Current Lab Happenings
This week the lab hosted a very successful Biology Coffee Hour featuring a variety of homemade treats, coffee, and community building! Each week, a different lab is in charge of hosting coffee hour in the department. It was a beautiful sunny day to catch up on the LSB deck (and hopefully the first of many sunny and warm coffee hours to come).
We are happy to advertise that the lab has acquired new shared-use microscope equipment available for use by any UW student, faculty, or staff member! This includes a dissecting microscope, compound microscope, and a high-quality color camera fittable to both. Berry, Madeleine, and Manogya (along with other department members) applied for and were awarded this equipment through the UW Student Technology Fund. We are incredibly excited to use these microscopes and camera to improve our insect ID and help train new lab members!
This week marked the first ever North Coast and Cascades Science Days conference hosted by the National Park Service’s North Coast and Cascades Research Learning Center. Madeleine and Manogya both presented at this three-day virtual symposium featuring new and ongoing science in the region. Madeleine’s talk focused on the effects of tree encroachment on meadow plants and pollinators, discussing her plans for research at Mount Rainier National Park this summer. Manogya’s talk focused on the MeadoWatch program and utilizing citizen science to monitor wildflower phenology at Mount Rainier National Park.
Congratulations to Madeleine for passing her general exam and officially becoming a PhD candidate! She successfully presented her dissertation proposal to her committee, discussing her work on shifts in coflowering of meadow plants, DNA metabarcoding of pollen samples, and plans for investigating tree encroachment in the meadows of Mt Rainier this upcoming summer. Amazing job, Madeleine!
This past week Berry, Chris, and Madeleine kicked off the new year by attending the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) conference here in Seattle! Chris gave a talk titled “Contrasting Topology and Interaction Strengths Drive Stability in Mutualistic Networks” and Madeleine presented a poster on “Novel co-flowering in subalpine plant communities at Mt. Rainier National Park”. Check out Chris’ and Madeleine’s abstracts on the SICB page!