Summer 2022
August 22: Susan and collaborators Stephanie Kivlin (UTK), Lalasia Bialic-Murphy (ETH, Switzerland, and Nick Smith (Texas Tech University) received a 5-year NSF IntBio award to continue the long-term work at Trillium Trail! The project is titled "Defining the mechanisms and consequences of mutualism reorganization in the Anthropocene." Spring 2022 May 11: Amanda Benoit defended her thesis "Predators in the petals: How crab spiders affect plants and their pollinators." Congratulations, Dr. Benoit!! May 2: Congratulations to Drew Freshour & Nick Koziol for winning an Award of Excellence in the College of Arts and Sciences, for their EURēCA posters! April 25: Undergraduate researchers, Nick Koziol and Drew Freshour, presented posters at the 2022 UTK EURēCA event. Nick's poster was titled "The future of forest wildflowers: how climate change and herbivory affect growth and reproduction of the long-spurred violet", Drew's poster was titled "The Future of Forest Wildflowers: Physiological and growth responses to increased temperature and herbivory" Fall 2021 Nov 1: Congratulations to Alex Faigada for successfully defending her Master's thesis! Alex is now on staff at the Holden Arboretum. Sept 1: We are happy to welcome Dr. Jessie Mutz as a new post doc in our lab funded by USDA NIFA award through 2024! The project is entitled "Effects of defense plasticity on consumer-resource dynamics in annually cropped and wild perennial plant populations" Spring 2021 May 8: Congratulations to our undergraduate research student, Harley DiMarco for gradutating with her B.S. of Science, Biochemistry! We wish you the best of luck! April: Join us in welcoming Nick Koziol, our newest undergraduate researcher, to the lab! Nick is set to graduate Spring 2022 and is interested in plant-pollinator interactions, competitive plant adaption, and adaptions in response to stress. April 16: Congratulations to Alannie-Grace Grant for completing her PhD titled “Ecogeographical and Micromorphological Differentiation Between Selfing and Outcrossing Sister Species”. We wish her the best of luck! March: Graduate student, Alex Faigada, received the Breedlove, Dennis Fund Award for Student Botanical Field Experiences ($1000) from the University of Tennessee Herbarium (TENN). Alex and Susan also received a Student-Faculty Research Award from The UTK Graduate School ($4945). They were both used to purchase photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and air and soil temperature sensors (photo on right) to monitor abiotic conditions in the understory at our field sites in Cherokee NF. January 21: Join us in welcoming our newest lab member, undergraduate Drew Freshour. Drew has a broad range of interests and is hoping to learn more about hands-on research by working in our lab. She will be assisting graduate student, Alex Faigada, on her work with Viola rostrata, in both the greenhouse and the field. Fall 2020 November 2020: Congratulations to Morgan Roche for completing her PhD titled “The above- and below-ground community responses to a mutualism-disrupting allelopathic invasive plant”! August 2020: Congratulations to Amanda Benoit and Susan Kalisz on publishing Predator Effects on Plant-Pollinator Interactions, Plant Reproduction, Mating Systems, and Evolution in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics! This exciting review highlights the myriad ways that predators may indirectly affect plants by altering the behavior and abundance of pollinators and proposes important avenues for future research. Some of which will be explored in Amanda’s forthcoming dissertation research, stay tuned! October 2020: Congratulations to Amanda Benoit, PhD Candidate in the Kalisz lab, for publishing a note on The First Record of the Non-Native Plant Portulaca amilis (Portulacaceae) in Tennessee. Amanda and herbarium director Dr. Jessica Budke found this novel non-native plant on the campus of the University of Tennessee while collecting plants for Field Botany. Previously this South American native had only been reported from the Coastal Plain and Piedmont regions of the South Eastern United States. Co-authors include undergraduate Ryan Vichich and Herbarium Collections Manager Margaret Oliver. Spring 2020 April 23: Susan Kalisz was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations! April 16: Susan Kalisz, professor and head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and former post-doctoral fellow Mason Heberling, now assistant curator of botany at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, received the Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) George Mercer Award for their paper, Phenological mismatch with trees reduces wildflower carbon budgets, published in Ecology Letters in February 2019. “The Mercer Award is one of ESA’s most prestigious awards,” Kalisz said. “We were all thrilled that our paper was chosen.” Co-authors and co-awardees include