University of Michigan
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Kudos to doctoral students Mariana Valencia-Mestre and Senay Yitbarek who have won Rackham International Research Awards.

Valencia-Mestre received $6,500 for her project titled “Cattle ranchers, agricultural regimes and biodiversity in the tropics.” She is working with her advisor, Professor John Vandermeer.

Valencia-Mestre will spend this summer in the Republic of Panama and will explore options in other areas across Mesoamerica. Her interests lie in the syndromes of production in agriculture and specifically in cattle ranching systems across Mesoamerica and how farmers that produce beef and/or milk manage trees within their farms.

“It is well known that cattle ranching across the Neotropics comes at a cost to the forest,” Valencia-Mestre said.  “However, there are different styles of cattle ranching that range from treeless pastures to silvopastoral systems with rich tree canopies. We propose that these different styles of tree management across cattle ranching systems are socioecological regimes."

She will spend the summer searching for different styles of cattle ranching management across Panama, measuring tree cover across farms, and will begin to design farmer perception interviews. Valencia-Mestre’s research seeks to identify the extent of different styles of tree management across Mesoamerica and drivers of the various styles. Her aim is to describe different styles using an index of agricultural intensification based on tree cover.

Senay Yitbarek received $6,000 for his project, “Metastatic invasions of the little fire ant W. auropunctata.” Yitbarek’s advisor is also Vandermeer.

Yitbarek is investigating the invasion dynamics of the little fire ant Wasmannia auropunctata, considered to be one of the world’s top 100 invasive pests. “This species is not considered to be an invasive in its native range, but drastically reduces ant biodiversity outside of its native range,” Yitbarek said. “The question of why this is the case continues to be perplexing to many ecologists. By combining theoretical aspects of spatial competition, empirical analysis of competitive networks, and field observation in both Mexico and Puerto Rico, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of the invasion dynamics associated with W. auropunctata.”

The Rackham Graduate School’s Rackham International Research Awards (RIRA) support doctoral and master’s students conducting degree-related research outside the United States and Puerto Rico. Applicants must have astrong academic record and show outstanding scholarly and professional promise.

Congratulations to Rob Massatii and Jingchun Li who were awarded Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants from the  National Science Foundation.

Massatti studies plant systematics, taxonomy and population biology. His project is titled “Tests of parallel divergence processes in montane plants: links between population differentiation and species diversity patterns.”

“The processes that historically affected species diversification are being exacerbated today as the climate warms, forcing upper montane and alpine species to establish at higher altitudes,” states Massatti’s proposal. “As their habitat disappears, it is foreseeable that species adapted to the coldest and harshest habitats will be extirpated. To maintain diversity, humans will have to reintroduce species into appropriate habitat. Because resources are very limited for these types of activities, conservation practitioners must use the best available information to ensure that their efforts will succeed. This research will inform conservation’s best practices by determining what factors affect the geographic distribution of species’ genetic variation. Fine-tuning species distribution modeling will also provide practical benefits because it will help conservation practitioners narrow down potential areas suitable for reintroduction efforts.

Massatti, whose advisors are Drs.  Lacey Knowles and Tony Reznicek was awarded $20,215 for two years.

Li researches speciation, biogeography and marine invertebrate ecology. Her project title is “The role of biotic association in the evolution of a megadiverse marine bivalve clade.”

“Both geographic and ecological factors influence diversification patterns of taxa,” according to Li. “I am interested in how ecological factors, especially biotic associations, affect lineage diversification processes in marine environments. My study system is the hyper-diverse marine bivalve superfamily Galeommatoidea”

Many members in this group have either necessary (obligate) or optional (facultative) associations with other marine invertebrates. These associations are mostly commensal, wherein one organism benefits without affecting the other. Li is testing whether the unique lifestyle of galeommatoideans contributes to their high species diversity and morphological disparity, and if so, seeking possible mechanisms.

