Coming in Spring 2009!

Dr. Nick Santangelo published a paper on mate choice in fish. Stay tuned for more details.

April 2009

L-R: Louise Peppe, Brad McLeod, Dr. Gary Ritchison, Jason Courter

Three current graduate students attended the 2009 joint scientific meeting of The Wilson Ornithological Society and the Association of Field Ornithologists, from April 9th-12th in Pittsburgh PA. Under the direction of and along with EKU Foundation and BIOS Professor Dr. Gary Ritchison, presentations were made by Jason Courter, Brad McLeod and Louise Peppe [abstracts below.

Please congratulate each participant in proudly representing our department at this conference.

March 2009

Matthew Kilgore, one of our undergrads (my advisee) has been accepted into the 2009 internship program at the Daniel Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. They accept only 12 students from across the country each year, so it's ultra-ultracompetitive. It's a real coup for Matthew!

The program was created to give "students experience with all aspects of modern scientific research, from design to experimentation to reporting." Matt will be in the program from May 26 to August 7, 2009. During this time he will have the opportunity to the personal qualities of good researchers, "the steps to take on the road to becoming a scientist, and the broader implications of scientific discovery." Matt will be involved with hands-on research participate in weekly seminars. [source: summer internship program at Danforth].

Congratulate Matt when you see him!

Adrienne Cooper earned funds from the Kentucky Academy of Sciences through the Marcia Athey Fund to study forests hypothesized to have old-growth forest in the Cumberland Plateau of eastern Kentucky. Adrienne is current an MS student studying under the direction of Neil Pederson in the Department of Biological Sciences in the Cumberland Laboratory of Forest Science. Below is the abstract of Adrienne's successful proposal, entitled "Locating and quantifying old-growth forest in eastern Kentucky".

Forest at Angel Hollow, KY, one of Adrienne's study sites.

The Cumberland Plateau is an ecoregion of global importance. Currently, its extent of old growth forest is unknown. Old-growth forests serve many scientific and ecological purposes. Faced with global climate change, rising human population and resource demand, old-growth forests will become even more important to ecosystem conservation. This study will use information provided by the Kentucky Nature Preserves Commission to determine locations of possible old-growth forests in eastern Kentucky’s Cumberland Plateau region. Age structure and disturbance history of studied forests will be the defining attributes in old-growth designation and determined through standard dendrochronological techniques. Those forests with several trees established prior to European settlement or showing limited cohort establishment due to stand wide disturbance will be considered old-growth forest. Forest structure will be measured and quantified to aid in identifying old-growth characteristics. Measurements will include, total density for trees and snags (trees/ha; snags/ha), volume of course woody debris, total basal area (m2/ha), and importance values. Identifying and quantifying old-growth forests on the Cumberland Plateau will provide insight into the health of the ecoregion and help guide regional conservation and recovery efforts.

Congratulate Adrienne when you see her!

March 2009

Emily Jean Hicks, MS student, earned a research grant from the Kentucky Academy of Sciences to study the carnivorous pitcher plant family, Sarraceniaceae, which consists of three recognized genera of perennials: Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, and Sarracenia. Members of the genus Sarracenia are native to the bogs, swamps, low wetlands, open pinelands and some wooded areas of the southeastern and northern United States.

Emily Jean will investigate two competing hypotheses that have been proposed regarding the family’s evolutionary history and relationships of the three genera to one another. The first hypothesis, based on morphology, is that Heliamphora has the closest evolutionary relationship to the ancestral group and that the geographic origin of the family is in South America, with subsequent dispersal of the Sarracenia and Darlingtonia lineages to North America. Second, with regard to generic relationships within Sarraceniaceae, morphology, ecological and biogeographical considerations, and certain commensal mites that live within the pitchers indicate that Darlingtonia is the closest living relative to Sarracenia.