Caitlyn MacKenzie from the University of Maine, Jason Fridley from Syracuse University, and Richard Primack from Boston University. Researchers leveraged the integration of historical records and contemporary experiments on many wildflower species to see how the overstory and understory responded differently to climate change and the unexpected consequences that followed. They used historical phenological observations, the oldest of which were made by Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s, alongside long-term temperature records, contemporary garden experiments from Kalisz’s NSF LTREB funding, and a simulation model. “Our model projects a 10-48% reduction carbon gain and lower fitness for forest wildflower in the coming century. This happens because the overstory leaves emerge in response to warming spring temperatures, which limits the later emerging understory wildflower’s photosynthesis, creating a phenological mismatch.” The George Mercer Award is given for an outstanding ecological research paper published by a younger researcher, with the lead author 40 years of age or younger at the time of publication. The paper must have been published in 2018 or 2019 to be eligible for this year’s award, which will be presented in August 2020 at ESA’s (virtual) annual meeting along with a video depicting the work. Heberling and Mackenzie, both younger researchers, will share the monetary prize. Read the paper online here. March 30: Graduate student, Amanda Benoit, received a $2,000 Student Research Award from the American Society of Naturalists to fund her research examining whether crab spiders increase rates of self-pollination and cause inbreeding depression in plant populations. January 21: Kristen Mecke joins the lab as our new lab manager! She will be primarily working on the Collinsia Selfing Syndrome Selection Experiment and Trillium Trail. Kristen has a wide variety of interests and has worked on several National Park Service teams doing long-term ecological monitoring. She has also been apart of several large-scale plant-microbe interaction studies with field and greenhouse components. Fall 2019 August 16: Graduate students, Morgan Roche and Amanda Benoit presented at ESA's annual conference in Louisville, KY. Amanda's talk was titled "Indirect effects of pollinator predators on plant-pollinator interactions, plant reproduction, and phenotypic selection" and Morgan's talk was titled "Allelopathic plant invader selectively impacts native plant community by mutualism disruption." Spring 2019
April 22: Congratulations to Mia Roark! Mia won the Award of Excellence in UT's College of Arts and Sciences, Natural Sciences, for her poster presented at EUReCA. More information and a full list of winners here: eureca.utk.edu/photo-galleries/2019-winners/ April 17: Undergraduate stud ent, Mia Roark presented her poster "How does age and pollinator environment affect reproductive traits in an annual plant?" at the University's annual Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement; EUReCA. More info about EUReCA can be found here: https://eureca.utk.edu/ March 26: Wildflower Witness: A University of Tennessee scientist uses Henry David Thoreau's 19th century observations to chart the effects of climate change. https://compassknox.com/2019/03/26/wildflower-witness/ March 1: Dr. Susan Kalisz, professor and head of the UT Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, will present “The Role of Species Interactions in Forest Invasions: The good, the bad, and the ungulate” People are altering the landscape on local to global scales. In her presentation, Professor Kalisz will discuss how these effects cascade through forest ecosystems, changing herbivore consumption of native plant species and altering interactions with invasive plant species, thus influencing biodiversity. https://calendar.utk.edu/event/the_role_of_species_interactions_in_forest_invasions_the_good_the_bad_and_the_ungulate#.XHQIwuhKi70 January: Susan Kalisz, Lalasia Bialic-Murphy, and Robert McElderry attended the Evolutionary Demography Society's Sixth Annual Meeting in Miami Florida. Susan Kalisz gave a keynote talk titled "Linking species interactions, physiology and demography in the forest understory". Lalasia Bialic-Murphy gave a lightning talk titled "Habitat degradation drives up reproductive costs, altering the reproductive strategy and operational sex ratio of an understory perennial". Robert McElderry gave a lightning talk titled Thermal reaction norms of life history traits exhibit cryptic genetic variation for more contrained traits". he also moderated a session. The meeting's webpage can be found here. evodemovi.weebly.com/ Spring 2018
May: Daniel Malagon won Best Poster at the 3rd annual UTK EEB Undergraduate Research Symposium!
March 27: Morgan Roche is awarded a Graduate Research Internship from the Division of Graduate Education at the National Science Foundation.
