J just finished up teaching Marine Botany at the sea lab. The first time back in-person in over a year, it was great to get out in the field with students and get some hands-on learning with students that were excited to be working at the sea lab! 

Nutrient addition consistently increases pathogen abundance and reduces arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in grasslands globally. Recent work by Ylva Lekberg, Carlos Arnillas, and others came out in Nature Communications this week! Click here to read the full article.

Incoming SGA Secretary and Henning lab member Maggie Braun was highlighted on the Biology Department website! See the article here! 

Maggie will be joining a STEM-packed Student Government for the 2021-2022 academic year with Henning lab researcher Grace Sekaya as the President!

Watched four amazing undergrads walk across the stage today and graduate!!  The FUNGGii lab is losing 4 fantastic students, however we are super excited to see what comes next!! Carolien is heading to Wake Forest to start a MS in sustainability, Emma is heading to San Diego to work with sea lions, Leslie & Chelsea are finishing a couple of courses at the Sea Lab and then venturing beyond!!

New Paper out today in Ecosphere! Check out this paper lead by Case Prager on some work out of Rocky Mountain Biology Laboratory!

This week, J was awarded the 2021 Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence award. More coming soon, but J appreciates all the students, peers that nominate him, and the administration for providing him the award!!  

Knoxville artist Shannon Herron designed our new logo! stickers and other merchandise coming soon!

Angela was 1 of 3 panelists to participate in the University of Minnesota's Petri Dish series to address systemic racism in science. Angela was incredible, as were the other 2 panelists (Stefanie Marshall and Hillary Barron) and moderated by the incredible Mohamed Yakub! The Petri dish is co-sponsored by the College of Biological Sciences and the Bell Museum! 

If you missed it, the video can be found right here! 

After a delayed start to the experiment because of COVID-19 field work restrictions, then hurricane Sally & Zeta knocking out access to the west end of Dauphin Island, J, Leslie, & Chelsea were finally able to get out to layout the DRAGNet sites and install seed rain carpets!  This long-term experiment will test how nutrient addition & disturbance impacts secondary succession of coastal dune ecosystems, and is part of the larger multisite experiment.

J gave the Biology departmental seminar at South this afternoon on some of the Education research the lab is currently conducting and a little bit of our future plans!  Check out the seminar here