Graduation is always bitter sweet and we had so many amazing seniors graduate this year -- the class that began under the most trying of circumstances in the early days of the pandemic. A few highlights and congratulations are in order:

• Eliza Atwood: Environmental Studies Senior Prize for Best Senior Thesis! Eliza is heading to UC Irvine for graduate school in conservation!
• Maddy Florida: Senior Prize for Academic Excellence in Biological Sciences!
  
• Logan Torres: Inaugural senior prize at IBES 10th year anniversary!
• Savianna Gonzales-Wagner: Entering Masters program in education at Columbia!

Always inspiring and successful new students bringing their energy to the lab as well:

• Abigail Grove: rising junior wins the BrownConnect SPRINT|UTRA opportunity to join our team at Yellowstone this summer!

Congratulations to Hannah Hoff for being awarded the 2024 James Reveal Eriogonum Project Grant from the Eriogonum Society! Among Hannah's many ambitious endeavors, she is leading the development of a comprehensive plant DNA barcode library and nutritional database so that we can understand what fuels the migrations of large herbivores across Yellowstone. These little buckwheats are turning out to be big contributors, and the grant will help ensure we can account for all of them. We are all so excited to get back out and botanizing in Yellowstone this summer!

The lab has been awarded a Life and Medical Sciences Seed Award from Brown's OVPR for 2024!

This $50,000 award will support improvements in our ability to use DNA barcoding to characterize gastrointestinal nematodes that infect tropical wildlife species. Our own Dr. Ezequiel Vanderhoeven is a world expert in the parasitology of tropical wildlife and the seed award will help us extend our funding base for OneHealth research at the nexus of animal health and ecology.

Leveraging expert-verified data to bring wildlife parasitology into the genomics ageWe are on the cusp of a genomics revolution to usher in an era of precision wildlife parasitology—but achieving it requires reforming long-standing traditions in the field. Biologists and health practitioners need to monitor wildlife to ensure effective conservation and identify emerging infectious diseases that may threaten humans and livestock. But we may often misunderstand host-parasite interactions because we rely on overly simplistic methods to study parasite diversity in nature. Fortunately, emerging molecular and bioinformatic techniques can help overcome traditional limitations. We plan to establish genomic workflows to more precisely characterize the diversity and distribution of gastrointestinal parasites that infect wildlife in tropical hotspots. We will accomplish this by constructing and utilizing one of the largest expert-verified databases of helminth DNA in the world. This database will bridge the gap between today’s ‘gold-standard’ practice of using microscopes to painstakingly identify parasites in the field and tomorrow’s need for ‘field-ready’ methods that provide more cost-effective, accurate, and timely parasite identifications—especially for the practitioners who need these data at the right times and places to take action. We will initially use these emerging tools to map hard-to-identify parasites onto wildlife hosts in tropical forests—sloths, monkeys, and tapirs among others—in ways that are more robust than standard techniques could provide. This exciting venture features interdisciplinary collaboration among veterinarians, parasitologists, molecular biologists, and ecologists. It will provide world-class opportunities for students and researchers at Brown to engage with non-profit organizations that focus on wildlife conservation, health, and human livelihoods.
PI: Tyler Kartzinel, Peggy and Henry D. Sharpe Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Assistant Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Congratulations to Elin Videvall for earning a highly competitive SRC Starting Grant to join the faculty and open her lab at Uppsala University! Elin plans to lead projects involving the microbiomes of wildlife in a changing world. Elin joined the lab with a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2021 and we are so proud to have had a small part in her journey. 

The lab is thrilled to welcome Joselyne Chavez and Montana Stone to Brown! Both are keen to use combine ecological field experiments in with genomic lab technologies and computational approaches to advance our understanding of biology in a major way while also contributing to meaningful conservation. We couldn't be happier about the time we will get to have working with these top-notch scientists--they are both off to a great start!

The lab is incredibly excited to welcome Mary Burak! Mary is joining the lab as a Fulbright Scholar based in Kenya followed by an IBES Voss Postdoctoral Fellowship. Together these prestigious awards will support Mary for three years both in Kenya and at Brown. Mary will collaborate with a number of major NGOs as well as scholars at the University of Nairobi, the National Museums of Kenya, and Mpala Research Centre to address critical data needs for the conservation of large carnivores and herbivores across Kenya. 

Mary completed a PhD in Os Schmitz's lab at Yale University in 2023. She is a star and we are so keen to learn from her and collaborate with her over the next few years and beyond!

An exciting paper from the lab on lizard behavior, let by (former) undergraduate all-star Thomas Patti, appears today in Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. The "Bite and Seek" paper focuses on the exploratory behaviors and bite force of the Podarcis lizard colony that we had on campus. Thomas and the team tested an extensive series of hypotheses about the relationship between behaviors observed in populations of this non-native lizard species and the recency of population establishment. All else equal, propensity for exploration might be expected to facilitate the establishment of new populations -- lizards have to explore at least a little to get somewhere new -- and thus recently founded populations should comprise groups of explorers. Not so in nature, Thomas reports, and this requires us to take a more nuanced view of behavioral 'syndromes' as sets of traits and behaviors that may be associated with invasion potential and success in non-native species. Great work Thomas, Colin, Andy, and Caroline!

Senior all-star Caroline Dressler won the 2023 Kidwell Prize! This is the top senior prize in our area of biology. Caroline was recognized for outstanding academics, a top-notch Honors thesis, consistent leadership at Brown, and a community-minded commitment to education. It was an honor to contribute to her journey -- we look forward to publishing more papers together and following her journey for years to come. Congrats, Caroline!