"My initial analysis on galeommatoidean lineage diversification showed that the free-living clams exhibit a higher diversification rate compared to the commensal lineages. The proposed DDIG project on analyzing trait evolution of both commensal and free-living species will help me to expand my research scope to include not only the lineage diversification processes but also the morphological evolution of this group. Connecting rates of evolution to the evolution of actual (and possibly functional) phenotypic traits will provide further insights into how biotic vs. abiotic factors influence the radiation of this diverse marine clade."

Li, whose advisor is Professor Diarmaid Ó Foighil, was awarded $18,722 for two years.

The NSF awards DDIGs in selected areas of the biological sciences. These grants provide partial support of doctoral dissertation research to improve the overall quality of research including costs for doctoral candidates to participate in scientific meetings, to conduct research in specialized facilities or field settings, and to expand an existing body of dissertation research.

About 80 students from Detroit’s Western International High School gathered to conduct a biodiversity survey on Belle Isle with the help of U-M EEB volunteers. The students began to locate and identify mammals and birds; trees, shrubs and other plants; amphibians; reptiles; insects; and fungi on Wednesday morning, April 24, 2013. But, even the best laid plans sometimes fall victim to the weather.

Unfortunately, it was a cold and rainy (sometimes snowy) morning and so between creatures taking cover and worksheets getting soggy, not to mention cold and wet students, the group detoured into the Belle Isle Nature Zoo and the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory to make the most of the day. They did manage to gather some useful information, mostly on birds and plants, which will be entered into the inaturalist database.

The purpose of the annual event is to promote local ecological knowledge and to increase participation of underrepresented groups in ecological education. The Belle Isle event is part of BioBlitz, a series of rapid biodiversity surveys being conducted this year on college campuses across the country, coordinated by local chapters of the Ecological Society of America’s SEEDS (Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability) program.

The outing was sponsored by the U-M’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Natural Resources and Environment, U-M chapter of the Ecological Society of America’s SEEDS program, Detroit Zoological Society and Belle Isle Conservancy.

Special thanks to EEB and biology student volunteers: Beatriz Otero Jimenez, one of the primary event coordinators and a graduate student mentor with SEEDS, Marcella Baiz, Katy Lazarus (undergraduate), Naim Edwards, Thomas Jenkinson, Clarisse Betancourt, John Marino, Tatia Bauer, (undergraduate), Mariana Valencia Mestre, and Omar Bonilla.

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EEB Ph.D. student Marian Schmidt and incoming Ph.D. student Joanna Larson have been awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. They receive $30,000 a year for three years and an additional $10,500 cost of education allowance each year for tuition and fees.

"During my Ph.D. at U of M, I hope to transform into an aquatic microbial ecologist,” said Schmidt.  “I am interested in how invasive species shape microbial diversity and function and the implications of this for nutrient cycling at the ecosystem level.  Specifically, I will focus on how the presence of the invasive zebra mussel influences the carbon processing of heterotrophic bacteria in freshwater Michigan lakes.” Schmidt’s advisor is Professor Vincent Denef.

Joanna Larson is an incoming Ph.D. student who graduated from Harvard University with her bachelor of arts degree in organismic and evolutionary biology. Her research interests are in the macroevolution of African amphibians, and integration of morphological and molecular data. Her advisors will be Professors Dan Rabosky and Lacey Knowles. She is currently in Gabon, Africa.

The National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in the U.S. and abroad. As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the reputation of the GRFP follows recipients and often helps them become life-long leaders that contribute significantly to both scientific innovation and teaching. Past fellows include numerous Nobel Prize winners.

Each year, the U-M Museum of Zoology uses its historical endowments, some of which date from the early 1900s, to support graduate students research projects through scholarship awards.

The Mary R. Swales Scholarship for a graduate student in the Museum of Zoology who is researching birds, was awarded to Omar Bonilla.