March 21-23: Kalisz lab members (current, alumni, and collaborators) convene in Knoxville to discuss past results, ongoing projects, and the future of long term research project at Trillium Trail.
March 21: Susan Kalisz is elected as the American Society of Naturalists 2020 President.
January 31: Kalisz lab work on effects of deer on invasive plants highlighted in a blog on the recent special issue in AoB Plants.
Fall 2017
September: Elton review on forest invasions, co-authored by Susan, is published in Biological Invasions (available here). This ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration is part of the IUFRO Task Force on Forest and Biological Invasions.
Summer 2017
June 12: Morgan Roche co-taught a KidsU class at UT Knoxville "Friend or Foe? Species Interactions." They did owl pellet dissections, played predator/prey games to learn about any and all biological interactions.
June 9: New invited review paper is out in Biological Invasions on the herbaceous invaders in temperate forests. This systematic review and synthesis of invasion mechanisms of forest herbs was a collaboration among several members of the Kalisz lab, motivated by a IUFRO Workshop on Biological Invasions last summer where Susan is a task force member. The article is available here (open access).
June 1: Lalasia Bialic-Murphy officially joins the lab as a postdoc! She will be primarily working on the Trillium Trail project. Lalasia comes from University of Hawai'i at Manoa, where she recently finished her PhD. She will be digging deep into the long term demographic dataset, combined with new physiological gas exchange data, to model the effects of deer and allelopathic invasion on understory herbs.
Field work is in full swing in the Kalisz lab!:
May: Amanda Benoit received a 2017 Botanical Society of America Graduate Research Award! Her proposal was entitled Sit-and-wait predators as drivers of plant mating system evolution."
Spring 2017
April 13: Amanda Benoit received a Graduate Student Teaching Award at the University of Tennessee. Pretty impressive accomplishment for her first year at UT Knoxville!
It has been a productive semester in the lab for funding:
Alannie-Grace Grant received an NSF DDIG to extend her niche modelling work to study drought effects on water-use strategies of selfing and outcrossing species using growth chamber experiments and herbarium specimens! Morgan Roche was awarded an NSF GRFP! Amanda Benoit received a Rosemary Grant Award for graduate research from the Society for the Study of Evolution! March 28: Lauren Smith-Ramesh (NIMBioS postdoc) was featured in a video (below) on her research on food webs and species invasions.
Fall 2016
December 12: Some of our recent Trillium Trail results on effects of deer on plant invasions was picked up by the popular bird/nature blog, Outside my Window!
October 27: Grad student Morgan Roche starts a blog on her research and outreach as a Botany in Action fellow.
October 15: Susan Kalisz presents at the Native Plant and Sustainability Conference at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.
October 10: Mason Heberling (postdoc) is invited to speak to the Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania.
September 29: Grad student Morgan Roche presents her research during Science Engagement Week at Phipps Conservatory (Pittsburgh, PA). Morgan is a Botany in Action Fellow, funded through Phipps Conservatory.
August: Welcome to Amanda Benoit as a new PhD student in the lab! Amanda came from University of Guelph, where she recently earned her MSc.
Summer 2016
Summer: It is field season...and also conference season! It is a busy summer for the lab.
June 6: Nathan Brouwer (Kalisz lab alum PhD '15) gave a seminar on his work entitled "Novel insights from long-term experiments into the impacts of invasive species and overabundant herbivores" at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, PA) as part of the R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar series. July 18-21: Susan and Mason each give talks at a special IUFRO Workshop on Biological Invasions in Forests. Susan was invited to join the task force on forests and biological invasions for the International Union of Forest Organizations. August 1: Mason gave a talk at Botany 2016 entitled "Plant invasion mediated by deer overabundance: linking demographic patterns and ecophysiological mechanisms" in an invited symposium on the interactions of white-tailed deer and invasive plants in eastern North America. August: Alannie-Grace Grant gave a talk at Botany 2016 on her newest work, entitled "Is reduced apical height of conical petal cells a new trait in the selfing syndrome?" August 12: Susan co-organized (along with Kristina Stinson and Dustin Haines) an oral session entitled "Garlic Mustard: A Model System for Understanding Invasions in a Changing World." The lab contributed two talks about our newest research on the demography and physiology of garlic mustard and this invader's influence on native species. Spring 2016
May 12: Susan was a keynote speaker at the Center for Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (CEEB) Spring Symposium at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
May: Susan presented a webinar to researchers and park naturalists at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore entitled “The role of species interactions in plant invasions.”
