Rise of the Golden Jackal

January 14, 2019

PhD student, Nathan Ranc (Moorcroft Lab) studies wildlife movement ecology. Nathan's work - supported by the Edmund Mach Foundation in Italy - follows the staggering expansion of the golden jackal. Ranc and Miha Krofel, a conservation biologist at the University of Ljubljana, lead 37 volunteers — scientists and naturalists — in monitoring the golden jackal throughout Europe. Ranc and Krofel's research was recently covered by the ...

Cambrian Ancestor of Crustaceans and Insects in 3D

January 7, 2019

The pancrustaceans are the most diverse animal group to ever exist, and include familiar kinds of arthropods such as crustaceans (e.g. shrimp, crabs, lobsters) and six-legged insects. A new study by Prof. Javier Ortega-Hernández and Joanna Wolfe (Research Associate, Ortega-Hernández Lab), in collaboration with colleagues at Yunnan University in Kunming, illuminate details on the evolution of these successful invertebrates. The findings, published in the...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B v374(1763)

Biological Collections for Understanding Biodiversity in the Anthropocene

November 19, 2018

Postdoctoral researcher, Emily Meineke (Davis Lab), former postdoctoral researcher, Barnabas Daru (Davis Lab) and Prof. Charles Davis teamed with Prof. Jonathan Davies, University of British Columbia to serve as co-editors of a special issue of Philosophical Transactions B, (v374:1763).

The special issue is dedicated to looking at the creative...

Researchers Look to Echidnas to Shed Light on Forelimb Evolution in Mammals

November 14, 2018

Mammals use their forelimbs for many activities including swimming, jumping, flying, climbing and digging. But how they evolved to do so is a mystery for scientists. Postdoc, Sophie Regnault (S. Pierce Lab) and Prof. Stephanie Pierce studied a highly-detailed musculoskeletal model of an echidna forelimb to shed light on how extinct mammals might have used their forelimbs. Echidnas are egg-laying mammals with many anatomical features in common with earlier mammal ancestors and can help bridge the gap between extinct and other...

James Crall QR Code Tagged Bees for Science Magazine

Pesticide Exposure Disrupts Bumblebee Nest Behavior

November 9, 2018

Postdoc, James Crall joined former PhD student, Callin Switzer ('17, Hopkins Lab) and OEB professors, Benjamin de Bivort and Naomi Pierce to investigate the effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on the bumblebee's nest behavior. Previous studies showed the pesticides reduced colony size, but how the reduction occurred was not known. In their study published in Science...