At the Institute of Ecology and Evolution, researchers have long been on the cutting edge of microbiome research.  Daniel Thomas, a PhD student in the Roy Lab at IE², is taking his studies on the plant microbiome out of the lab and into a remote Andean Valley in South America, where he hopes to help in the battle against the coffee rust and other plant diseases.

In the Intag Valley, coffee farmers in the cooperative Asociación Agroartesanal de Cafecultores Río Intag (AACRI) are interested in harnessing plant “probiotics” in the struggle against the coffee rust and other agricultural pathogens. They have started a basic production facility, where they culture target species of bacteria and fungi from the soil of their region, to apply to their coffee plants and other crops. AACRI recently asked the members of the Roy Lab to help them to quantitatively test the benefits of their microbes, and verify their identifications.  This summer Daniel Thomas is going to travel to the Intag Valley to help the coffee growers of the region with their unique project in sustainable, affordable pest control using beneficial, locally-cultured fungi and bacteria.

More information is available at www.kickstarter.com, a fundraising site for the project:

<www.kickstarter.com/projects/2006172860/biologos-y-agricultores>

Graduate Rotation Talks

331 Klamath Hall

Tuesday, 10 June 2014

The Astrobiology: Life at the Limits Spring Seminar Series is a free and public event that brings in three distinguished speakers to the University of Oregon to give a public talk about Astrobiology, a general science topic of interest to our Eugene community. This three-part series will be kicked off on April 30th by Dr. Lynn Rothschild (NASA Ames researcher and professor at Stanford and Brown Universities) who will be giving a talk titled “Extremophiles and the search for life in the universe”.  The second talk in the series will be given on May 7th by Dr. Christopher McKay (NASA Ames planetary scientist) titled “The search for life on other plants, with an update from the Mars Curiosity Rover”. Dr. Margaret Turnbull (astrobiologist and professor) will give the final talk in our series on May 28th titled “Nearby Exoplanets: Will there ever be another Earth?”.  This event is proudly hosted by GrEBES (Graduate Evolutionary Biology and Ecology Students), an ASUO-supported student organization.

The lectures are all in 282 Lillis Hall from 7 pm to 8 pm (April 30th, May 7th, & May 28th).

University of Oregon biologist Joe Thornton, who splits his academic time with a faculty position at the University of Chicago, is among 178 scholars, artists and scientists named as winners of 2014 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowships.

Guggenheim Fellows are chosen based on their prior achievement and exceptional promise.

Full story. (more…)

Save the date -Wednesday, May 28th!

Three IE² candidates are scheduled to defend on Wednesday, May 28th:

Kristin Sikkink – 9AM

Tobias Policha – 2PM

Alida Gerritsen – 3:30PM

Andrew Nishida –  Tuesday, 2/25  9AM  327 Pacific

Rudy Borowczak –  Thursday, 2/27  8AM  327 Pacific

Dan Thomas –Tuesday,  3/4  9AM  327 Pacific

Felipe Campos-Cerda -Monday, 3/10  1PM  217 LISB

Kyle Meyer – Friday, 3/14  1PM  317 Huestis

Christine O’Connor – Monday, 3/17  8AM 327 Pacific

Allison Fuiten – Monday, 3/17  2PM  317 Huestis

Graduate Rotation Talks

331 Klamath Hall

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Congratulations to Dan Thomas on receiving the Grebes’ Fall Research Award!

Ashley Bateman
abateman@uoregon.edu
Bohannan & Green Labs

A special session on “Advances in Population Genetics and Population Genomics of Plankton” proposed by Michelle Wood and Karin Rengefors (recent CEEB seminar speaker) has been approved for the May, 2014, Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon. JASM is a joint international meeting of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), the Phycological Society of America (PSA), Society for Wetland Science (SWS), and the Society for Freshwater Science (formerly NABS). Karin and Michelle are joined with scientists from Finland and Germany in organizing this special session that will highlight applications of generation sequencing methods and other approaches to the study of population genetic change and adaptation in these globally important organisms. For more information on JASM, see http://sgmeet.com/jasm2014/

Graduate Rotation Talks

331 Klamath Hall

Monday, 9 December 2013

Graduate Rotation Talks

331 Klamath Hall

Wednesday, 11 December 2013