Reconstructing 10,000 Years of Caribou Diets from Melting Yukon Ice Patches
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Metabarcoding vs Microhistology: Comparing Dietary Analysis MethodsTyler KartzinelOriginally posted 1/6/2026. At First Bite: Why Do Animal Diets Matter?
Do undergraduate research in the Kartzinel Lab at Brown
Earn a Master’s degree in the Kartzinel Lab at BrownApplying for a master's degree can be an extremely rewarding step to take in your career! Brown University is seeking to expand its offerings for graduate degrees at this level, and one of them may be a great match to your personal and professional interests. Because you will discover an array of existing and potentially new opportunities to engage with my lab as a master's student, I want to help you navigate the opportunities and answer common questions you may have. If that sounds good to you, read on...! Earn a PhD in the Kartzinel Lab at BrownWhat you need to know is that PhDs from the Kartzinel Lab lead outstanding basic research that can have transdisciplinary extensions with significant conservation impacts in the real world. All PhD students will be enrolled in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology (EEOB), and those who pursue research with a significant conservation component will benefit from unique opportunities within the Institute at Brown for Environment & Society (IBES). If this sounds like an exciting opportunity for you, I'll share everything you need to know about developing a successful application below...! Wildlife Molecular Parasitology: From Taxonomy to DNA in Costa Rica @HelmCamp2026
Study: New England is key to survival of diamondback terrapinsA new peer-reviewed study led by researchers at Brown University in partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management revealed that diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin), iconic turtles of America’s salt marshes, face heightened risks at the northern edge of their range in New England. First large-scale genetic study of diamondback terrapins across their northern range highlights urgent conservation needs as federal endangered species listing is considered. Story behind the science: Yellowstone wildlife dietsRethinking how we classify animals based on what they eat—and what it means for wildlife management An article by science journalist Livi Milloway chronicles an "ah-ha" moment we had in our Yellowstone National Park research project. The story published in The Wildlife Society Bulletin, titled An herbivore by any other name, unpacks how Hannah Hoff's recent paper in PNAS challenges the status quo when it comes to how scientists study and understand wildlife diets.
Hannah Hoff awarded Blavatnik Family Graduate Fellowship
Research highlight: Apportionment of Dietary Diversity in Wildlife published in PNAS (Hannah Hoff et al.)
Interview: DNA barcoding and conservation (Mongabay)DNA sequencing to meet global biodiversity goals: Interview with Tyler Kartzinel Tyler sat down for an interview with Abhishyant Kidangoor of Mongabay to discuss our recent Mini Review in Molecular Ecology, entitled Global Availability of Plant DNA Barcodes as Genomic Resources to Support Basic and Policy-Relevant Biodiversity Research.
You can read our conversation here at Mongabay. It covers topics that are among the most important for ensuring the reliability of DNA-based biodiversity research, including equitable access to the benefits arising from this technology and the reputations of all who use it. The work was also highlighted in Spanish by El Mostrador: Código de barras de plantas: herramienta genética clave que busca ser fortalecida en el sur global Research highlight: what parasites infect tropical wildlife?One of the top “unsolved problems” in biology is the need to untangle complex networks of species interactions - perhaps nowhere is this more consequential than our need to grapple with the socioecological risks of neglected tropical diseases. Human-livestock-wildlife parasite transmission has been declared a major biomedical challenge for the 21st century with reasons for concern that include the potential for zoonotic helminths—parasitic worms such as nematodes (roundworms), cestodes (tapeworms), and trematodes (flukes) to be transmitted between humans and animals. The effects cause malnutrition, developmental delays, and deaths that disproportionately affect communities undergoing rapid development.
A critical problem is that our strategies to identify and track wildlife parasites originated to combat livestock diseases a century ago. We know very little about how to answer the question: What parasites infect tropical wildlife? We know far more about the subset of parasites that harm humans and livestock than all others. Consequently, our conservation partners struggle to identify the parasites they encounter, hindering our collective efforts to rehabilitate endangered species, evaluate emerging health threats, and treat diseases. Fortunately, we have just received a Catalyst award from the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society to pursue new strategies in the field of Molecular Parasitology 🏆 Research highlight: gastrointestinal parasites of Costa Rican sloths (Ezequiel Vanderhoeven et al.)A new paper from the Kartzinel Lab is the first to compare the parasites of wild two- and three-toed sloths living in both primary forests and urban habitats. Led by Ezequiel Vanderhoeven, the paper Host specificity of gastrointestinal parasites in free-ranging sloths from Costa Rica was published in partnership with our friends at Sloth Conservation Foundation.