Bonilla researches at the E.S. George Reserve in Pinckney, Mich., investigating the role of native ornithochorous plants and avian seed dispersers in the spread of invasive ornithochorous plants. Ornithochorous plants share a mutualistic interaction with birds, whereby birds eat the plant’s fruit and disperse its seeds. Bonilla will attempt to identify the spatial patterns of seed deposition of these invasive plants, and to classify the avian seed disperser community by their importance in spreading invasive species of the plants. Bonilla, whose advisor is Professor Elizabeth Pringle, received $2,000.

Bradshaw Hall Swales married Mary Rhoda Medbury in 1902. Swales earned his undergraduate and master of law degrees from U-M in 1896 and 1897. He passed the bar exam later that year and began to practice law in Detroit. His interest in birds began at an early age. He donated a collection of about 2,000 bird skins to the U-M Museum of Zoology and upon his death left the museum his considerable ornithological library. From 1912, Swales was a member of the museum's governing board and was an honorary assistant in ornithology.

The Robert R. and Francis H. Miller Scholarship, which supports graduate student research in the museum for students in the field of ichthyology, went to Alison Gould.

Gould's dissertation research seeks to define the population genetic structure of the sea urchin cardinalfish, Siphamia versicolor, and its luminous bacterial symbiont, Photobacterium mandapamensis, in Okinawa, Japan. This summer she will be sampling populations of the fish at various coral reefs around Okinawa in order to compare the geographic patterns of genetic structure between populations of the host fish and its symbiont in the region. Gould, whose advisor is Professor Paul Dunlap , received $1,000.

The Robert R. and Francis H. Miller Endowment was set up by their children in 2003. Miller and his wife, Francis Hubbs Miller, worked in the Fish Division for many years, he as curator of fishes and she as a research associate. He was the foremost authority on the fishes of Mexico (and wrote the definitive book on the subject, published posthumously) and she was his partner in almost everything they did, according to Professor William Fink.

Jen-Pan Huang and Rob Massatti received the Hinsdale Scholarship, which was created to support doctoral student research in the museum. 

Huang is interested in evolutionary processes that generate the diversity of life forms. Currently, he is working on testing the hypothesis of adaptation by interspecific hybridization in Hercules beetles. Different colorations found in Hercules Beetles are believed to have camouflage functions. Different species that live in the same habitat, however, share similar coloration. Since hybridization is possible between species in Hercules Beetles, they are thus excellent candidates for testing if hybridization could have play a role in promoting adaptation and shaping species specific morphology in nature. Huang, whose advisor is Professor Lacey Knowles, was awarded $4,000.

Massatti is interested in the diversity and distributional patterns of plants that occupy mountainous regions. He studies the effects of Pleistocene glaciations on plant diversification at different spatial scales (regional and intercontinental) using Carex section Racemosae, which includes about 60 species distributed primarily in eastern Asia and western North America. Additionally, he investigates how historical and contemporary environmental gradients influence species' distributions by utilizing fine-scale distributional data of the flora of the southern and central Rocky Mountains.

“The results of my research will be applicable not only to future studies of macroevolution, but it will inform conservation professionals about the potential impacts of climate change on plants in montane ecosystems,” Massatti said. Massatti, whose advisors are Knowles and Dr. Tony Reznicek, received $4,000.

Edwin C. Hinsdale, who the scholarship was named for, was one of the best known and most highly honored pioneer citizens of Detroit. He gained distinction in civic affairs, as a member of the bar, and for his boundless charitable works. He attended U-M for one year from 1847 – 1848. He was admitted to the Michigan bar in 1858 and practiced until his death nearly 40 years later. He was the treasurer of the city of Detroit from 1871- 1876, bringing order out of a chaotic time. In 1921, Genevieve S. Hinsdale bequeathed a part of her estate to establish a scholarship in her father’s name.

Pascal Title was awarded the Charles F. Walker Scholarship, which supports graduate student field research in herpetology.

Title’s research involves investigating controls on the accumulation of species. Different regions appear to support different amounts of biodiversity, and this often depends on the phylogenetic origin of the groups under study. He is interested in determining if different climatic zones lead to differential species diversification. He’s also interested in what controls species' geographic distributions.

