Spring 2024
Leah Rensel
Program: Wildlife Biology
PI: Angie Luis
"Using Sin Nombre virus in deer mice to understand disease transmission."
Transmission of wildlife diseases is challenging to study due to the difficulty of tracking infected individuals. Sin Nombre Virus (SNV), a hantavirus endemic to deer mice, offers an ideal opportunity to both quantify and manipulate the rates of contact between individual animals to understand SNV transmission. I propose to use proximity loggers to track deer mice in semi-natural enclosures to quantify contact rates; I will also manipulate the enclosures’ density and species diversity to see how competion might influence contact rates. As rodents are common pathogen reservoirs, my research will be applicable to managing both SNV and other host-pathogen systems.
John Statz
Program: Cellular, Molecular, & Microbial Biology
PI: Brandon Cooper
"Causes, consequences, and regulation of Wolbachia tissue tropism across diverse Drosophila hosts."
Microbial endosymbiosis is widespread, profoundly impacting host and microbial biology at ecological and evolutoionary time scales. Vertically transmited Wolbachia bacteria, prevalent in half of all insect species, exhibit diverse tissue distribution and abundance. Litle is known about the regulation of Wolbachia tissue tropism, its function, and its evolution. Using diverse Drosophila-Wolbachia systems, this study aims to explore Wolbachia tissue tropism, hypothesizing its adaptive nature and differential regulation across reproductive and somatic tissues.
Cynthia Ulbing
Program: Ecology & Evolution
PI: Jeff Good
"The genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of phenological traits across seasonal environments."
My research focuses on the genetic evolution of seasonal adaptations in snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus). Using genomic, molecular, and environmental data, I am exploring local adaptation to winter habitat conditions. In my three dissertation aims, I combine laboratory methods, field work, bioinformatics, and environmental associations to determine the mutational and molecular basis of winter coat color and to understand the distribution of genomic variation across seasonally heterogeneous landscapes. This work helps to characterize the adaptive history and evolutionary potential of species facing rapid environmental shifts.