University of Michigan
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Professors Aaron King and Pej Rohani have been awarded a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for a five-year study that will try to explain the changing patterns of whooping cough outbreaks, using records from several countries spanning more than 70 years.

Thanks to widespread childhood vaccination, whooping cough (pertussis) once seemed to be under control. But the bacterial illness, which in infants causes violent, gasping coughing spells, has made a comeback in the United States and some other developed countries since the 1980s. In addition, there's been a shift in who's getting sick, with fewer cases seen in preschool children and more in teenagers.

Unlike a conventional epidemiological investigation of a disease outbreak, the new U-M study will rely heavily on the use of long-term incidence reports, mathematical models of pertussis transmission and statistical methods for extracting information from data. Records from recent and historical outbreaks in several countries – including England, Wales, Sweden, Denmark, Senegal and the United States – will be analyzed.

New insights provided by the study could, for example, lead to recommendations about revising the pertussis immunization schedule for children or the design of optimal adult/adolescent boosters, according to Rohani and King.

Watch for a research feature coming soon
U-M News Service press release
On the U-M Gateway  

EEB recent graduate, Dr. Susanna Messinger, accepted a  Gaylord Donnelley Postdoctoral Environmental Fellowship through the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS). Four Donnelley Fellowships are awarded each year. It's a two year fellowship that Messinger will begin in July.

Messinger’s sponsor, Dr. David Vasseur, is interested in how environmental fluctuations influence population and community dynamics and more recently has been delving into the realm of eco-evolutionary dynamics.

“I am also going to be collaborating with Dr. Mark Urban at the University of Connecticut who studies the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that shape communities over different spatial scales,” she said. “I will be starting a project to study predator evolution in a spatial context. The idea is that spatial structure can induce eco-evolutionary feedbacks that significantly affect predator evolution and thus will play an important role in population dynamics as well as the structure and stability of complex communities. I will be building up from theory that I developed here as a graduate student and will attempt to test some of this theory using small predators, like protozoans or Daphnia. I'm particularly excited by the prospect of bridging theoretical and experimental data, since this is not often done!”

Messinger’s EEB advisor was Professor Annette Ostling.

EEB Professor and Chair Deborah Goldberg was one of seven faculty members who received the 2012 Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award from the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. The recipients were selected for their dedication to developing cultural and ethnic diversity at U-M.

“I am gratified to see these award winners honored for their contributions to diversity at the University of Michigan,” said Lester Monts, senior vice provost for academic affairs. “Our commitment to create an excellent, broad-minded, and welcoming community of scholars would be nothing if we didn’t have faculty and staff working toward that goal every day, through their research, teaching, recruitment of students and faculty, and respect for one another.”

Established in 1996, the award is given in honor of Harold Johnson, dean emeritus of the School of Social Work. The award provides $5,000 to recipients to further research and scholarship opportunities.

Goldberg, Elzada U. Clover Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and chair and professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, was recognized for sustained contributions over 30 years to promoting diversity at U-M and beyond.

Her contributions include support for EEB’s participation in BioKids with Detroit Public Schools’ fifth- and sixth-graders, and M-Bio, which provides programming, support and funding for first and second-year undergraduate students with high potential for success but are inadequately prepared to study college science.

Also cited was her support of the Enhancing Diversity, Quality and Understanding of the Ecological and Evolutionary Science for Tomorrow (ED-QUE²ST) program, in which underrepresented minority students spend summers on independent research projects under a faculty or doctorate student mentor, and her work with the Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP) promoting third and fourth year undergraduate students research experiences with faculty mentors as they prepare for graduate school.

“In the end, diversity is a major issue in our department and Deborah deserves the credit for putting it there and keeping it there,” wrote John Vandermeer, Asa Gray Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, EEB.

Additionally, Goldberg established a standing departmental committee on diversity, and was instrumental in establishing the Frontiers Master’s Program in EEB, which is designed to attract students from nontraditional backgrounds into biology and prepare them for top-ranked Ph.D. programs. She served as a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Women’s Issues at U-M for four years, and during that time, helped promote the issue of parental leave for graduate students who are new parents. Goldberg is a current member of STRIDE, a committee that provides information and advice about practices that will maximize the likelihood that diverse, well-qualified candidates for faculty positions will be identified, and, if selected for offers, recruited, retained, and promoted at U-M.

Dr. Marc Ammerlaan was one of three inaugural Collegiate Lecturers at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus to be recognized for his achievements and many contributions to the education of U-M students at a recent private ceremony. The wife of Professor Hiroshi Ikuma, who Ammerlaan named his lectureship for, Seiko Ikuma, was in attendance.

