Alumni NewsletterEcology and Evolutionary Biology Vol. 13

Fall 2015

Tulane University • School of Science and Engineering • New Orleans, La.

2014-15 Highlights

GRAPHIC BY JACK LESLIE

EEB and Cell & Molec-ular Biology teamed up to establish a new Molecular Teaching Lab in Stern Hall to be shared between the two departments. Con-struction completed just in time for Dr. Tim McLean’s class, “Molecular Evolution & Ecology,” which is new this fall.

Congratulations to Dr. Jordan Karubian and Dr. Caz Taylor for being promoted to Associate Professor!

Congratulations to Dr. Bruce Fleury and Dr. Donata Henry for being pro-moted to Senior Professor of the Practice!

Several EEB students received accolades from institutions outside of Tu-lane: PhD students Liz Kimbrough and Zoe Diaz-Martin were both awarded prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships; Environmental Science major Gina Zwicky was awarded the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship.

Dr. Hank Bart and for-mer postdoc, current EEB instructor Dr. Mike Doosey played a vital

role in the identification of the ultra-rare pocket shark. This is the sec-ond specimen ever discovered and will be permanently housed in the Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection. Read about the pocket shark inside.

The inaugural Koch-Richardson Fellow in Plant Ecology and Evolution, Dr. John Schenk, has completed his appointment at Tulane and went on to accept a position as Assistant Professor of Plant Biology at Geor-gia Southern University. Good luck, John!

EEB had an unprecedented 8 graduate students successfully de-fend their PhD dissertations over the last year. While we’re sorry to see these folks go, we know that they’ll go on to great things. Congratulations to Dr. Erick Gagne, Dr. Greg Glotzbecker, Dr. Travis Haas, Dr. Jessica Henkel, Dr. Andrew Laughlin, Dr. Ashley Peele, Dr. Deborah Visco and Dr. Justin Yeager!

Dauphin Island, ALAnchorage AKFayetteville, ARGrand Canyon, AZPoint Reyes St. Park, CASan Diego, CASan Francisco, CAEstes Park, CO

AROUND THE UNITED STATES

AROUND THE WORLDBrisbane, AustraliaManaus, BrazilQuebec City, CanadaToronto, CanadaArmenia, ColombiaSarapiqui, Costa RicaCopenhagen, DenmarkBilsa, EcuadorNanegalito, EcuadorLethem, GuyanaJamaicaKenyaBarro Colorado, PanamaGamboa, PanamaPapua New GuineaStockholm, Sweden

Fort Collins, COWashington, DCPalm Beach, FLSt. Augustine, FLSavannah, GAOahu, HIChicago, ILMaine

Baltimore, MDBoston, MAStarkville, MSShip Island, MSOmaha, NEStony Brook, NYNew York City, NYCape Hatteras, NC

Waynesville, OHOklahoma City, OKNorman, OKPortland, ORCharleston, SCAustin, TXHouston, TXVermont

Abita FlatwoodsBarataria BayBaton RougeBay JimmyBreaux BridgeCocodrieGrand IsleHoney Island SwampIsles DernieresLafourche ParishVeniceBig Branch NWRJean LafitteCane BayouBonnet Carre Spillway

A Studio in the WoodsAudubon AquariumAudubon ZooAudubon InsectariumBayou Sauvage NWRCity ParkDillard UniversityGentillyLakeviewLower Ninth WardNew Orleans EastSt. Louis Cemetery #3University of N.O.Xavier University

AND NEW ORLEANS

AROUND LOUISIANA...

2015 Faculty & Student TravelogueHere’s where we’ve been over the last year...

What’s that Photo? Undergraduate EEB major Sam Dellheim snapped this photo of a nest of killdeer eggs during a field trip with Dr. Donata Henry’s Natural History of Louisiana class this spring.

