NEWS UPDATES
October 2009
Interested in learning more about the research happening in the Biology department? Check out this video of Toby Kellogg! Different video segments include her descriptions of the Power of Grasses, thoughts on teaching, and funding at both the University of Missouri Research Board and National Science Foundation. All of the video, audio, and written segments are designed to be easily understandable by the general public.
New publications:
Cornwell, W. K., J. H. C. Cornelissen, S. D. Allison, P. Eggleton, C. Preston, F. Scarff, J. T. Weedon, C. Wirth, A. E. Zanne. 2009. Plant traits and wood fates across the globe—rotted, burned, or consumed? Global Change Biology.15: 2431-2449.
Karen E. DeMatteo, a postdoctoral fellow in Patty Parker’s lab, has been selected for a Fulbright Specialists project in Argentina at the Universidad Nacional de Misiones during November! For more information, check out the recent press release. Details about Karen’s work can be found here.
Zuleyma Tang-Martinez has written an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on a recent scientific issue in the news. Check out her article “What Caster Semenya can teach us about life” here.
Ph.D. student Eliot Miller has been awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for his proposal “Does contagious seed dispersal lead to predictable tree species associations?” Eliot’s funding will start in 2010!
Robert Marquis has been awarded $451,614 for “Study of the impacts of wood-boring beetles on arboreal ants, and in turn the effect of the ants on herbivores in cerrado vegetation of Brazil.” by the National Science Foundation! For more information, click here.
The new Zeiss’s confocal microscope has arrived! In conjunction with faculty from the Center for Nanotechnology, the Chemistry and Biochemistry department, and the Physics department, seven Biology faculty members submitted a proposal in 2008 entitled “Acquisition of a Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope to Enhance the Research Capabilities of University of Missouri at St. Louis” to the Missouri Life Sciences Research Board. The group, led by Sam Wang in Biology and Jimmy Liu and Dan Zhou in the Center for Nanoscience, was awarded $281,745.
On October 15-16, UMSL will be hosting a NSF Pre-Award Site Visit for the proposed Science and Technology Center for Plant Lipid Systems (CPLiS). Xuemin Wang is leading a multi-institutional, national-wide effort to establish the CPLiS and Chuck Granger is leading the education effort. The CPLiS is one of 11 sites that NSF is visiting. The eleven sites were selected from 43 full proposal applications, which were selected from 240 preliminary proposals.
September 2009
Ph.D. students Joy Valenta (Schechter lab) and Liang Guo (Wang lab) presented research talks at the Washington University Plant Biology retreat, held at Shaw Nature Reserve, on September 4. Joy’s talk was entitled “Characterization of the Type VI Secretion System in Pseudomonas syringae pathovar tomato DC3000” and Liang described his research on “Phosphatidic Acid binds to and Promotes the Activity of an Arabidopsis Sphingosine Kinase”.
New publications:
Zanne, A.E., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., Coomes, D.A., Ilic, J., Jansen, S., Lewis, S.L., Miller, R.B., Swenson, N.G., Wiemann, M.C., and Chave, J. 2009. Global wood density database. Dryad. Identifier number: http://hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.235.
August 2009
Xuemin Wang has received a four-year NSF Collaborative Research grant on “Metabolomic Profiling and Functions of Oxidized Membrane Lipids in Plant Stress Responses” For details, see http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0920681
July 2009
Lisa Schechter has been awarded a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation! This award is for over $737,000 and will fund research in the Schechter lab for 5 years. The title of the grant is CAREER: The Role of the HrpR/S Proteins in the Regulation of Virulence in the Plant Pathogenic Bacterium Pseudomonas syringae. For more information, see http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0845837
New publications:
Preston, J. C.**, A. Christensen, S. T. Malcomber, and E. A. Kellogg. 2009. MADS-box gene expression and implications for developmental origins of the grass spikelet. American Journal of Botany 96: 1419-1429.
June 2009
The Biology department greenhouse Titan Arum Flower is blooming. Watch the Progress!
Ph.D. student Javier Hernandez has been awarded an NSF Dissertation Research Award for 2009-2010. His grant is “Molecular characterization of photoperiod effects on social ontogeny in a bumble bee”, and includes faculty members Zuleyma Tang-Martinez and James Hunt. For more information, see
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0910217 or check out Javier’s website at http://www.umsl.edu/~parkerp/Javier.html.
Bethany K. Zolman has been awarded a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation! This award is for $575,000 and will fund research in the Zolman lab for 5 years. The title of the grant is CAREER: Molecular mechanism of Indole-3-butyric acid action in Arabidopsis. For more information, see
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0845507
or click here.
Robert Ricklefs has been awarded a prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award! Bob will spend a sabbatical year in Germany in 2009-2010.
Click here for more information.
New publications:
Moles, A.T., Warton, D.I., Warman, L., Swenson, N., Laffan, S.W., Zanne, A.E., Pitman, A., Hemmings, F.A., Leishman, M.R. 2009. Global patterns in plant height. Journal of Ecology. 97: 923 – 932.