Ammerlaan calls Professor Ikuma one of the most outstanding faculty he encountered in his first years at U-M. Ikuma taught at U-M from 1965 – 2000. He was among the first investigators to describe the properties of carefully isolated plant mitochondria. At U-M, Ikuma's research emphasized discovery and characterization of factors that regulate plant growth and development. He continued his pioneering work on the properties of plant mitochondria, focusing on energy coupling reactions and on the metabolism of organic acids in the organelle. He also initiated new research programs that have revealed new roles of light, temperature, and hormones in regulation of the complex series of metabolic events that culminate in seed germination.

"I was honored that Mrs. Ikuma could attend the ceremony. The stories she told pointed out her husband's dedication to teaching for all who did not have the privilege of knowing him."

Captions: Dr. Marc Ammerlaan receives his plaque from Dr. Philip J. Hanlon, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

Dr. Marc Ammerlaan and Mrs. Seiko Ikuma, wife of Professor Hiroshi Ikuma, for whom Ammerlaan's Collegiate Lectureship is named.

EEB graduate student Qixin He has been awarded a Doctorate Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDIG) of $15,000 from the National Science Foundation from June 1, 2012 for two years.  She studies in the lab of Professor L. Lacey Knowles.

“Climate change and human disturbance increase the threats posed by disease vectors,” said He. “Therefore, understanding mechanisms enabling their rapid adaptation is of central importance. This study focuses on whether a specific chromosomal structural change (i.e., chromosomal inversions) facilitates adaptive divergence of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, the most severe malaria vector in sub-Sahara Africa. Such chromosomal structural changes may promote local adaptation because they buffer populations from the mixing effects of migrants from different habitats. This study will test this hypothesis empirically using a framework that will provide detailed demographic, geographic, and temporal information relevant to testing mechanisms of rapid adaptation. The study will also provide insights into the current debate regarding the source of adaptation: rapid adaptation facilitated by new inversion mutations or pre-existing genetic variation.” 

“The results will be directly relevant to informing pest control agencies of which demographic or genetic factors will be the best target to impede rapid adaptation in mosquitoes. For example, it can provide critical information on whether genetically modified mosquitoes can compete with native populations and survive in the local environment. The work will foster academic communications between the Unitied States and Cameroonian researchers and students, and promote the education of local communities in malaria preventions.”

Image: Qixin He catches mosquitoes in a village in Cameroon and meets local villagers.

EEB graduate students Alison Gould, David Marvin and Beatriz Otero Jimenez received Rackham International Research Awards from the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the U-M International Institute.

Gould's research addresses the recruitment dynamics and population connectivity of the bioluminescent cardinalfish, Siphamia versicolor.  “I plan to look for signals of genetic structure in S.versicolor over a biogeographic region in the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. These genetic patterns will provide substantial insight on the question of whether populations of coral reef fishes are open or closed." Gould received $5,000 to carry out this research in Okinawa, Japan this summer.

Marvin said, “The grant will support my dissertation research, which uses a combination of airborne and satellite remote sensing imagery with field-based forest censuses to discriminate liana (woody vine) and tree canopy cover in tropical forests. The research develops a method to detect liana canopy cover at landscape scales, quantify its extent, and verify whether it has increased over recent decades. The discovery that lianas have increased in size and abundance in tropical forests suggests these forests may see a change in community composition and a reduction in their carbon storage capacity. Monitoring changes in liana canopy cover will increase the accuracy of predicted changes to tropical forests, and aid in understanding the mechanisms responsible for increasing liana size and abundance.” His advisor is Professor Robyn Burnham and he received $7,500.

Otero Jimenez is interested in researching the effect of different land uses on biodiversity and ecosystem function, especially in agricultural systems. This summer, she will be working in Chiapas, Mexico with her advisor, Professor John Vandermeer. “I will be looking at the effect matrix composition has on dispersal and connectivity of forest animals. I will be working specifically with Heteromys desmarestianus, forest mice that live in moist tropical forests. I will be working in forest patches surrounded by coffee farms.” She will collect tissue samples for two months and return to Ann Arbor to do DNA extraction and genetic analysis to determine if populations from different forest patches are distinct and how connected they are. Otero Jimenez received $7,000.

RIRAs are presented to students with strong academic records who demonstrate outstanding scholarly and professional promise, steady progress toward their degrees and have feasible plans for conducting international dissertation or thesis-related research.