April 15: Mason Heberling (postdoc) received a two year NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology to work with herbarium specimen data to track trait shifts in invasive plants through time and space. The project will be based at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, PA). But don't worry: he'll remain in the Kalisz lab, but now also co-sponsored by Steve Tonsor at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
April: Alannie-Grace Grant (PhD candidate) received a two-year graduate fellowship through The Program for Excellence & Equity in Research (PEER) at UT!
March 22: Lots of activity in the growth chambers in Hesler Biology Building at UTK! 4 Collinsia species will soon be all flowering and ready for ongoing work in lab. These plants serve as the start to an exciting new project to investigate the genetic basis of traits associated with the selfing and outcrossing syndromes. Morgan Roche (PhD student) is also starting pollen tube growth experiments testing hypotheses on the mechanisms of reproductive isolation in selfing and outcrossing species.
March 2: Alannie-Grace Grant (PhD candidate) received a NSF microMORPH training grant to work with Amy Litt (UC Riverside). She'll be visiting her lab this spring to develop her skills and research flower development and transcriptomics of Collinsia sister pairs that vary in mating strategies. Congrats, Alannie!
February 19: Morgan Roche (PhD student) received a Botany in Action Fellowship from Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. She will be studying the mutualism-disrupting effects of garlic mustard on Impatiens in a field experiment at Trillium Trail this summer. Congrats, Morgan!
February 11: Exciting new research from our long term experiment at Trillium Trail presented at the Ohio Invasive Plants Research Conference (Ohio Invasive Plants Council): "Deer and invasive plant removal can change soil fungal communities and soil chemistry: evidence from a long-term field experiment" presented by David J. Burke (Holden Arboretum), co-authored by Sara R. Carrino-Kyker (Holden Arboretum) and Susan Kalisz.
January 17: Mason Heberling (postdoc), who primarily works on the Trillium Trail project in Pittsburgh, PA visited Knoxville.
January: Nathan Brouwer (recent PhD graduate from the lab) is now a statistical consultant on a project with Dr. Steve Latta at The National Aviary (Pittsburgh, PA). Nathan will be expanding the demographic models he developed during his PhD to the complex life cycles of migrating birds.
January: Alison Hale (Kalisz lab alumna; PhD 2012) published a paper (co-authored by Susan Kalisz and Line Lapointe) from her thesis work in New Phytologist. (Check it out here) The paper was also highlighted in a commentary article by Frank Gilliam here.
Fall 2015
December 30: Kalisz lab undergraduate researchers Elizabeth Huang and Steve Cassidy visit David Burke's lab (Holden Arboretum) to extract and analyze fungal spores in soil collected from long term experimental plots at Trillium Trail.
December 14: Mason Heberling (Kalisz lab postdoc) gave a seminar entitled "Floristic interchange in the Anthropocene: what traits make plants invasive in our forests?" at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, PA) as part of the R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar series.
November 20: Susan presented the lab's ongoing research on species interactions and forest invasions at College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA).
November 10 & 11: Susan gave two seminars at the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada).
October 29: Nathan Brouwer successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Applying multilevel longitudinal models to plant demographic processes: novel insights into the long-term impacts of invasive species and overabundant herbivores" Congratulations, Dr. Brouwer! His thesis work analyzed long term data collected at Trillium Trail.
October 26: Susan presented an overview of the lab's research at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, PA) as a part of the R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar series. Her talk was entitled " The role of species interactions in invasion, population performance, diversity and divergence."
August: Mia Wavrek joins the lab as research coordinator. Welcome, Mia!
Summer 2015
Susan's NSF LTREB (Long Term Research in Environmental Biology) grant entitled "The populations dynamics of forest understory invasion: mechanistic experiments with generalist herbivores, natives, and invaders" was renewed! Many exciting results from this project and much more to come! Read more here.
