Allison received cool news on multiple fronts. First, she received the 2023 Florence Merriam Bailey Award from the American Ornithological Society for her 2023 paper, "Strong migratory connectivity indicates Willets need subspecies-specific conservation strategies" published in the journal Ornithological Applications. This award recognizes an outstanding paper published by an early career author. Second, Allison won a Smithsonian seed grant within the Virginia Working Landscapes program to support her Ph.D. research investigating the diets of cavity-nesting birds using fecal metabarcoding. Congratulations!
Dan was honored by the Entomological Society of America’s Eastern Branch with the Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching! UMD Entomology colleagues also receiving ESA EB awards this cycle from the Eastern Branch include Drs. Karin Burghardt and Margaret Lewis for the Excellence in Early Career Award and John Henry Comstock Award for best dissertation, respectively!
Read more>>
Dr. Tielens will use NEXRAD atmospheric radar with data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to study aerial feeding and population change of purple martins, tree swallows, and Mexican free-tailed bats.
Read more >>
Graduate Research Fellowship Program Award goes to 2 Gruner Alum! THE NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees. The awardees are:
Lily Durkee (B.S. ’18, biological sciences) with Gruner Lab, now MS student at Colorado State University. Kristin Jayd (B.S. '19, Environmental Science and Policy) starting entomology grad program in fall 2020 w/ Burghardt Lab. Her current research focus is on parasitoids and their relationships, and how tree diversity shapes them. Congratulations Mayda Nathan (PhD student, Gruner Lab) on being selected to receive the Ecological Society of America's Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award! Mayda is currently studying the recent northward range expansion of Florida’s mangroves. As a recipient of the award Mayda will meet with lawmakers and advocate for federal funding for biological and ecological sciences. Follow link to read ESA's press release: https://www.esa.org/blog/2020/03/02/esa-selects-2020-katherine-s-mccarter-graduate-student-policy-award-recipients Kristin Jayd (Undergrad student, Gruner Lab) was awarded first place in the Student Virtual Infographics Competition. Jayd’s award-winning graphic: "Mangrove herbivory across a salinity gradient” (pictured to the left). This was the first year for the infographic category. Kristin Jayd (Undergraduate, Gruner Lab) particpated in a poster presentation at the fifth Mangrove Macrobenthos and Management meeting held in Singapore this year. Her poster, titled "Patterns of Mangrove Seedling Herbivory Across a Salinity Gradient", presented her work done last summer in Kosrae, FSM. Currently Jade is interning at the Smithsonian Entomology Collection at the Natural History Museum, working on micro-hymenoptera from Singapore mangrove forests. The location of this year's meeting was opportune Kristin says, "I was able to connect with people who have done the field work for that project, which I hope to roll into graduate study next year via the University of Maryland College Park’s Certificate in Museum Scholarship and Material Culture." On May 6, 2019 Elske Tielens successfully defended her dissertation, "Diversity and structure of Metrosideros polymorpha canopy arthropod communities across space and time." Dr. Tielens will accept a postdoctoral research position at the University of Oklahoma, in the Aeroecology group. Over the last two semesters, Betsy has analyzed spider communities in the Hawaiian Islands in Dr. Gruner’s lab. Her goal is to gain a better understanding of which ecosystem factors influence the assemblage of a predator community. Because Hawaii is made up of several volcanic islands of differing ages, it is a good system for studying differences in communities at different stages of primary community assembly. She says, “So far, I have found that age is not a good predictor for abundance of most spider families; instead, their abundance may be based on other environmental factors, like canopy structure or available plant types. Recently, I have also joined a project studying parasitoids of the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive pest in the United States.” Congratulations to Associate Professors Daniel Gruner & Dennis vanEngelsdorp for making the Clarivate Analytics’ 2018 list of Highly Cited Researchers, a compilation of influential names in science.
Gruner studies insects and plants to explore the dynamic interplay of biodiversity, food web interactions and ecosystem function in rapidly changing environments. Read full announcement Congratulations to biological sciences student Lily Durkee who successfully presented their entomology honors thesis. Lily Durkee's thesis title, "Does goose exclusion impact the benthic macroinvertebrate community of a restored freshwater marsh?" Lily Durkee is now an MS student at Colorado State University. In 2020, Durkee received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Award! |