EEB graduate students Dan Chang and Alli Injaian have been awarded two of the 100 Rackham Centennial Spring/Summer 2012 Fellowships of $6,000.

Chang studies molecular ecology and genetics with her advisor, Professor Tom Duda. “Ecology plays an important role in organismal evolution, but it is always challenging to understand the ramifications of these ecological forces on molecular evolutionary processes associated with the origins of adaptations and the species interaction,” said Chang. “In particular, it is extremely difficult to identify the genetic variables that work at the interface of predator-prey interactions, especially genes that are directly involved with predation. Predatory marine snails of the genus Conus represent an ideal system for study because they employ venoms composed of a cocktail of neurotoxins (termed “conotoxins”) that are direct gene products of known genes to capture prey. In my dissertation entitled 'Evolutionary ecology of Conus: evolution and expression of conotoxin genes and their association with prey' I investigated the adaptive diversification of venom genes at both inter- and intra-specific levels. In the last chapter of my dissertation, I specifically plan to test the hypothesis that Conus exhibit distinct conotoxin gene expression patterns during non-larval life history stages (larvae feed on phytoplankton and do not use venom) and that shifts in venom composition correspond to shifts in diet. This study provides new perspectives on the relationships between venom evolution and prey diversification, and reveals to us the role of ecologically-relevant genes in predator-prey interactions. I have studied the diets of Conus ebraeus in Guam and found at least two dietary shifts after settlement. This spring/summer I will finish the analysis of conotoxin gene expression in different developmental stages. The Rackham Centennial Fellowship allows me to complete my dissertation research and prepare for my defense in the fall."

Injaian researches sexual selection and animal behavior with her advisor, Professor Elizabeth Tibbetts. “In humans, individual face recognition is associated with cognitive specialization for faces: humans learn and remember faces better than any other visual stimuli,” said Injaian. “Remarkably, new research shows similar specialization in Polistes fuscatus (paper wasp), providing the opportunity to study face specialization in a way which was previously not possible. To test whether specialized face learning is an innate ability or if this expertise is accrued with exposure to faces over time, I will manipulate early life experience of P. fuscatus and test if wasp age is correlated with cognitive specialization for face-learning and if social experience is necessary for cognitive specialization for face-learning.”

In celebration of the Rackham Graduate School’s 100th anniversary, Rackham designed the fellowship to enable graduate students enrolled in a Rackham program to work on research, scholarly, or creative projects in collaboration with faculty mentors during the spring/summer 2012 term to advance progress towards the degree and their future impact as “Michigan graduate students in the world.”

The $6,000 fellowship is to cover living expenses for the term. An interdisciplinary faculty panel reviewed applications based on the clarity and coherence of the research, scholarship, or creative work proposed; how the proposed work directly relates to and helps achieve progress towards the degree; and the commitment of the faculty advisor to provide mentoring to the student during the summer.

Pictured above: Dan Chang and Alli Injaian

EEB graduate student Celia Churchill has received the Donald W. Tinkle Scholarship from U-M Museum of Zoology. This $5,000 award is a special recognition of her research excellence. Churchill researches marine invertebrate evolution and systematics with her advisor, Professor Diarmaid Ó Foighil.  

“The past decade of evolutionary research highlights the inadequacy of applying terrestrial models of speciation to marine lineages,” said Churchill. “While the recent Challenger Deep expedition promoted the ocean floor as ‘Earth’s final frontier,’ the reality is that we know very little about open ocean communities at any depth. How is biodiversity created and maintained at sea? To answer that question, I have focused upon the neuston, a community of drifting animals at the surface of tropical and temperate seas. The ultimate goal of my doctoral research is to construct a comprehensive phylogeny/phylogeography of the neuston across three trophic levels (zooxanthellar algae, their cnidarian hosts, and predatory mollusks) and all five of the planet’s subtropical gyre systems (giant rotating ocean surface currents). Collectively, these results will help develop an in-depth understanding of the inherent biodiversity and evolutionary history of the neuston community, which occupies over 60 percent of the Earth’s surface.”

On a related note, Churchill’s recent research on bubble-rafting snails (published October 2011) in Current Biology was featured in the April 2012 issue of the National Geographic magazine.