Emily Jean Hicks inspecting a pitcher plant

Previous research efforts have not resolved the question of how these plants were related to one another, and how they evolved over time. Emily Jean will sequence new regions in the chloroplast genome to generate a new data set that will resolve many of these issues As several of the Sarracenia species and Darlingtonia californica are endangered or threatened, with limited geographic range, and enhanced knowledge of evolutionary relationships within the family could assist in developing more effective management policies and/or practices. Emily Jean's thesis committee members are Dr. Pat Calie and Dr. Stephen Richter at EKU and Dr. Robert F.C. Naczi of the New York Botanical Garden. In addition, Emily Jean is collaborating with Dr. Randy Small and Mr. Steve Furches of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, two plant evolutionary biologists with a strong interest in pitcher plant biology. Another effort is with Dr. Tom Lierman of the Geography and Geology Department at EKU. We are using both past and present geologic and geographic data in an effort to retrace the historic migration patterns of these plants from their putative point of origin.

Congratulate Emily Jean when you see her!

December 2008

Dr. Ross Clark and Mr. Tim Weckman has recently published a catalog and atlas of the woody plants in Kentucky in the journal Castanea. This 114 page article was published as a separate article as a part of Castanea's occasional paper series. For their behemoth efforts, (more than two years in the publication stage alone!) Dr. Clark and Mr. Weckman has produced a series of maps revealing geographic patterns and potential holes in the distribution of wood plants across the Commonwealth.

Abstract: Kentucky (U.S.A.), occupies a topographically and geologically varied region of North America between the southern Appalachians and the Mississippi River. This Annotated Catalog and Atlas was generated from a survey of all known native and naturalized woody plants in Kentucky, and includes 417 taxa arranged alphabetically by family and species. Included for each taxon is a distribution map based on annotated voucher specimens. During the course of this survey 40,000 specimens were examined and annotated. Of the 417 taxa known for the State, 102, or 24%, are non-native. Seven taxa are reported from Kentucky for the first time: Acer campestre L., Crataegus collina Chapman, Lonicera dioica L. var. dasycarpa (Rehd.) Gleason, Lonicera ×xylosteoides Tauscher, Pyracantha crenulata (D. Don) M.J. Roemer, Rubus discolor Weihe & Nees, and Taxus baccata L.

Citation: Clark, R.C. & T.J. Weckman. 2008.  Annotated catalog and atlas of Kentucky woody plants. Castanea Occas. Papers No. 3. 114 p.

Please congratulate Ross & Tim when you see them!

December 2008

On Friday, December 29th, a graduate of our department, Dr. Wendell Haag (EKU BS-Biology 1988), received the Presidential Early Career Scientist Award from President Bush at the Whitehouse, “the highest honor that a young scientist or engineer can receive in the United States.”  Drs. Gary Ritchison and Guenter Schuster remember Wendell as a very special student back in the 80’s.

From the U.S. Forest Service press release: "Fisheries Research Biologist Wendell Haag, Ph.D., received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers during a ceremony today at the White House. Haag was among the nearly 70 scientists and engineers receiving the award, which is the highest honor that a young scientist or engineer can receive in the United States.... [more]

Here is the Lexington-Herald article.

Dr. Haag is currently a scientist at the Forest Service's Center for Bottomland Hardwoods Research work unit in Oxford, MS.

December 2008

Dr. Pat Calie has earned funding for his Kentucky Informatics and Genomics Infrastructure proposal from NSF/EPSCoR. The funding includes monies for graduate and undergraduate salaries, computer support, and lab reagents and supplies for Spring and Summer '09.

Please congratulate Pat when you see him!

November 2008

Many undergraduate and graduate students from the Department of Biological Science participated in the annual Kentucky Academy of Sciences meeting on November 1st, 2008. Five students brought home with awards for their efforts.

Winners in the undergraduate category include:

Richard Stockwell - 1st place for a poster presentation in Geography

Chad Downey - 2nd place for a poster presentation in Ecology and Environmental Science

Stephanie Green - 2nd place for a poster presentation in Microbiology

Winners in the graduate category include:

Jeffrey Jackson - 1st place for an oral presentation in Ecology and Environmental Science

Aric Payne - 1st place for an oral presentation in Zoology

Congratulate all of our KAS students, especially our award winners, when you see them!

Chad Downey explaining his poster to Dr. Alice Jones of the ERI

October 2008

Congratulate Andrew when you see him!

