NOVA article by Katherine Wu, among others.
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