Current Lab Happenings
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!
Congratulations to Madeleine for receiving the Robert T. Paine Experimental & Field Ecology Fellowship to conduct fieldwork at Mt Rainier National Park next summer! She will be measuring the impact of tree encroachment on plant-pollinator communities and testing the feasibility of tree sapling removal as a method for meadow habitat conservation. Great job, Madeleine!
This week, the Brosi Lab was in charge of leading Ecoseminar! Berry gave a brief overview of our lab’s work, followed by four lightning talks from Annie, Chris, Madeleine, and Manogya. This quarter in Ecoseminar we’ve been hearing from all the ecology labs about their ongoing research — it’s been a blast chatting about science and building 4th floor community!
Congratulations to Laura Avila (and co-authors Berry and Annie S) for their recent publication on the effects of antibiotics on pollination! This study, published in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, compared the effects of two fire blight control methods (spraying an antibiotic and a biological antagonist) on honeybee pollination and fruit set, as well as lab experiments to understand the effects of these treatments on foraging behavior. You can read the full paper titled: “Effects of a field-sprayed antibiotic on bee foraging behavior and pollination in pear orchards” here!