October 2008

Dr. Guenter Schuster has informed the department that one of its former students, Matt Thomas, is the lead author of a recently published a paper that includes the description of three new species of catfishes in the Amazon Basin. Matt graduated from Eastern Kentucky University in 2000. He is currently finishing up his PhD at Southern Illinois University and is currently employed as an ichthyologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources in Frankfort, KY.

Abstract: Three new species of Loricaria are described from large white- and black-water river channels of the Amazon basin of Brazil, the upper rio Negro drainage of southern Venezuela, and clear waters of the lower rio Tocantins. Loricaria spinulifera and L. pumila differ from other species of Loricaria by having unique patterns of abdominal plate development and hypertrophied odontodes forming conspicuous crests on dorsal surfaces of the head and predorsal plates. Both are small species of Loricaria, reaching sexual maturity at less than 120 mm SL, and exhibiting sexually dimorphic characters consistent with members of the L. cataphracta complex. Loricaria spinulifera differs from L. pumila in having a unique arrangement of buccal papillae and large thorn-like odontodes on the dorsum of the head. Loricaria pumila is the smallest known Loricaria, reaching sexual maturity at less than 80 mm SL. Loricaria lundbergi differs from other Loricaria by having a unique abdominal plate pattern, broad head, and small basicaudal plate. Loricaria lundbergi is sympatric with L. spinulifera in the lower rio Negro drainage, but is also known from the rio Baria system of the Casiquiare drainage. Loricaria pumila occurs in the lower rio Amazonas and lower rio Tocantins. All three new species exhibit varying degrees of reduction in eye size and pigmentation seen in other fishes inhabiting deep river channels of South America.

Full Citation: Thomas, M. and L.H.R. Py-Daniel. 2008. Three new species of the armored catfish genus Loricaria (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from river channels of the Amazon basin. Neotrop. Ichthyol. 6(3) 379-394.

October 2008

Along with Dr. Byran Black and Dr. Jim Colbert of Oregon University's Hatfield Marine Science Center, Neil Pederson is a co-author of a new paper in Ecoscience quantifying the relation between lifespan and the longevity of multiple species in North America and Europe. In a way, the findings support the relation between metabolism/caloric intake and longevity across several taxa in the animal world. Neil's main contribution was a better set of tree ages, which strengthen the general findings of the article.

The article is the featured article of volume 15(3) of Ecoscience and can be downloaded for free.

Full Citation: Black, B.A., J.J. Colbert and N. Pederson. 2008. Relationships between radial growth rates and lifespan within diverse tree species. Ecoscience 15(3): 349-357.

September '08

Dr. Guenter Schuster has a new paper in the journal Southeastern Naturalist entitled "An annotated checklist and preliminary designation of drainage distributions of the crayfishes of Alabama" with Christopher Taylor of the Illinois Natural History Survey and John Johansen of Tulane University Museum of Natural History. The publication reports on the geographic distribution of a total of 4649 records of Alabama crayfishes that were obtained from seven museums. The analysis indicates that upland drainages in the northern and central portions of the state. Also, Dr. Schuster and his co-authors found there is also an under-representation of burrowing crayfishes, especially those classified as either primary or secondary burrowers; only 212 (4.9%) of all records are of burrowing species.

Dr. Schuster notes with pleasure that the third author of this article, John Johansen, is an EKU Department of Biological Sciences alumnus and former student of Dr. Schuster.

Congratulate Dr. Schuster when you see him!

September 15, '08

The Ecosystem Science division of the National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $378,616 to Eastern Kentucky University to examine the potential impact of climate change on fire and the ecology of forests in Mongolia and compare that to recent research suggesting climate change has altered fire regimes in the western U.S.

“Collaborative Research: Fire, Climate and Forest History in Mongolia,” is directed by Dr. Neil Pederson, assistant professor in EKU’s Department of Biological Sciences, in collaboration with Dr. Amy Hessl of West Virginia University, Dr. Peter Brown of Rocky Mountain Tree Ring Research in Fort Collins, Colo., and Dr. Baatarbileg Nachin, head of the Department of Forestry at the National University of Mongolia. An additional $191,138 was awarded to WVU on behalf of Hessl, bringing the NSF grant total for the project to $569,754.