August 12: Colin Cope and Susan Kalisz run an Organized Oral Session at the 100th Ecological Society of America meeting in Baltimore, MD entitled "Ungulate overabundance as a driver of above- and below-ground interactions and ecosystem processes” on Wednesday, August 12, 2015: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM. June 9-12: Prof. Inderjit (Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi) visits the Kalisz lab June 9-12. He received the 2015 Robert H Whittaker Distinguished Ecologist Award from the Ecological Society of America to visit the Kalisz lab. He will present a seminar entitled "Ecological impacts of novel chemicals on aboveground patterns and below ground processes." June 1: Mason Heberling officially becomes a post doc in the lab! Spring 2015
May 17-22: Susan co-led the 4th and final meeting of the Baker’s Law working group at the National Evolution Synthesis Center at Duke University April 27: Eden Odhner passed her comprehensive exam! April 20: Susan Kalisz presented a seminar to the Department of Biology, Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY). April 10: Susan presented a seminar to the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington. April 6: Alannie-Grace Grant passed her comprehensive exam! March: Mason Heberling wins University-wide Dissertation Award for 2015 at Syracuse University. March 23-27: Nathan Brouwer attended the "Demography Beyond the Population" workshop and presented a poster at the symposium in Sheffield, England. February: Susan Kalisz presented her research at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland) and at the University of Lausanne, Department of Ecology and Evolution (Lausanne, Switzerland). February: Susan Kalisz gave a seminar to the Department of Plant Sciences at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI). January 7: Chris Heckel successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "The Influence of Indirect Effects of Large Herbivores on the Life History and Population Dynamics of an Unpalatable Forest Herb Species." Congratulations Dr. Heckel! Fall 2014
August - Welcome to Natália Padilha de Oliveira, who joins us from Brazil us as a visiting scholar to continue her work on tropical palms! July - Mason Heberling joins the lab as a visiting scholar. He is a PhD candidate in Jason Fridley's lab at Syracuse University. His research focuses on the ecophysiology of native and invasive shrubs in Eastern North American forests. Spring 2014
April 30 - Congratulations to Alannie-Grace Grant for receiving a Graduate Student Research Award from the Botanical Society of America! April - Our article, "In a long-term experimental demography study, excluding ungulates reversed invader's explosive population growth rate and restored natives," was recommended as being of special significance by Dr. Kingsolver of Faculty of 1000. April – Congratulations to Alannie-Grace Grant for receiving a microMORPH training grant! April 1 – Big congratulations go to Eden Odhner for receiving an award from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program and to Alannie-Grace Grant for receiving an Honorable Mention! Feb 17 – Alannie-Grace Grant has been chosen to receive a Graduate Fellowship at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) for the full Fall 2014 term. Congratulations Alannie-Grace! |
Nick Koziol, Jessie Mutz, and Drew Freshour at EURēCA 2022, in front of Nick's poster.
Mia Roark, presenting at EUReCA
Evolutionary Demography Society Six Annual Meeting, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL
July 2015: A common garden experiment is designed and constructed at Trillium Trail! (above) The garden will allow us to clearly test the physiological effects of garlic mustard invasion on 8 understory herbaceous perennial species (both mychorrizhal and nonmychorrizhal species with contrasting phenologies). Thanks to our undergrad field crew! (below)
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Feb 11-13th – Dr. Kalisz visited high schools and middle schools in Rhode Island and Massachusetts as part of the Darwin Days Roadshow sponsored by NESCent. Over 300 students and teachers were involved in presentations and hands-on exercises focused on evolution and careers in science.
Jan 16th- Dr. Kalisz presented a public talk in the Scientist Lecture Series entitled "The good, the bad and the ungulate: long-term experiments with native forest species, invaders and deer" at Holden Arboretum in Cleveland, Ohio.
Fall 2013
Eden Odhner and Alannie-Grace Grant joined the Kalisz lab as new PhD students. Welcome Eden and Alannie-Grace!!
Dr. Kalisz is a Sabbatical Scholar at Duke University and the National Evolution Synthesis Center (NESCent) during the 2013-2014 academic year.