Brisbane, Australia

Abita Flatwoods, Louisiana

The Gerald e. GunninG MeMorial awardTwo recipienTsErik Nelson Kortadler Iverson Erik had a high GPA and he demonstrat-ed dedication to scholarship and had an enthusiasm for hands-on research, which he conducted in South America, Africa and Australia.Eric Thomas Fagan In addition to maintaining a high GPA, Eric completed an ambitious Honors Thesis examining ten years of data from an avian com-munity in Honey Island Swamp, La.

The sTuarT BaMforTh prizeTwo recipienTsDaniel Joseph Coleman For outstanding achievement in environmental studies. Carolyn Nicole Blank For outstanding achievement in environmental studies.

GraduaTe

underGraduaTe

The EEB Department is proud to announce the winners of two new awards devised by the EEB Faculty to support exceptional graduate stu-dents.

One-Term FellowshipEEB One-Term Fellowships are intended to

speed the process of completing the disserta-tion. Except in unusual cases, they are awarded to students who are at the final analysis and writ-ing stage. The aim of the fellowship is to permit candidates to work full-time on the final stages of their dissertations. Andrew Laughlin was awarded a fellowship in Spring 2015. He graduated in May.

Graduate GrantThis competitive grant program was estab-

lished for Thesis Masters and PhD Students. These awards are intended to help advance or en-hance completion of dissertation or thesis re-search. The number and amount of awards may vary each year, depending on available fund-ing and the number and quality of proposals re-ceived. Six awards were made in 2015 to Luke Browne, Sara Lipshutz, Anna Peterson, Julia Sonn, Peter Tellez and Yusan Yang.

New Department Grad Awards EstablishedBy EEB Staff

2 0 1 5 deparTMenT awards

The fred r. caGle MeMorial prizeHannah Megan Strobel Awarded for outstanding achievement in ecology and evolutionary biology, Hannah developed expertise in the techniques for investigating the molecular genetics of the three-spine stickleback fish in Alaska.

The senior scholars awardfor ecoloGy & evoluTionary BioloGyHannah Megan Strobel Awarded for her high GPA and her out-standing Honors Thesis: “Comparative Population Genetics of Threes-pine Stickleback (Gatserosteus Aculeatus) Fish Hosts and the Cestode Parasite Schistocephalus Solidus.”

The senior scholars awardfor environMenTal BioloGyDaniel Joseph Coleman Awarded for his high GPA and his in-sightful Honors Thesis entitled “The Hardness of Blue Crab (Callinectes Sapidus) in Response to Ocean Acidification.”

The newcoMB zooloGy prizeAmie Elizabeth Settlekowski Awarded for her outstanding achieve-ments in her courses and her Honors Thesis, “Rapid Speciation in the Late Mio-cene Marked the Evolutionary History of Lipaugus and Tijuca (Cotingidae).”

The phi BeTa phi awardNicole Marie Moody Given to a junior or senior for best research paper in the sciences, voted on by faculty of several SSE departments. She had papers in both Neuroscience and EEB.

TeachinG assisTanT awardlower-level classesJulia M. Sonn Julia was outstanding as a Teaching Assistant for the Diversity of Life laboratories.

TeachinG assisTanT awardupper-level classesSamantha M. Lantz Samantha was outstanding as a Teaching Assistant for the General Ecology and Ornithology laboratories.

GeorGe henry penn awardAndrew James Laughlin For doctoral students who have completed a Ph.D. and have demonstrated outstanding graduate research.

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Dr. Bruce Fleury has announced that he will be retiring at the end of the 2015-2016 academic year. Dr. Fleury has been a stalwart sup-porter of EEB and its mission through many years of change. He is a favorite among students for his down-to-earth and humorous ap-proach to lecturing. He has taught over 10,000 students at Tulane in some of the most popular EEB classes such as History of Life, Global Environmental Change and Ornithology. He has pursued his teach-ing conscientiously, with great enthusiasm and dedication. Bruce will be missed by EEB faculty, staff and students alike.

Events honoring his career will be announced later in the aca-demic year.