“This project will examine relationships between wildfire and climate over the past four-plus centuries, from the steppes of the Gobi to the taiga forests of northern Mongolia,” said Pederson. “Mongolia’s landscape, land-use history and recent history of rapid climate change make it an ideal test case for an examination of the relationship between wildfire and climate.”

The study will increase understanding of how wildfires affect forests within the context of climate change, past, present and future. It will also complement a growing global-scale database on fire, climate, and forest histories that will assess the potential impacts of climate change on wildfires.

“This is important because, in some forest types, wildfire is a critical process that helps to maintain ecosystem health,” Brown added. Hessl also noted that wildfires can possibly influence atmospheric processes and have important ramifications for future global warming.

This research will contribute to international cooperation between the U.S. and Mongolia and will include involvement of Mongolian scientists and students. Three EKU students will also be selected to assist with the research, including one from a master’s degree program who will conduct field work in Mongolia as part of his or her thesis work.

The NSF award continues until August 2011.

More information about this project can be found here.

The forested mountains outside the Mongolian capitol of Ulaabaatar.

Summer '08

Nirmalee Ratnamalala participated at the Ronald McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program's 14th Annual SAEOPP/UTK McNair National Scholars Research Conference in
Knoxvill, TN from June 26 - June 29, 2008. Nirmalee gave a talk at the conference, which won her second place in the Biological Sciences & Health Category for her efforts. Nirmalee was a McNair scholar in the department under the direction of Dr. Nicholas Santangelo.

Nirmalee Ratnamalala in front of one her poster presentations.

Abstract: One way to explore the evolution of social behavior is to investigate proximate mechanisms underlying these behaviors across taxa. The neuropeptide arginine vasotocin (AVT), as well as its mammalian homologue arginine vasopressin (AVP), modulates such behaviors. In tetrapods, the pattern of AVT/AVP's modulation of aggression appears related to the degree of conspecific tolerance exhibited (i.e. it facilitates aggression in territorial species and inhibits aggression in communal ones). Though far less studied, this pattern does not appear in teleosts (i.e. in a territorial damselfish, AVT inhibits aggression). While teleost neural structure vs. that of tetrapods might explain this difference, so could an interaction with mating system (i.e. polygyny vs. monogamy). That is, AVT's effect on overt aggression has been mostly studied in monogamous birds and mammals, but not yet on monogamous teleosts. We investigated the effect of AVT, its specific antagonist Manning compound, and isotocin (the fish homologue of mammalian oxytocin) on male parental aggression in the territorial and biparental convict cichlid Archocentrus nigrofasciatus. Data trends suggest that AVT facilitates aggression in parental males. More surprising is that isotocin also appears to facilitate parental male aggression. We know of only one other study exploring isotocin's effect on overt aggression in a polygynous non-parental fish where it had no effect. Perhaps isotocin, and maybe its other related neuropeptides such as mammalian oxytocin or avian/amphibian/reptilian mesotocin, evolved as an added modulator of male aggression in systems where males are parental.

Jason Courter -

Jason, currently a master's degree student working under the direction of Dr. Gary Ritchison, spent much of Summer '08 teaching natural history Rocky Mountains. Co-teaching with his undergraduate adviser, Dr. John Moore, Jason gave lessons on the natural history of the Rocky Mountains over three weeks and 6200-miles in the American West. The eight students were from Taylor University (Upland, Indiana). Some of the places visited and studied included the Sonoran Desert, Great Salt Lake, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Rocky Mountain National Parks. The primary focus of the course was to determine how elevation and geology affected the ecology and lifezones that we observed. No doubt Jason colored this course with his knowledge of avian ecology and behavior.

Jason Courter, 2nd row - far right, with his natural history class in front of the Grand Tetons.

