This week, Anya found out she was awarded the Beta Beta Beta Research Award to investigate mechanisms of ghost crab response to light pollution. The money will allow her to buy some reagents for an ELISA and conduct a qPCR on crab hemolymph.

Aaron, Kealey, Mai, Ember, and Anya presented at the UGR symposium today, with Kealey winning TriBeta best poster and Anya winning best Oral presentation! WOOHOO!

Kayla, Camille, and J presented research at the Grand Bay NERR Research Symposium. Our group was excited to present some of our ongoing restoration work in dunes and salt marshes and our want to integrate fungal symbionts into coastal restoration practices.

We are excited to announce that Kayla passed her thesis defense today! Her thesis explored the impact of nutrient addition and disturbance on dune arthropod assemblages and their connection with coastal vegetation. We are so pumped!

Super excited that Darrien Caudle is back in the lab to start his PhD in the Environment & Society program! Darrien's dissertation will combine ecology and socioecological impacts of global change in coastal ecosystems and perception of restoration.

Gracie is starting her MS in the lab and will be teaching BLY 101 labs this fall, her thesis will explore leaf decomposition in several species of dune species in response to disturbance and nutrient addition!  Additionally, she will also be working on project that identifies fungal symbionts in a rare, endemic orchid from Wisconsin. Two different, but two very cool chapters.

Summer season kicks off a busy time in the lab, this week we got Anya's SURF project started by collecting crabs to perform some behavioral trials in collaboration with the Perez Lab and Mai planted 4 species of coastal plants to measure microplastic uptake.

Graduation season is upon us and we are excited and a little sad to be losing so many of our amazing undergraduate students this spring, but so excited to see their next steps.  Huge congratulations to Kristen, Cat, Eli, Gracie, Emily!

New paper out in International Journal of Science Education led by former MS student Darrien Caudle exploring instructor perceptions of the benefits of ideological awareness in their classrooms. Paper also includes two former undergraduate researchers Nikki and Declan!