Summer 2013
June 17th – Dr. Kalisz presents an invited talk at the North American Forest Ecology meetings in Bloomington, IN
June 21-25 – Alannie-Grace Grant and Dr. Kalisz present at the Evolution meeting in Snowbird, Utah
August 4-9 – Rachel, Nathan and Dr. Kalisz present talks at the Ecological Society of America in Minneapolis, MN
Spring 2013
Welcome new Kalisz lab members: Sahil Amin, Taylor Brown, Kayleigh Frech, Dan Lammie, Laina Lockett, and Alex Reisser
Undergrad, Rebecca Callodonato, presents a poster at the University Honor's College Poster Fair.
Dr. Kalisz proposal was awarded funding for a National Evolution Synthesis Center working group to meet 2013-2015.
Alannie-Grace Grant joins the Kalisz lab for a research rotation. Welcome Alanni!
Fall 2012
November 16th – Alison Hale successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "An Empirical Test of the Mutualism Disruption Hypothesis: Impacts of an Allelopathic Invader on the Ecophysiology of a Native Forest Herb"! Congratulations Dr. Hale!!
September – Alison Hale has been invited to give a seminar at Bucknell University on April 4th, 2013!
Welcome to the lab Lauren Bakale, Abby Lee, and Mari Goetz!
Summer 2012
July – Dr. Rachel Spigler presented a poster with co-author Basia Pietrzak, entitled 'Modulating the rate of evolution by the presence of germ bank: a simple model' at the Evolution meeting in Ottawa, Canada.
Alison Hale taught an Introductory Botany class for the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens summer internship outreach, a program which exposes under-resourced high school age youth to careers in environmental science, horticulture, photography and community improvement.
Nathan Brouwer successfully induced dormancy in several plants in common garden experiment!
Spring 2012
April 28 – Congratulations to our graduating seniors Keith Garmire and Tyler Stipack! Good Luck! We will miss you!
April 26 – Alexis Fitzgerald joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
March 22 – We are excited to announce that Graduate student Alison Hale won an "Outstanding Presentation" award at the Univeristy of Pittsburgh Arts and Sciences 2012 Graduate Student Exposition for her talk: Impacts of the allelopathic invader, garlic mustard, on native plant carbon acquisition and allocation. Congratulations Alison!
March 8 – Alison Hale gave an invited presentation to the Greentree Garden Club about her research on the invasive plant garlic mustard.
March 1 – Dr. Rachel Spigler was promoted to Research Assistant Professor! Congratulations Rachel!
March 1 – Graduate student Nathan Brouwer passed his comprehensive exam in pursuit of his Ph.D. Excellent job, Nathan!
January 26 – Dr. Rachel Spigler presented an invited seminar in the Biology Department at Temple University.
January 4 – Ashley O'Conor joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
January 4 – Keith Garmire joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
Fall 2011
October 10 – Alison Hale is officially a PhD candidate! Congratulations, Alison, on a great overview meeting.
October 8 – Alison Hale gave a public talk on her research at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden to an audience of 200+ people.
October 7 – Alison Hale gave an interview for the local radio show the Saturday Light Brigade. She was also interviewed about her research and life as a scientist by Pittsburgh area high school students.
September 22 – Katie Abele joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 14 – Katy Stark joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 1 – Adam Sinder, an undergrad researcher in our lab from Carnegie Mellon University left the Kalisz lab to become a research tech in Dr. Steve Tonsor’s lab. We miss you Adam, but we know where to find you!
Summer 2011
August 25 – Rebecca Callodonato takes over the job of Kalisz Lab Web Czarina, succeeding the former Web Czar, Cory Kohn. She is doing a fabulous job! Thank you, Becca.
August 7-12 – Dr. Rachel Spigler, Alison Hale, Nathan Brouwer and Dr. Kalisz had a great time while attending the Ecological Society of America National meeting in Austin, Texas. Our lab presented three talks. Rachel’s talk was entitled "Selection for selfing in Collinsia verna? Evidence from the past and implications for the future." Alison’s paper was entitled “Testing the "mutualism disruption" hypothesis for invasion: Impacts on a long-lived native herb.” Nathan presented his first conference talk, "There must be 50 ways to leave your population: herbivores, dormancy and plant population dynamics."
July – Dr. Rachel Spigler and Nathan Brouwer traveled to the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany to take part in a course entitled Introduction to Evolutionary Demography. Nathan and Rachel received travel and housing awards to attend this course. Sehr gut!
