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.

Patrick Freeman presented a poster at the IBES Blue Sky that focuses on our ongoing collaboration with Yellowstone National Park. We are working with the National Park Service to elucidate changes in the diets of GPS-collared large-mammal species over the course of their annual migrations. The research that Patrick presented was the culmination of our semester-long research project in BIOL 1515/2015 last fall (he was an amazing TA!). Class participants received dietary samples from the park, extracted DNA from them, performed DNA metabarcoding to analyze animal diets, and prepared reports for the patterns at the park. In this CURE-formatted course, students have a real-world conservation impact. Thanks, Patrick, for your leadership on this project and for presenting your work. This class will be even more exciting and impactful when we offer it again in 2020, thanks to support from HHMI and The Sheridan Center for Teaching & Learning. 

An extensive review by Goheen et al. was just released as a contribution to ​The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology series. The paper details major conservation lessons learned through large-scale and long-term experiments involving large-mammal communities in Kenya -- an important set of lessons for ecologists and conservation biologists provided by an inspirational team of researchers and collaborators.

Congratulations to Bianca for her winning proposal to conduct exploratory research on the microbiome of the small mammals in Kenya. The competitive award, from the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES), is offered to graduate students to pursue research, training, and travel abroad. Bianca will use the award to study how the microbiomes of a diverse guild of small mammal species differ in the presence or absence of large mammalian herbivores, and across a climatic gradient, at Mpala Research Centre.

Congratulations to Molly Magid for her Voss Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Environmental Science and Communication! This prestigious award will support Molly's amazing independent study and honors research, including summer fieldwork opportunities in Kenya.

Molly's research is at the nexus of cutting-edge molecular ecology and good old-fashioned fieldwork in conservation biology: using fly-derived DNA to help characterize vertebrate communities in diverse habitats. Basically, the flies find evidence of what vertebrates occur in local environments -- by sucking blood, eating carrion, ovipositing on feces, etc. -- and then provide us the genetic evidence. This evidence will enable our conservation partners to account for rare and cryptic animals in their activities.

This project is in collaboration with colleagues at Biodiversity Initiative (Equatorial Guinea) and Mpala Research Centre (Kenya).