Our new paper in Proc B exploring racial and binary gender representation in introductory biology textbooks is receiving a lot of international attention. Overall, we found that even though the scientists and their discoveries that textbooks are choosing to highlight are becoming more diverse, several groups of scientists including, women of color scientists are woefully under-represented in introductory college textbooks if we compare to the diversification of scientists in the field and especially when comparing to the demographic makeup of the target audience (US undergraduate biology majors).

link to the full article here

The Henning lab is looking for multiple directed studies students for the Fall of 2020 that are interested in aquatic and terrestrial invasive species monitoring projects, or any other ongoing lab projects. We are partnering up with Mobile Bay National Estuarine Program to help lead projects that help us monitor invasive apple snail populations in Langan Park and invasive plant species along the 3-mile creek watershed, including sites on campus.  Email Jeremiah if you are interested!

We are excited to have Polly Straughn joining the Henning Lab.  Polly is a marine sciences major and is going to be leading some work to characterize the biotic and abiotic properties that are shaping sea turtle nesting patterns and survival in a few of our coastal Alabama beaches in collaboration with Alabama Coastal Foundation and Share the Beach.  See the People page on more about Polly and all of us!

Tropical storm Cristobal aided our Marine Botany course by washing up many great specimens of macro algae for us to view under the scope, like this Sargassum sp. We are now in the home stretch of this course as we shift into understanding how global change is impacting current & future marine plant communities and learning how to calculate primary productivity!