Dr. Bruce Fleury Announces Plans

to Retire at the End of

Spring 2016

Orleans County in the Northeast King-dom region of Vermont is beautifully rural, filled with hardwood forests and dairy farms. By contrast Orleans Parish is in a region of Louisiana known for cypress-lined bayous and crawfish farms. But the difference in climate and culture weren’t what shocked Dana Thomas most when she left home to attend Tulane in 1990, it was the region’s heavy industry. “I was struck by the vast dif-ference between environmental conditions in the New Orleans area versus northern Vermont.” She soon scrapped her plans for medical school in favor of pursuing a career in the field of environmental research.

As an undergrad at Tulane she studied under Dr. John Barber doing ecotoxicol-ogy and aquatic toxicology research using duckweed, Lemna gibba. After graduat-ing with a degree in Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, she was awarded a Board of Regents fellowship to continue her work in Dr. Barber’s lab as a grad student. She earned her PhD in Biology in 1998.

Dr. Thomas’s passion for water quality led her to the Environmental Protection Agency, where she has spent her entire career.

She started in New York City as the Nu-trient Criteria Coordinator for Region 2. She oversaw efforts by New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Is-lands to develop and adopt numeric lim-its for water quality standards of nitrogen and phosphorus, which would protect their water sources from eutrophication.

She also worked on evaluating popula-tion level impacts of fish from the effects of power plant cooling water intake struc-tures. In 2001, she accepted a detail as-signment in Washington, D.C. to work on the EPA’s national rule-making effort to establish standards for the best technology available to minimize the adverse envi-ronmental impact of cooling water intake structures. “I was the senior biologist on the phase of the rule that covered large exist-ing power plants,” Dr. Thomas explained.

Once the rule went final, she moved on to the water quality standards program, where she worked on efforts to address the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

EEB Degrees Lead to Career at EPABy EEB Staff

She also consulted with states on their wa-ter quality standards in accordance with the Endangered Species Act.

In 2009, she was promoted to Branch Chief of the Ecological and Health Pro-cesses Branch within EPA’s Office of Water. Dr. Thomas and her staff of ten scientists work on biocriteria, which are measures that states and tribes use to evaluate the biological condition of their waters using surveys of the structure and function of the communities of resident biota, such as fish, benthic macroinvertebrates, periphyton.

And 10 years after starting her career at the EPA she’s also back to working on nu-meric nutrient criteria, this time overseeing the national program coordinating efforts across all 10 EPA regions.

While her career has kept her plenty busy, Dr. Thomas still has time to visit her alma ma-ter. This past fall while in town for her 20th undergraduate reunion, she stopped by the EEB office. “It was really nice to see folks and the new space in the Boggs building, al-though I do miss the space in Dinwiddie Hall!”

She is also still in contact with her old ad-visor Dr. Barber who lives near her parents in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Dr. Dana Thomas visiting the idyllic Brady Lake, Colorado.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DR. DANA THOMAS

This summer, undergraduates Gina Zwicky and Hannah Wilson joined PhD candidate Sara Lipshutz of Dr. Derryberry’s lab as well as Panamanian undergraduate Pablo Gutierrez in a journey across Panama to study the hybrid zone between North-ern and Wattled Jacanas. These tropical shorebirds have an exceptional mating system known as polyandry, in which fe-males defend territories containing mul-tiple mates and males exclusively perform parental care. Team Jacana designed assays to mea-

sure aggression in populations of jaca-nas within and outside the hybrid zone. Behavioral experiments involved the use of mobile taxidermic mounts controlled manually from behind a camouflage blind. Each trial utilized conspecific vocaliza-tions, many of which were recorded by Gina Zwicky. Gina’s independent project compared vocalizations of both species as well as across sexes. Hannah Wilson con-ducted vegetation plot surveys to charac-terize the habitats of both species. When they weren’t sweating, swatting

mosquitos, hopping fences, or wading knee-deep in manure, Team Jacana took time to hike to a waterfall, watch sunsets on the beach, eat patacones, and birdwatch.

