The second cohort of Science CORPS students have completed the program, and they did a phenomenal job! Twenty community college students from across Indiana and Illinois conducted a distributed experiment studying seed predation, testing whether seed predation differs for native vs. exotic plant species, across an urban-rural gradient, and across a latitudinal gradient. They also came up with and tested their own research question: Does seed color affect seed predation? After the official end of Science CORPS, four students stayed on to co-author a poster of their research, and three traveled to Indianapolis last month to present their poster at the Indiana Academy of Sciences Meeting, where they presented two of their key results: seed predation tended to be greater greater in exotic plant species than native species, and seed predation was greater in light colored seeds than dark seeds. Huge congrats to Dylan, Cieara, and Hannah on their amazing presentation, big thanks to Colin for his contribution to the poster, and big thanks as well to the rest of the participants for collecting data and making the summer such a success!
0 Comments
Last weekend these three amazing community college students presented a poster of their Science CORPS research at the Indiana Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting in Indianapolis! They and their fellow Science CORPS participants found that seed predation was greater in rural environments than suburban environments, and that seed predation did not differ between native and exotic plant species, thus rejecting the Enemy Release Hypothesis (which posits that invaders escape many of their enemies during the invasion process). We had a great time watching talks, talking science, and eating surprisingly delicious meals (we got chocolate cake for lunch dessert?!). Congrats Emily, Teresa, and Mary on your presentation, and thanks to Kelsey and Nate for your contributions to the poster!
Rejoice, the first summer session of Science CORPS is now complete! Science CORPS is a program I created as a paid, hands-on research experience for community college students, which is unfortunately really rare (I was a community college student, so I know this first hand!). I led the program with a truly awesome grad student in education at the U of Illinois named Alex Riley. Our 14 students conducted research and collected their own data by deploying a distributed ecological experiment in their backyards where they tested how a species interaction (seed predation) varies across urban/rural gradients, and whether seed predation rates differ on invasive vs. native plant species. They also attended a series of meetings over Zoom where they learned about the research process, ecology, reading scientific papers, stats, careers in biology, and future opportunities to do research.
It was super fun, the students were great, and it seems like they got a lot out of it! We'll definitely do it again, and are thinking about how to scale it up in terms of number of students and geographic reach for next year. A while ago I wrote an episode for the daily podcast and public radio program A Moment of Science called "The Trees That Farm Their Own Drought Tolerance" that recently aired. It's based on a really cool paper in PNAS by Catherine Gehring and colleagues. Click on the image below to learn about how the assembly of mycorrhizal fungi that confer drought tolerance to pinyon pines is under strong plant genetic control... but explained for the general public!
I've been having a great time participating in my first virtual conference! I wouldn't say that watching great ecology talks while lounging on my couch completely makes up for not getting to see a bunch of my friends in Salt Lake City, but it's important to appreciate the positives where you can find them. :)
I gave a talk about how two microbial traits that are adaptive for microbes under drought also provide plant benefit under drought, and how microbial fitness and plant fitness might become linked through a mechanism called "fitness alignment". Click on the image below to check it out! |
Archives
March 2023
Categories |