#labbling

A bit overdue, but welcome to Will Iles who has joined the lab as a postdoc to keep working on evolution of Zingiberales. Will earned his PhD from University of British Columbia, and comes to us from Berkeley (Specht lab). Luckily he’s from the Toronto area, so moving in January to Michigan wasn’t too much of a shock!

Congrats to everyone in the lab for getting more awards! Kelly and Molly received Turner fellowships from the Department to support their thesis research; Molly will use it to collect Cupressaceae samples to look at environmental effects on leaf anatomy and physiology, and Kelly’s will support her studies on the systematics of fossil plants from the Cretaceous-Paleogene of India. John had some good news too: he received an Arthur James Boucot Award from the Paleontological Society for his research project that will investigate the evolution of alders (Alnus) including some new fossils from the Miocene of Japan. And finally, Amanda got a Certificate of Special Achievement Young Botanist Award from the Botanical Society of America. The certificate was awarded to her yesterday at her Program in Biology graduation. Go lab!

Stephanie was recently awarded a Fulbright! This is super exciting for her. She has this to share about her project:

Why do leaf-eating monkeys consume bark? My Fulbright project will quantify the nutritional requirements and feeding habits of wild golden snub-nosed monkey, an endangered primate endemic to the mountain forests of central China. While this monkey species is considered folivores (leaf-eaters), previous work with both captive and wild monkeys have shown that individuals spend large amounts of their feeding time consuming bark, despite the availability of "higher-quality" food items. I will be working with Professor Songtao Guo of Xi'an Northwest University to conduct of laboratory nutrient content analysis and field-based feeding observations in the Qinling Mountains to quantify the nutritional intake of wild monkeys. Results gained will be used to guide improvements to diets for captive monkeys and in assessing habitat quality for conservation programs.

Tuesday was the last day of classes, and Wednesday was when Symone and Amanda did their UROP presentations. They both did great! UROP (undergraduate research opportunities program) is a great way for freshman and sophomores to get some research experience, where they work on a specific project in a lab for a year (or term) and then do a poster presentation at the end. There were probably at least 150 posters, so it's pretty big, and includes all field - science, humanities, sports, etc.

Here they are with their posters; they may chime in with their impression of the experience, if they aren't too busy studying for their exams!

Symone worked on reconstructing paleoclimate using leaf fossils of the Oligocene (~33 Mya) Ruby Basin site in Montana