The Jacana ChroniclesBy Sara Lipshutz

Team Jacana in Panama are, from left to right, Gina Zwicky, Sara Lipshutz, Pablo Gutierrez and Hannah Wilson.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TEAM JACANA

Backyard Research: Studying the Louisiana Brown PelicanBy EEB Staff

A Brown pelican nesting on Rac-coon Island, Louisiana.

PHOTO BY BROCK GEARY

The brown pelican is a symbol of state pride for Louisianians. But it’s also a vital part of the Gulf Coast ecosystem. Ph.D. student Brock Geary in Dr. Jordan Karubian’s lab is working on several research efforts related to the brown pelican, its ecology and the impact of threats to its habitat. Geary’s work takes place on Raccoon Island, which hosts the largest pelican colony in the re-gion, and is a major target of barrier island restora-tion efforts. Here’s a snapshot of some of the things that Geary and Dr. Karubian are looking into.

•They’re using GPS telemetry to investigate the for-aging ecology of brown pelicans.•Colony-wide nest success surveys are being con-ducted to monitor long-term productivity.

•They are investigating potential relationships be-tween pelicans, Gulf hypoxia and menhaden fisheries.•Fire ant densities on the colony are documented to watch for effects on seabird nesting.•They’re in the process of completing a genetic assessment of brown pelicans across the northern Gulf, and seeing how gene flow might have been impacted by the 2010 BP oil spill.With the support of institutions such the Louisiana

Sea Grant and Tulane’s Newcomb Institute, they have been able to fund research experiences for undergraduates who share their passion, and they happily accept volunteers who want to do help out and experience a unique part of the Gulf coast first-hand. Geary says: “I’m always excited to talk to oth-ers who are interested in pelicans!”

Some of the rarest and most mysterious sharks are very small, and live in such deep water that sunlight barely reaches them. One such fish is the pocket shark (Mol-lisquama parini), which is so rare that the only known specimen was captured off the coast of Peru in 1979.

That is until recently, when researchers at the Tulane University Biodiversity Re-search Institute (TUBRI) helped identify a second specimen.

It all started in 2010 when scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) trawled the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana as part of a sperm whale feeding study. The speci-mens collected were stored en masse in a freezer at NOAA’s facility in Pascagoula Mississippi for later examination. In 2013, NOAA scientist Mark Grace began sifting through the specimens and came across a fish that he couldn’t identify.

He contacted Dr. Hank Bart, EEB Profes-sor and TUBRI Director, for help. TUBRI op-erates the Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection, the second-largest of its kind in the US, making it a great resource for species and genus identification.

“Mark suspected that it was related to the cookie-cutter shark,” Dr. Bart recalled of their initial meeting. The cookie-cutter shark is a similarly small, dark, cylindrical fish that while rare, is more well-known and better understood.

Dr. Bart tapped his a former PhD student and postdoc – and a current EEB visiting instructor – Dr. Mike Doosey to assist in the investigation. “It was really difficult to ID because it was not listed in any referenc-es as occurring in the Gulf of Mexico and none of us had ever seen a pocket shark,” said Dr. Doosey.

Dr. Bart explained that the process of identification involved “finding charac-

Tulane Researchers Help ID Super-rare ‘Pocket Shark’

Tulane researchers Dr. Hank Bart and Dr. Mike Doosey were instrumental in helping to identify the second ever discovered specimen of the pocket shark (Mol-lisquama parini).

By EEB Staff

TOP PHOTO BY DR. MIKE DOOSEY; BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF NOAA

teristics that suggested something about how the shark related to other sharks, and then finding characteristics that identified how it differed from other known sharks. It was in this last stage that Mike and Mark discovered that the Gulf specimen has pockets like the pocket shark caught off the coast of Peru.”

Like the cookie-cutter shark, the pocket shark is a member of the kitefin shark family. But unlike its relatives, it’s the only shark to have the two epony-mous pockets located behind its front fins. While these tiny pockets were key in identifying the shark, the reason for their existence is unknown.