July 5 – Aaron Cantor left for Australia. Aaron was chosen to be a prestigious Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar for one year. Congratulations, Aaron! You can follow his travels through Australia on his blog.Check It Out!
Spring 2011
May 1 – Nathan began fieldwork based at the University of Pittsburgh’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology (PLE). He is investigating the phenomena of whole-plant dormancy in multiple populations near PLE. This work is possible thanks to Nathan’s NSF Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, the collaboration and permission of numerous private landowners, and Firth Maple Products of Saegertown, PA.
April 22-24 – Dr. Kalisz and Dr. Rachel Spigler participated in the NSF sponsored MicroMORPH working group workshop entitled “Microevolution of Development: processes within populations and species” at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Check It Out!
April 25 – We said farewell to Cory Kohn and Aaron Cantor, both HHMI funded undergraduate researchers who worked in the Kalisz lab for three years. Cory is now is a graduate student in the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Program of Michigan State University. Aaron will begin Medical School at Penn State University in the fall of 2012.
March 31 – Three graduate students from the Kalisz lab were awarded Outstanding Paper Presentation Awards at the University of Pittsburgh Grad Expo for their presentations. Alison Hale won for her paper “Testing the "mutualism disruption" hypothesis: a physiological mechanism for invasion of intact perennial plant communities.” Nathan Brouwer won for his paper entitled “Deer Herbivory induces Dormancy and creates Population Cycles in Perennial Plants.” Christopher Heckel won for his paper entitled: “Assessing the consequence of non-consumptive effects of herbivores for unpalatable plant population dynamics.” The triple crown!
March – Alison Hale is awarded the Botany-in-Action Grant of Phipps Conservatory ($3000) and the Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research ($937) to continue her research!
Jan 16th- Dr. Kalisz presented a public talk in the Scientist Lecture Series entitled "The good, the bad and the ungulate: long-term experiments with native forest species, invaders and deer" at Holden Arboretum in Cleveland, Ohio.
Fall 2013
Eden Odhner and Alannie-Grace Grant joined the Kalisz lab as new PhD students. Welcome Eden and Alannie-Grace!!
Dr. Kalisz is a Sabbatical Scholar at Duke University and the National Evolution Synthesis Center (NESCent) during the 2013-2014 academic year.
Summer 2013
June 17th – Dr. Kalisz presents an invited talk at the North American Forest Ecology meetings in Bloomington, IN
June 21-25 – Alannie-Grace Grant and Dr. Kalisz present at the Evolution meeting in Snowbird, Utah
August 4-9 – Rachel, Nathan and Dr. Kalisz present talks at the Ecological Society of America in Minneapolis, MN
Spring 2013
Welcome new Kalisz lab members: Sahil Amin, Taylor Brown, Kayleigh Frech, Dan Lammie, Laina Lockett, and Alex Reisser
Undergrad, Rebecca Callodonato, presents a poster at the University Honor's College Poster Fair.
Dr. Kalisz proposal was awarded funding for a National Evolution Synthesis Center working group to meet 2013-2015.
Alannie-Grace Grant joins the Kalisz lab for a research rotation. Welcome Alanni!
Fall 2012
November 16th – Alison Hale successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "An Empirical Test of the Mutualism Disruption Hypothesis: Impacts of an Allelopathic Invader on the Ecophysiology of a Native Forest Herb"! Congratulations Dr. Hale!!
September – Alison Hale has been invited to give a seminar at Bucknell University on April 4th, 2013!
Welcome to the lab Lauren Bakale, Abby Lee, and Mari Goetz!
Summer 2012
July – Dr. Rachel Spigler presented a poster with co-author Basia Pietrzak, entitled 'Modulating the rate of evolution by the presence of germ bank: a simple model' at the Evolution meeting in Ottawa, Canada.
Alison Hale taught an Introductory Botany class for the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens summer internship outreach, a program which exposes under-resourced high school age youth to careers in environmental science, horticulture, photography and community improvement.
Nathan Brouwer successfully induced dormancy in several plants in common garden experiment!
Spring 2012
April 28 – Congratulations to our graduating seniors Keith Garmire and Tyler Stipack! Good Luck! We will miss you!