The scholarship was endowed by the family and friends of Dr. Tinkle, who joined U-M in 1965 as professor and curator of reptiles and amphibians. Tinkle became director of the Museum of Zoology in 1975 and served until his death in 1980. He was a systematist, an evolutionary biologist, an evolutionary ecologist and an exceptional teacher whose most important legacy is the group of students he inspired. In the field, especially, he was known for his enthusiasm, endurance and sense of humor. It is entirely appropriate that a scholarship awarded to an outstanding student in the Museum of Zoology each year is in his name.

A central question in molecular evolution is what determines the rate of protein evolution. Extensive genomic studies have shown a strong negative correlation between the expression level of a protein (the concentration of the protein in the cell) and its rate of evolution, known as the E-R anticorrelation. In the April 3, 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Jianzhi Zhang and his colleagues propose and demonstrate that this important yet enigmatic phenomenon is at least in part caused by natural selection against protein-protein misinteraction.

Protein misinteractions are nonfunctional and typically nonspecific protein-protein interactions that occur upon random encounters between protein molecules. Protein misinteraction is frequent in cells and can be deleterious to an organism because it (1) potentially leads to a higher demand for protein synthesis that wastes energy, (2) interferes with functional interactions, and (3) initiates abnormal and potentially damaging cellular processes. Specifically, the hypothesis asserts that highly expressed proteins are under stronger selective pressures to avoid misinteraction than are proteins expressed at lower levels. This is because a misinteraction-enhancing mutation is more harmful when it occurs in a highly expressed gene due to the greater number of misinteracting molecules produced. Consequently, highly expressed proteins become less “sticky” on their surfaces and more constrained in surface-sequence evolution than do those expressed at lower levels. Thus, at least in principle, protein misinteraction avoidance can generate an E-R anticorrelation for protein surfaces.

To demonstrate the above verbal model quantitatively, Zhang and colleagues, using yeast, conducted a molecular-level evolutionary simulation using a three-dimensional, protein-lattice model. The simulation yielded multiple expected results, including an E-R anticorrelation. Furthermore, yeast functional genomic data provided unambiguous empirical evidence for their hypothesis. Nevertheless, Zhang and colleagues think that protein misinteraction avoidance is not the only cause of the E-R anticorrelation, and they are exploring other potential mechanisms. One application of the study, Zhang thinks, may be in understanding human disease. Zhang and colleagues are examining whether mutations that increase the probability of protein misinteraction tend to cause disease.  Jian-Rong Yang was a visiting student in Zhang's lab at the time of this research, he is now a postdoctoral fellow in the lab. Ben-Yang Liao was an EEB student in Zhang's lab at the time of the research, he is an assistant investigator for Taiwan's National Health Research Institute. 

Caption: A schematic diagram explaining the protein misinteraction avoidance hypothesis. Functional interactions between proteins are shown with lock and key matched pairs of jigsaws, whereas misinteractions are shown with unmatched jigsaw pairs that are also boxed. Credit: Jian-Rong Yang, Ben-Yang Liao, Shi-Mei Zhuang and Jianzhi Zhang.

Pioneering evolutionary biologist Jianzhi Zhang will discuss genetic changes underlying human origins as the Jean Pasakarnis Buchanan Lecturer at Bowling Green State University, Thursday, April 12 at 7 p.m.

Professor Zhang will present “On the path to humanity: genes lost, gained, and modified during primate evolution” in 112 Life Sciences Building in Bowling Green, Ohio. The event is free and open to the public.

Genetic changes in human and primate evolution have likely impacted who we are, what we do, and how we behave today. These changes include gains, losses and modifications of genes controlling sensory, immune, cognitive and other functions, and many of them are clearly adaptive. Nevertheless, there is no genetic evidence that humans have had more adaptive changes than chimpanzees since their separation six to seven million years ago. Zhang will discuss human and primate evolution in the context of biology’s overriding principle: natural selection.

He will also give a biology department talk, “Pleiotropy and why life is imperfect,” at 10:30 a.m., Friday, April 13 in 112 Life Sciences Building. Pleiotropy is the phenomenon in which one gene or mutation affects multiple traits, with broad implications for many areas of biology such as adaptation, cancer, aging and sexual conflict.

BGSU’s annual lecture series was created in 1998 through an endowment by Jean Pasakarnis Buchanan, who graduated from Bowling Green in 1952 and went on to a 33 year career as a cytologist with Massachusetts General Hospital. She also taught cytology, which is the study of human cells, at Northeastern University. Buchanan received the Alumni Community Award from BGSU in 1972, and in 1987 set up a scholarship for biology or medical technology majors. Her lectureship endowment has allowed the university to bring some of the leading figures in biology and medicine to campus each year.