My first amphibian paper!

I’m really excited to announce that my first amphibian publication is finally out! This paper is the result of an exciting collaboration led by my colleague Leticia Ochoa-Ochoa, and explores the spatial variation in trait diversity across American amphibians. Check it out!

Ochoa-Ochoa LM, NR Mejía-Domínguez, JA Velasco, KA Marske, C Rahbek. 2019. Amphibian functional diversity is related to high annual precipitation and low precipitation seasonality in the New World. Global Ecology and Biogeography. (link)

Hannah defends her honors thesis!

Huge congrats to Hannah Tully, who successfully defended her honors thesis, entitled “The use of species distribution modeling for Geochus tibialis (Curculionidae) beetles from New Zealand to determine the impacts of past, present, and future climate change on geographic distribution patterns”. Hannah has been part of the lab for about a year, and we’ll be sorry to see her go, but we’re super happy for her as she heads off to medical school!

Roshin defends his honors thesis!

It has been so long since I’ve posted any lab news…almost two years! Folks have come, folks have gone, many beetles have been collected and exciting research is underway!

Big congrats today to Roshin Papaly who successfully defended his honors thesis, entitled “An exploratory study of the Ouachita Mountain Range by means of genetic analysis of two widely distributed beetle species Toxidium gammaroides and Scaphisoma carolinae”. Roshin joined the lab two years ago as my first honors student and inaugural lab member, and we’re sad but excited to see him finishing this chapter!

A busy fall...

Fall is here (although you wouldn't know it from the temperature), and the last two weeks have been particularly busy--beginning with our last field trip of the season to the Ouachitas (see photo) and ending with the arrival of our first piece of molecular lab equipment--the thermocycler!

Exploring the Ouachitas

A week ago I had a second short field trip to the Ouachita Mountains, this time accompanied by two very talented young ecologists, Josh and Jenna.  Five solid hours of rain gave us a break from the summer heat, and we explored some wonderful mixed deciduous/pine forests and brought back lots of lovely leaf litter!

We have a lab!!

The lab is nearly ready--a couple coats of floor polish and we're good to go!!