As we kick off the new academic year, we extend the warmest welcome to Dr. Brian Gill, inaugural IBES postdoc in the lab. Brian's doctoral research fused a cutting-edge molecular tool kit with some extremely rugged field research to test important ideas in ecology and evolution. For example, Brian used DNA barcoding to identify a huge diversity of mayflies from tropical and temperate streams, revealing that their elevational ranges are narrower in the tropics, where species may be more sensitive to the effects of climate change -- a result that may not have been so clearcut in the absence of molecular data, due to the prevalence of cryptic species. We all look forward to benefiting from Brian's leadership and skills as we study how species are respond to environmental changes in New England, in East Africa, and around the world. 

Check out the new lab within the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society! The lab is a blank slate right now, but we’ll be moving in soon and we're already setting up opportunities for top-notch science.