** This article was highlighted in Nature and on the BBC: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7251/full/460014e.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8113000/8113633.stm
May 2009
Robert Ricklefs, Curators' Professor of Biology, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences! Click here for the announcement. The announcement also was highlighted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-grade/higher-education/2009/05/umsl-professor-only-missourian-elected-to-national-academy-of-sciences-this-year/
Graduate students Eliot Miller and Jose Hidalgo participated in the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) specialty course on the Ecology and Conservation of Neotropical Birds. UM-St. Louis is a member of the OTS consortium. Faculty members John Blake and Bette Loiselle co-taught this 2-week field course in Costa Rica.
New publications:
Donadio, S., L. M. Giussani, E. A. Kellogg, F. O. Zuloaga, and O. Morrone. 2009. A preliminary molecular phylogeny of Pennisetum and Cenchrus (Poaceae-Paniceae) based on the trnL-F, rpl16 chloroplast markers. Taxon 58: 392-404.
Duffie, C.V**., T.C. Glenn, F.H. Vargas, and P.G. Parker. 2009. Genetic structure within and between island populations of the flightless cormorant (Phalacrocorax harrisi). Molecular Ecology 18:2103-2111.
Durães, R., B. A. Loiselle, P. G. Parker, and J. G. Blake. 2009. Female mate choice across spatial scales: influence of lek and mate attributes on mating success of blue-crowned manakins. Proceedings Royal Society London B. 276:1875-1881.
Roy, C.L., PG Parker, RJ Gates. 2009. Egg morphology is an unreliable indicator in intraspecific nest parasitism in wood ducks. Condor 111:377-381.
April 2009
The Department of Energy has funded a Energy Frontier Research Center at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. The Center for Advanced Biofuels Systems (CABS) will be directed by Richard Sayre at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Xuemin Wang is one of the collaborators, along with scientists at the University of Nebraska, University of Arizona and Michigan State University. The Center is funded at $3 million per year for each of five years for a total of $15 million. The objective of CABS is to generate the fundamental knowledge required to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and production of energy-rich molecules in plants. Wang's role in the Center will be to investigate the regulatory processes by which plants integrate nutrient and stress cues for optimal growth. He will also study the transcriptional and translational controls that can be altered in order to increase oil accumulation.
New publications:
Tang-Martínez, Z. and Bixler, A. 2009. Individual discrimination by odors in sibling prairie voles. Journal of Chemical Ecology 35: 400-404.
March 2009
New publications:
DeMatteo KE±, Parker, PG, and Eggert, LS. 2009. Characterization of dinucleotide microsatellite loci and confirmation of sexing primers in the bush dog (Speothos venaticus). Molecular Ecology Resources 9:1219-1220.
Baiao, PC** and PG Parker. 2009. No evidence for extra-pair fertilization in red-footed boobies (Sula sula). Waterbirds 32:179-182.
February 2009
Wendy Olivas has been awarded a research grant from the National Science Foundation! Her grant is “Regulation of mRNA Stability by the Yeast Puf Proteins” – more information can be found at
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0848078
January 2009
New publications:
Dong CH, Zolman BK, Bartel B, Lee BH, Stevenson B, Agarwal M, Zhu JK. 2009. Disruption of Arabidopsis CHY1 Reveals an Important Role of Metabolic Status in Plant Cold Stress Signaling. Molecular Plant 2:59-72.
Doust, A. N., E. A. Kellogg, K. M. Devos, and J. L. Bennetzen. 2009. Foxtail millet: a sequence-driven grass model system. Plant Physiology 149: 137-141.
Christin, P.-A., N. Salamin, E. A. Kellogg, A. Vicentini, and G. Besnard. 2009. Integrating phylogeny into studies of C4 variation in the grasses. Plant Physiology 149: 82-87.
Kellogg, E. A., and C. R. Buell. 2009. Splendor in the grasses. Plant Physiology 149: 1-3.
Gray, J., M. Bevan, T. Brutnell, C. R. Buell, K. Cone, S. Hake, D. Jackson, E. Kellogg, C. Lawrence, S. McCouch, T. Mockler, S. Moose, A. Paterson, T. Peterson, D. Rokshar, G. M. Souza, N. Springer, N. Stein, M. Timmermans, G.-L. Wang, and E. Grotewold. 2009. A recommendation for naming transcription factor proteins in the grasses. Plant Physiology 149: 4-6.
Kellogg, E. A. 2009. The evolutionary history of Ehrhartoideae, Oryzeae, and Oryza. RICE 2: 1-14.
Kellogg, E. A., S. S. Aliscioni, O. Morrone, J. Pensiero, and F. Zuloaga. 2009. A phylogeny of Setaria (Poaceae, Panicoideae, Paniceae) and related genera, based on the chloroplast gene ndhF. International Journal of Plant Sciences 170: 117-131.
Peters, M.B., N.K. Whiteman±, C. Hagen, P.G. Parker & T.C. Glenn. 2009. Eight polymorphic microsatellite markers isolated from the widespread avian louse Colpocephalum turbinatum (Phthiraptera: Amblycera: Menoponidae). Molecular Ecology Resources 9:910-912
Note: for publications, * = UMSL undergraduate student; ** = UMSL graduate student; ± = UMSL postdoc. Lab PIs are underlined.