April 26 – Alexis Fitzgerald joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
March 22 – We are excited to announce that Graduate student Alison Hale won an "Outstanding Presentation" award at the Univeristy of Pittsburgh Arts and Sciences 2012 Graduate Student Exposition for her talk: Impacts of the allelopathic invader, garlic mustard, on native plant carbon acquisition and allocation. Congratulations Alison!
March 8 – Alison Hale gave an invited presentation to the Greentree Garden Club about her research on the invasive plant garlic mustard.
March 1 – Dr. Rachel Spigler was promoted to Research Assistant Professor! Congratulations Rachel!
March 1 – Graduate student Nathan Brouwer passed his comprehensive exam in pursuit of his Ph.D. Excellent job, Nathan!
January 26 – Dr. Rachel Spigler presented an invited seminar in the Biology Department at Temple University.
January 4 – Ashley O'Conor joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
January 4 – Keith Garmire joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
Fall 2011
October 10 – Alison Hale is officially a PhD candidate! Congratulations, Alison, on a great overview meeting.
October 8 – Alison Hale gave a public talk on her research at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden to an audience of 200+ people.
October 7 – Alison Hale gave an interview for the local radio show the Saturday Light Brigade. She was also interviewed about her research and life as a scientist by Pittsburgh area high school students.
September 22 – Katie Abele joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 14 – Katy Stark joined our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 1 – Adam Sinder, an undergrad researcher in our lab from Carnegie Mellon University left the Kalisz lab to become a research tech in Dr. Steve Tonsor’s lab. We miss you Adam, but we know where to find you!
Summer 2011
August 25 – Rebecca Callodonato takes over the job of Kalisz Lab Web Czarina, succeeding the former Web Czar, Cory Kohn. She is doing a fabulous job! Thank you, Becca.
August 7-12 – Dr. Rachel Spigler, Alison Hale, Nathan Brouwer and Dr. Kalisz had a great time while attending the Ecological Society of America National meeting in Austin, Texas. Our lab presented three talks. Rachel’s talk was entitled "Selection for selfing in Collinsia verna? Evidence from the past and implications for the future." Alison’s paper was entitled “Testing the "mutualism disruption" hypothesis for invasion: Impacts on a long-lived native herb.” Nathan presented his first conference talk, "There must be 50 ways to leave your population: herbivores, dormancy and plant population dynamics."
July – Dr. Rachel Spigler and Nathan Brouwer traveled to the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany to take part in a course entitled Introduction to Evolutionary Demography. Nathan and Rachel received travel and housing awards to attend this course. Sehr gut!
July 5 – Aaron Cantor left for Australia. Aaron was chosen to be a prestigious Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar for one year. Congratulations, Aaron! You can follow his travels through Australia on his blog.Check It Out!
Spring 2011
May 1 – Nathan began fieldwork based at the University of Pittsburgh’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology (PLE). He is investigating the phenomena of whole-plant dormancy in multiple populations near PLE. This work is possible thanks to Nathan’s NSF Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, the collaboration and permission of numerous private landowners, and Firth Maple Products of Saegertown, PA.
April 22-24 – Dr. Kalisz and Dr. Rachel Spigler participated in the NSF sponsored MicroMORPH working group workshop entitled “Microevolution of Development: processes within populations and species” at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Check It Out!
April 25 – We said farewell to Cory Kohn and Aaron Cantor, both HHMI funded undergraduate researchers who worked in the Kalisz lab for three years. Cory is now is a graduate student in the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Program of Michigan State University. Aaron will begin Medical School at Penn State University in the fall of 2012.
March 31 – Three graduate students from the Kalisz lab were awarded Outstanding Paper Presentation Awards at the University of Pittsburgh Grad Expo for their presentations. Alison Hale won for her paper “Testing the "mutualism disruption" hypothesis: a physiological mechanism for invasion of intact perennial plant communities.” Nathan Brouwer won for his paper entitled “Deer Herbivory induces Dormancy and creates Population Cycles in Perennial Plants.” Christopher Heckel won for his paper entitled: “Assessing the consequence of non-consumptive effects of herbivores for unpalatable plant population dynamics.” The triple crown!
March – Alison Hale is awarded the Botany-in-Action Grant of Phipps Conservatory ($3000) and the Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research ($937) to continue her research!