Gregg Janos -

Greg, currently a second-year student in the Department of Biological Sciences, spent Summer '08 interning on a pipeline project that focused on bats. He worked for BHE Environmental of Cincinnati, OH. Gregg started the bat season in Missouri. Along with Gregg's supervisor, Gregg drove to western Indiana to meet up with the other BHE teams. We worked from the Illinois/Indiana border to the Ohio/West Virginia border. Following this trip, Gregg spent two weeks in central Ohio working on a wind farm project learning nighttime telemetry. The group's last project was in Columbia, TN where we attempted to determine what bat species lived in the vicinity of an old strip mine. Over the course of the summer, Gregg and his group caught roughly 60 bats consisting of 9 species, including: Big Brown (Eptesicus fuscus), Little Brown (Myotis lucifugus), Indiana Bats (Myotis sodalis), Northern Long-eared (Myotis septentronalis), Gray Bats (Myotis grisescens), Hoary Bats (Lasiurus cinereus), Red Bats (Lasiurus borealis), Eastern Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus subflavus), and Evening Bats (Nycticeius humeralis). Gregg helped set up nets, recorded data, tracked bats to their roost and, ultimately, "had a lot of fun."

No, that is not Gregg's finger being bitten! He plans on getting vaccinated for rabies so he can handle bats next year.

Jon Mollish -

Jon, currently a senior in the biology department, got hands on experience with the Tennessee Valley Authority in Summer '08. His normal day included anything from working with federally and state listed fish and freshwater mussel species to performing maintenance on electro-fishing boats and backpack shockers. There are hundreds of fish species found throughout the Tennessee valley and one of Jon's main jobs was to correctly field identify these fish. While working with the TVA over the past couple years Jon learned about how aquatic ecosystems function and the proper conservation techniques that should be utilized in order to protect our fragile waters. He plans to obtain a master's degree in fishery sciences after graduating from EKU.

A pocketbook mussel displaying glochidia in Bear Creek, AL.

August 2008

Michelle Guidugli earns Kentucky Society of Natural History grant. Michelle is current an MS student studying in the EKU Molecular Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Lab of Stephen Richter in the Department of Biological Sciences.

Michelle will examine the direction of movements of adult and juvenile pond-breeding amphibians to and from upland terrestrial habitats by establishing continuous drift fence arrays around ephemeral ponds. Because pond-breeding amphibians use both aquatic and terrestrial habitats for important aspects of their life cycles, there is an important transfer of energy between the two habitat types. While much research has focused on their use of aquatic habitats, little is known of their use of terrestrial habitats or the cues that influence these movements. Habitat characteristics such as very little cover (open grasslands) or high amounts of cover (closed-canopy forests) will be measured to determine if they influence the direction of movement. In addition, environmental cues such as daily rainfall, maximum and minimum daily temperature, and percent humidity will be measured to determine which of these most influence the timing of pond-breeding amphibian movements. Hopefully, the pieces of information Michelle discovers can be used as an important step in focusing conservation efforts toward habitats with characteristics consistent with those preferred by particular amphibian species.

Congratulate Michelle when you see her!

August 2008

Julie Clark earns Kentucky Society of Natural History grant. Julie is current an MS student studying under the direction of foundation professor Dr. Ronald Jones, head of the EKU Herbarium, in the Department of Biological Sciences. Her study is a floristic study of Breaks Interstate Park, a 4,600-acre state park located in Jefferson National Forest in both Kentucky and Virginia. Points of interest in the park include the northern terminus of the Pine Mountain Trail and spectacular overlooks of the deep gorge cut by the Russell Fork River. Julie will document vascular plants and vegetation communities over two growing seasons and determine if areas of potential old-growth forest exist.

Congratulate Julie when you see her!

August 2008

Adrienne Cooper earns Kentucky Society of Natural History grant to investigate lands suspectedto contain old-growth forest in the Cumberland Plateau of eastern Kentucky. Adrienne is current an MS student studying under the direction of Neil Pederson in the Department of Biological Sciences in the Cumberland Laboratory of Forest Science.

The Cumberland Plateau is an ecoregion of global importance.  Currently, its extent of old growth forest is unknown.  Old-growth forests serve many scientific and ecological purposes.  This study will use information provided by the Kentucky Nature Preserves Commission to determine locations of possible old-growth forests in eastern Kentucky’s Cumberland Plateau region.  Age structure and disturbance history of studied forests will be the defining attributes in old-growth designation and determined through standard dendrochronological techniques.  Forest structural characteristics will be determined as well.  Faced with global climate change and rising resource demand old-growth forests will become increasingly important to ecosystem conservation. 

Congratulate Adrienne when you see her!