“Abiotic factors such as temperature and precipitation could be the most important factors, or species interactions and character displacement might play a prominent role in the maintenance of range boundaries, and this may be important in the context of secondary contact following speciation,” he said. Title will use Australian reptiles as a study system to address these questions, and will collect data at both continental scales, as well as at population-level scales. Title, whose advisor is Professor Dan Rabosky, received $2,500.

Charles F. Walker was an honored and much loved curator from 1947 - 1975. His former students and faculty associates created the fund to commemorate and extend the activities he was famous for. He influenced many students in different fields of zoology well beyond herpetology.

Read about the Donald W. Tinkle Scholarship, UMMZ's most prestigious student scholarship, which was awarded to Jingchun Li, in previous EEB web news.

EEB graduate student Jingchun Li is this year's recipient of the Donald W. Tinkle Scholarship from the U-M Museum of Zoology. 

“This is the UMMZ's most prestigious student award, given on the basis of outstanding performance as a doctoral student,” said Professor Diarmaid Ó Foighil, director and curator of the museum. “The evaluation committee was especially impressed by Jingchun's publication record, her creative and independent research program, and her strong record of mentorship, teaching and outreach.”

Li researches speciation, biogeography and marine invertebrate ecology with her advisor, Ó Foighil. “Both geographic and ecological factors influence diversification patterns of taxa,” according to Li. “I am interested in how ecological factors, especially biotic associations, affect lineage diversification processes in marine environments. My study system is the hyper-diverse marine bivalve superfamily Galeommatoidea”

Many members in this group have either necessary (obligate) or optional (facultative) associations with other marine invertebrates. These associations are mostly commensal, wherein one organism benefits without affecting the other. Li is testing whether the unique lifestyle of galeommatoideans contributes to their high species diversity and morphological disparity, and if so, seeking possible mechanisms.

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. The award is for $5,000.

Qixin He has been awarded the 2013 Edwin H. Edwards Scholarship in Biology. The scholarship for graduate students studying biology is in memory of Edwards, who received his bachelors of science degree in biology from U-M in 1892.

“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. My current research 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.

“In this study, genome-wide genetic variation of each individual will be obtained from next generation sequencing technology. Genetic variation patterns of chromosomal inversions, together with their spatial distributions, can be used to test whether inversions contributed to genomic divergence among ecologically dissimilar populations connected by migration.” 

“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 United States and Cameroonian researchers and students, and promote the education of local communities in malaria preventions.” She studies in the lab of Professor L. Lacey Knowles.

The recipient is selected based on the novelty and scholarship of the proposed research; the clarity, merit, and appropriate scope and feasibility of the research plan; progress in the program including prior research results; and a letter of recommendation. The award is for one semester during the 2013 – 2014 academic year, including stipend, tuition, and GradCare benefits. This fellowship is given via a generous bequest of Julia A. Edwards for use in the recruitment of new doctoral students studying biology and to support current students whose distinguished performance is considered worthy of special recognition.

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

Jasmine Crumsey is the 2013 recipient of the Helen Olsen Brower Memorial Fellowship in Environmental Studies from EEB, awarded annually to a graduate student working in applied sciences for the conservation of natural resources.

Crumsey’s research looks at carbon (C) dynamics in a northern U.S. temperate forest. She is assessing the long-term impacts of above-ground leaf litter inputs and exotic earthworm activity on soil at the U-M Biological Station. Her advisor is Professor Knute Nadelhoffer.

“Because of its importance in C storage, alteration to the pool size or turnover time of C in soil organic matter may have large implications for the overall C dynamics of forest ecosystems,” said Crumsey.

