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School of Biological Sciences Uncategorized

New papers in Ecosphere and PNAS

New papers are out! Our new paper in Ecosphere investigates how of island size and seaweed deposition influence the effect of lizard predators on spiders and wasps, while the PNAS paper documents rapid change in gecko morphology on newly-created islands in Brazil. See the Publications page for links to these articles.

New projects in the lab

Lab associates recently received small grants from WSU to initiate two new projects. The first project, led by postdoc John Romansic, examines the effect of beavers on amphibians in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest (near the WSUV campus). This project will be carried out in collaboration with Kevan Moffett (an ecohydrologist at WSUV). Lab associate Michelle Devlaeminck (WSUV undergraduate) received a summer research grant to evaluate the use of storm water infrastructure as breeding habitat by native amphibians.

Delia Basanta visits lab

Delia Basanta, a PhD student in Gabriela Parra’s lab at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, is visiting our lab this month. She will be learning techniques related to the isolation and culture of a chytrid fungal pathogen from live amphibians. Welcome Delia!

New project: Amphibian eDNA in mountain meadows

In collaboration with Karen Pope (US Forest Service) and Caren Goldberg (WSU-Pullman), we will be developing environmental DNA methodologies for assessing amphibian occupancy in mountain meadows. These methods can be used to assess the efficacy of meadow restoration targeting at-risk amphibian species.

Jonah attends ASLO Aquatic Sciences meeting

Jonah attended the 2017 Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Honolulu Hawaii last week. He gave a presentation on ongoing research into the effects of seaweed deposition on island food web dynamics in the Bahamas as part of a session on “Interactive effects of anthropogenic stressors across ecosystem boundaries” (http://www.sgmeet.com/aslo/honolulu2017/sessionschedule.asp?SessionID=034).