Feature: Montana Stone’s award‑winning photo
Discover the motivation behind our ambitious research project at the Fray Jorge long-term ecology project! Research highlight: giraffe diets and microbiomes (Videvall et al.)
Profile: Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun postdoc takes Prize Fellowship to launch a new labThe lab bid farewell to Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun -- who has been the beating heart of our program for several years -- as she embarked on the next exciting chapter in her career.
Beth has been awarded a prestigious Prize Fellow to launch her independent research group at the University of Bath in the UK, where she will join a cohort of talented PIs forming a new research cluster focused on the microbiome. Because Beth will be there, it is sure to become an exciting epicenter for excellence in the field. Students and junior researchers who are interested -- take note! We will all miss Beth, but we take heart in knowing that we can continue to collaborate and learn from her for years to come. What an all-star she is...!! Research highlight: paper in Journal of Experimental Biology (Courtney Reed et al.)The upshot: The gerbils that are the best jumpers are not necessarily the best maneuverers, and vice versa. Led by Courtney Reed, the Kartzinel Lab ran a series of controlled laboratory tests to discover that each individual's decision in the pivotal moment it meets a predator may be enabled by -- or constrained by -- the anatomy of its hind limbs. The paper Distinct morphological drivers of jumping and maneuvering performance in gerbils was published in Journal of Experimental Biology!
Story behind the science: Field training with Save the ElephantsMary Burak led a workshop together with Save the Elephants and the National Museums of Kenya. The meeting convened at the Save the Elephants headquarters at Samburu, and the team spent a few days learning to collect voucher plant specimens for DNA barcoding. In a very short period of time, they added an important chunk of regional plant diversity to the collections available for barcoding.
Research highlight: what fuels wildlife migrations across Yellowstone?
Research highlight: Study on structural and functional variation in host-microbiome interactions published in Ecosphere (Bianca Brown et al.)Congratulations to Bianca Brown, microbiome scientist extraordinaire, on her publication appearing today in Ecosphere! Spatiotemporal variation in the gut microbiomes of co-occurring wild rodent species is freely available via open access. It is a rare example of the type of insightful work that can develop through collaborations involving field, lab, and big-data analytical approaches to really understand what's going on with wildlife. It is part of our long-term collaboration with the UHURU project at Mpala Research Centre in Kenya.
Profile: Anna Jackson, Lab Manager
Job opening (archived): Lab Manager position***This position has been filled and closed*** Find more current opportunities on the Join page of the Kartzinel Lab's website.
Profile: Dr. Mary Burak and her conservation research in African savannas
Research highlight: elephant foraging cohesion study (Brian Gill et al.)The paper led by Brian Gill on individual-level tracking of elephant diets -- Foraging History of Individual Elephants Using DNA Metabarcoding -- was just published by Royal Society Open Science. We are very proud of this paper, which revisits a set of classic studies on seasonal diet switching by elephants using stable isotopes in hair that were led by coauthors Thure Cerling and George Wittemeyer. The work was made possible with support in the field from Save the Elephants and with the botanical expertise of coauthor Paul Musili from the National Museums of Kenya.
The paper was accompanied by a great summary by Corrie Pikul and featured on the Brown University homepage: Similar to Humans, Elephants Vary What they Eat for Dinner. The paper also attracted attention in the media, including interviews on BBC Television and Times Radio. Some nice coverage of the study was also provided by BBC (with hilarious photos), Newsweek, ZME Science, and The Times. Research highlight: CRISPR-linked DNA barcode sequencing (Bethan Littleford-Coluhoun et al.)Led by Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun, the Kartzinel Lab published a paper describes our efforts to repurpose CRISPR technology in ways that might help overcome persistent drawbacks to PCR and other targeted enrichment strategies in molecular ecology. This post provides a summary of the strategy we used and the lessons we learned in publishing A CRISPR-based strategy for targeted sequencing in biodiversity science at Molecular Ecology Resources. The article was originally posted as a BioRxiv preprint.
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