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.

​Here are the points that Mongabay highlighted from our interview: 

• A new study has highlighted gaps in reference databases that are required by scientists for DNA sequencing, especially in tropical biodiversity hotspots around the world.
• DNA technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, but the lack of extensive reference databases makes species identification a challenge, especially in remote areas.
• The lead author of the study emphasizes the need to ramp up work to create these databases, especially as the world works toward critical goals to protect ecosystems and the biodiversity that lives in them.

The magazine Medicine@Brown featured Montana Stone's award-winning photo of "Zorro" -- a culpeo fox -- taken at our long-term ecological research site in Fray Jorge National Park in Chile. It's a fantastic shot of an amazing, and poorly known predator. As the BioMed communications team said, this image from Montana's field work is a poignant way to remind people that our mission in the Division is to advance the "health of people AND planet." We always love to remind people that our health is intimately, and inextricably, linked to what's happening in nature and around the planet.

This month we are saying farewell to Beth -- who has been the beating heart of our lab community for years -- as she embarks 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...!!

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!