“In northern temperate forests, aboveground leaf litter inputs function both as a key source of C inputs to soil organic matter and a driving factor of earthworm abundance and biomass. Soil organic matter processing is catalyzed by microbe-produced enzymes, whose activity can shift dramatically following earthworm invasions into temperate forests. Correlating soil C chemistry with measurements of enzymatic activity and earthworm biodiversity along a leaf litter gradient will highlight more precisely factors driving soil organic matter mineralization. I am studying shifts in soil C properties and microbial enzyme activity in response to earthworm community activity and long-term leaf litter input manipulations within the Detritus Input Removal and Transfer [DIRT] Experiment.

“Biological invasions have both ecological and economic consequences evident in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems of the Great Lakes region. Many studies have focused on aboveground terrestrial invasions, while belowground invasions have received notably less attention. The study of belowground invasions, however, is equally important for our larger understanding of how forest ecosystems respond to disturbance. Further, the UMBS DIRT experiment is one of five DIRT sites established across diverse ecosystems in the U.S. and abroad. Insights generated from this work will facilitate comparative studies linking above- and belowground ecosystem processes. Receipt of this award will thereby support research addressing a critical issue facing the Great Lakes region, and facilitate collaborations beyond the University of Michigan.

The prestigious award provides one semester of fellowship funding for stipend, tuition and benefits. Sally and Caspar Offutt, Jr., endowed this fellowship in tribute to Sally's mother who graduated in biology in 1917 from the University of Michigan. Brower led a vigorous public life touching on wide-ranging endeavors from politics to war relief. She invariably found her greatest satisfaction with projects involving the outdoors.

Michael Sheehan’s dissertation was awarded a ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards honorable mention from the Rackham Graduate School. He presented his defense, “The evolution of individual recognition in paper wasps,” April 13, 2012. Sheehan’s mentor was Professor Elizabeth Tibbetts.

“While all graduating Rackham students produce dissertations of quality, some students write dissertations that are truly exceptional for the high caliber of their scholarship and for the significance and interest of their findings,” states the Rackham Graduate School website. “We recognize these exceptional dissertations with the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards.”

Dissertations are nominated for the award by university faculty members who have served as chairs of dissertation committees of outstanding students. The nominations are then read by a review panel composed of members of the Michigan Society of Fellows, with assistance from other members of the university faculty and research community.

The awards are cosponsored by ProQuest, which publishes nearly 80,000 dissertations and theses annually, including more than 700 by U-M authors.

Cryptic comments have an ambiguous, obscure or hidden meaning. In biology, cryptic species are outwardly indistinguishable groups whose differences are hidden inside their genes.

Two U-M EEB marine biologists have identified three cryptic species of tiny clams, long believed to be members of the same species, which have been hiding in plain view along the rocky shores of southern Australia for millions of years.

The unusual convergence of a climate-cooling event and the peculiarities of local geography caused the three cryptic species to split from a common ancestor more than 10 million years ago, the U-M researchers propose in a paper published in the April 2013 journal Molecular Ecology.

The U-M scientists conducted a genetic analysis after collecting thousands of the crevice-dwelling, rice grain-sized clams from hundreds of miles of southern Australia coastline over the past decade. Their findings provide insights about the forces that shape evolution and solve a puzzle that has stumped marine biologists for decades.

"This study provides important clues about how marine regional biotas can evolve, including our observation that these processes can involve major global climate change modulated by local geography," Jingchun Li, an EEB graduate student and lead author of the report.

Li conducted the research as part of her dissertation with co-author Professor Diarmaid O'Foighil, Li's adviser and director of the U-M Museum of Zoology.

"You cannot tell them apart physically, but their genes indicate that their evolutionary divergence predates that of humans from chimpanzees," O'Foighil said of the three clam groups, which are currently classified as members of the same species, Lasaea australis.

Read more to find out the answer to the riddle that has perplexed biologists for decades: How did these three distinct biogeographic provinces evolve along a continuous coastline?

U-M News Service press release

Caption: A closeup of L. australis clams from the southern Australia coast. Each clam is about the size of a rice grain. Photo by Denis Riek.