Chris passes his general exam!
May 2023Chris passed his general exam with flying colors and as of yesterday is officially a PhD candidate! He presented his dissertation proposal on investigating the structure and stability of mutualistic networks using computational models and simulations alongside empirical data and answered questions from his committee. Great Job, Chris!
Matt Smith visits UW
May 2023The Brosi Lab was very excited to host Dr. Matt Smith at UW this week! Matt is currently a postdoc in the Crall Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He gave a fascinating talk discussing his research on individuality in insect behavior across individual, social, and environmental scales. He also assisted with the setup of our own “AutoPolls” units (automated pollinator camera systems) which we plan to implement in the field this season. It was great having him!
Kaysee gets the PRFB!
March 2023A huge congratulations to Kaysee for receiving an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (PRFB)!! Kaysee will be working with Dr. Shalene Jha at the University of Texas, and will be using this fellowship to study the environmental and biological drivers of pollinator niche dynamics. Amazing work, Kaysee!
New Paper from Therese!
February 2023Congratulations to Therese for her new paper “Rewilding in Southeast Asia: Singapore as a Case Study” out now in Conservation Science & Practice. Her paper combined camera trap data, modeling, and the input of local wildlife experts to describe the recolonization of native Singapore herbivores and consider rewilding as a method to restore biodiversity. Read the full paper here!
PCC grant and Cascades Fieldwork
February 2023Congratulations to Madeleine and Berry for receiving the UW Program on Climate Change (PCC) Climate Science Research Acceleration Grant! Their project titled “Experimentally induced timing mismatches in multi-species pollination systems” will investigate the systems-level impacts of timing mismatches between plants and pollinators, advancing our understanding of phenological mismatches at the community and species-interaction-network levels. This summer, Madeleine will be looking for potential sites and collecting preliminary data in the Cascade Mountains so that we can conduct manipulation experiments next Spring. We are very excited to be conducting more fieldwork in Washington!
New undergraduates in the lab this quarter
January 2023We are very excited to welcome three new undergrad students to the Brosi lab this winter: Emma Wells, Mahika Rao, and Dylan Strauss! This quarter they will learn how to process insect specimens, focusing on pinning, sorting, and IDing pollinators for our Quantitative Nestedness project. Welcome to the Brosi lab!
New Paper from Annie S!
January 2023Congratulations to Annie Schiffer (as well as Loy, Connor, and Berry) for recently publishing a paper in the American Journal of Botany! Their paper titled “Differences in individual flowering time change pollen limitation and seed set in three montane wildflowers” used snowmelt acceleration treatments to examine the relationship between individual phenology and fecundity of three plant species. Read the full paper here!
Connor and Donna successfully defend their dissertations!!
May 2022Huge congrats to Dr. Connor Morozumi and Dr. Donna McDermott for defending their dissertations this week! The Brosi Lab reunited in Atlanta for their defenses (both on the same day, in a “defense double header”). Connor and Donna both had amazing presentations! Connor’s dissertation focused on how plant-pollinator networks respond to perturbation, and Donna’s focused on ecology teaching assessments and social cues in bee foraging. After completing their PhDs, Connor will start a postdoc at University of Louisville and Donna will start in a faculty position in the Emory Writing Center. Well done, and we’re very proud of you both!
Incoming PhD student Annie Colgan visits UW
April 2022We’re happy to announce that we have a new PhD student starting this fall: Annie Colgan! Annie is currently a student contractor for the USGS Rocky Mountain Science Center and is interested in ecological communities and global change. She is visiting UW and our lab this weekend to meet everyone in person and check out the UW campus and Seattle neighborhoods. We can’t wait for her to join us in the fall!
Brosi Lab featured in UW and Emory news
March 2022Laura’s work on antibiotics in agriculture and bee foraging was highlighted in the UW News and Emory News last week! In the articles, Berry and Laura talked about their recent paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B which found that exposure to streptomycin reduces bumblebee learning and foraging. Laura conducted this study in the lab and will test it in the field this spring in eastern Washington. We are very excited about this work and that it was highlighted in the UW and Emory news.
Recent papers from the Brosi Lab
February 2022Several lab members have recently published papers or have papers coming out soon! Loy and Berry have a new review paper in press in Ecology: “The effects of pollinator diversity on pollination function”. In their paper, they propose a new framework for diversity-function relationships, including two mechanisms in pollination systems. Loy and Berry also contributed to a recent paper in Conservation Biology, “Conserving alpha and beta diversity in wood-production landscapes,” about changes in biological communities after different types of biomass harvest. Laura, Berry, David Hofmann (in the Emory Physics Department), and Emory undergraduate Libby Dunne have a new paper out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: “Upper-limit agricultural dietary exposure to streptomycin in the lab reduces learning and foraging in bumble bees.” Their study explored how agricultural antibiotics impacted bee learning, foraging, and stimulus avoidance. Laura will compare the results of this lab study to those in a field study this spring (see our post on Laura’s USDA NIFA grant).
First RMBL 2022 planning meeting
January 2022The lab just had our first planning meeting for the 2022 RMBL season! We’re so excited to start thinking about our team and projects for this year. We will continue collecting data for our quantitative nestedness project, Kaysee’s spatial gradients project, and our snowmelt acceleration project (fingers crossed that Colorado has enough snow). We’ll also have some new pilot projects in the mix (more to come on that later!). Over the next few months, the lab will finalize the team members, travel details, and specific protocols, but we look forward to a full field season with 6-8 people at RMBL between May and August. We can’t wait to get back out there!
Laura receives USDA-NIFA grant!
January 2022Congratulations to Laura for receiving an Agricultural and Food Research Initiative New Investigator Seed Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture! This year the program awarded 10 grants to support research to sustain healthy pollinator populations in agricultural settings and address the issue of pollinator declines. With this award, Laura will study the effects of broadcast-spray agricultural antibiotics on bee microbiome and foraging behavior. She will carry out lab experiments at Emory University and fieldwork at pear orchards in Washington State. This is also Laura’s first large grant as PI. Great job, Laura!
Professor Elli Theobald joins lab meeting to discuss undergrad research
December 2021Teaching professor Elli Theobald joined our final lab meeting of the fall quarter to discuss how to support undergraduate students in research. Elli has thought a lot about course-based research experiences and strategies to make science education more equitable. We had a great discussion and she had many very insightful suggestions for everything from recruitment to day-to-day mentorship. We look forward to the winter quarter, when we can implement some of these practices, and we hope that Elli can join our lab meetings again in the future!
Goodbye to Manogya
November 2021We’re very sorry to see Manogya leave us this week, but we wish her well on her last semester at Northeastern University. Manogya started her co-op with us in late May and was a crucial member of the RMBL field season, as well as an amazing research assistant in the lab. We will miss her infectious positive energy and her incredible work ethic. After she returns to Northeastern, she will continue working on her independent project on the effect of temperature on niche breadth using pollen metabarcoding. We are looking forward to her conference presentation in the spring. Thanks for being a wonderful lab mate, and we all can’t wait to see where you go next!
