TWIB Title

May 3rd, 2007 - May 21st, 2007

Special Events

  • A contingent from the Biology Department attended a conference on "Networks in Ecology and Beyond" at the Hilton in Fort Collins, and sponsored by Colorado State University's PRIMES program (primes.colostate.edu): Greg Ames, Mike Antolin, Christine Bacon, Dylan George, Liz Harp, Andrew Kanarek, Beth Ross, Madeline Scheintaub, Colleen Webb

  • Congratulations to the 188 Biological Science and Zoology majors who graduated on May 12 with Bachelor of Science degrees! Best of luck to them as they continue to build on their great achievements!

    • Accolades

  • Professor Jim Detling had been named the 2007-2008 Distinguished Ecologist in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. The award will be presented to TGO next fall.

  • Three graduate students were recognized by the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology for their help with recruiting graduate students and hard work in organizing this year's Front Range Student Ecology Symposium: Best Citizen Students: Liz Harp and Angie Moline, Best Sport: Sarah Bevins

  • Congratulations to LeRoy Poff, who has been promoted to the rank of Professor, and to Mark Simmons, who has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.

    • Dissertation Defenses

  • Sarah Bevins, of the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, successfully defended her PhD dissertation: "Invasive mosquitoes, larval competition, and vector-borne disease: potential implications for vector competence". Congratulations to Dr. Bevins and her major advisor Professor Janice Moore.

  • Kathryn Gogolin successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation: "Regulation of Copper Transport into and within Arabidopsis thaliana Chloroplasts: A Focus on Copper Transport Proteins". Congratulations to Dr. Gogolin and her major advisor Assoc. Professor Rien Pilon.

    • On the Road

  • Professors Mike Antolin, Alan Knapp, and Diana Wall attended the annual Science Council Meeting for the NSF-funded Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) network, in Portland OR, May 16-19, representing three LTER sites: Shortgrass Steppe in Colorado (MA, AK), McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica (DW), and Konza Prairie in Kansas (AK).

    • New Publications from Biology

  • A new publication by Assistant Professor Joe von Fischer reports that variation in the abundance of soil microhabitats favorable to methane producing microbes is the primary control for methane emission rates. von Fischer, J. C., and L. O. Hedin (2007), Controls on soil methane fluxes: Tests of biophysical mechanisms using stable isotope tracers, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 21, GB2007, doi:10.1029/2006GB002687.

  • Assistant Professor Colleen Webb has an invited Viewpoint coming out in the June issue of BioScience entitled "What is the role of ecology in understanding ecosystem resilience?"

  • Four new publications from the Pilon lab: Puig S, Mira H, Dorcey E, Sancenon V, Andres-Colas N, Garcia-Molina A, Burkhead JL, Gogolin KA, Abdel-Ghany SE, Thiele DJ, Ecker JR, Pilon M, Penarrubia L. (2007). Higher plants possess two different types of ATX1-like copper chaperones. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 354:385-390. This paper was a collaboration with Lola Penarrubia’s group in Valencia, Spain. Jason Burkhead and Katie Gogolin are former graduate students. Salah Abdel-Ghany is a post Doc.

  • Yamasaki H*, Abdel-Ghany SE*, Cohu CM, Kobayashi Y, Shikanai T, Pilon M (2007) Regulation of Copper Homeostasis by micro-RNA in Arabidopsis. (*shared first authors). Journal of Biological Chemistry, in press. Hiroaki Yamasaki is a graduate student from Dr T. Shikanai’s lab at Kyushu University, Japan. This work was initiated during a visit to the Pilon Lab in April 2006. Salah Abdel-Ghany is a post Doc, Chris Cohu is a graduate student.

  • Murthy N, Ollagnier-de-Choudens S, Sanakis Y, Abdel-Ghany SE, Rousset C, Ye H, Fontecave M, Pilon-Smits EAH, Pilon M (2007) Characterization of Arabidopsis thaliana SufE2 and SufE3: Functions in Chloroplast Iron-Sulfur Cluster Assembly and NAD Synthesis. Journal of Biological Chemistry, in press. This article was selected ”Paper of the week”. Narayana Murthy and Salah Abdel-Ghany are post docs. Hong Ye is a former graduate student. This paper was published in collaboration with colleagues in Grenoble, France.

  • Cohu CM and Pilon M (2007) Regulation of superoxide dismutase expression by copper availability. Physiologia Plantarum, 129, 747-755. Chris Cohu is a graduate student.

  • Pearce, R. D., and T. J. O’Shea. 2007. Ectoparasites in an urban population of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) in Colorado. Journal of Parasitology 93: 518-530. (Roger Pearce is a recent M.S. graduate and Tom O'Shea is a collaborating scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey laboratory in Fort Collins)

    • TWIB is published (semi) weekly by the Department of Biology, Colorado State University, edited by M. Antolin