“There are rare animals around the world, but this is un-usual because of how bizarre this shark is and the unusual aspects of its anatomy,” Dr. Doosey told the New Orleans Times-Picayune earlier this year.

Another aspect of the dis-covery that is of note to scien-tists is that the Gulf specimen is believed to be a baby due to its small size and has an um-bilical scar. This indicates that it was born in the Gulf and that others could be out there. Dr. Bart admitted that while the task won’t be easy, “there are plans to look for additional specimens early next year.”

After a 6 month tour of the United States, including stops at the Smithsonian Institute in D.C., and the American Mu-seum of Natural History in New York, the pocket shark speci-men has returned to Louisi-ana to become the newest

member of the Suttkus Fish Collection. Re-searchers at TUBRI as well as other scien-tists who utilize the Fish Collection will have ample opportunity to study the specimen and perhaps discover more about the rare fish and its mysterious pockets.

Their findings were published in the April 22, 2015 edition of the journal Zootaxa.

The Derryberry lab was busy in San Francisco this year! Graduate student Jenny Phillips and her team began by finding and monitoring white-crowned sparrow nests to bring back to Tu-lane’s vivarium. “These birds will help us start to answer several questions about how urban noise affects song learning and preference,” Phillips explained. She then returned to the field after nest searching to perform playback experiments investigating whether a loss of bandwidth in urban song has functional consequences. “I ran over 165 playback trials, and found that song bandwidth is a salient feature for territorial males. I also tested the combined effect of trill rate and bandwidth, known as vocal performance, and found that vocal performance is an important feature on both noisy and quiet territories.”

By Jenny Phillips

Some say that the sciences and fine arts are about as different as oil and water. But this year, members of the EEB community have participated in a unique program called Flint and Steel, which partners an artist with a Tulane faculty member to fos-ter a cross-disciplinary collaborative en-deavor.

Flint and Steel was organized by Tu-lane’s A Studio in the Woods, an isolated retreat where artists go to gain inspiration from the natural beauty of the Mississippi River bottomland hardwood forest.

Associate Professor Dr. Jordan Karubian and Postdoc/Adjunct Assistant Professor Dr. Renata Ribeiro were thrilled to col-laborate with an artist to bring to life their research on how soil lead-levels in New Orleans affect mockingbird song cogni-tion. “We saw this as an effective way to communicate to the general public about an important environmental issue and our research on it,” Dr. Karubian explains.

Dr. Karubian is quick to add, “We also thought it would be fun to collaborate with an artist!” They were paired up with Jessica Levine, a self-described environmental art-ist who works “to connect people to nature and each other through the arts.”

The West Virginia native specializes in site-specific collaborative works that draw inspiration from the environment as well as advocate for its conservation and protec-tion. For this project she conceptualized an interactive mixed-media installation

At the Intersection of Arts & SciencesBy EEB Staff

TOP PHOTO BY CAMMIE HILL-PREWITT

Tulane undergraduate Dylan Taillie, top, learned about mockingbirds by interacting with an art exhibit co-created by visiting artist Jessica Levine, bottom.

BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF JESSICA LEVINE

Top, a composite of aquatic microbes captured via microscope by Dr. McLean. Bottom, a drawing of penate diatom by Pippen Frisbie-Calder.

First, two of my students defended their dissertations this Spring (2015): Dr. Deborah Visco Abibou (her new married name – congratulations Deb!) published twice in Biological Conservation (one co-authored by Bryan Sigel, PhD 2007, and Stefan Woltmann, PhD 2010); and Dr. Ashley Peele just published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, and accepted a position as Research Faculty, Conserva-tion Management Institute, Virginia Tech. Dr. Nathan Cooper (PhD 2014) is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithson-ian’s Migratory Bird Center, working on endangered Kirtland’s Warbler in Michi-gan—and published a paper this sum-mer in Ecology. Cody Kent is beginning his PhD in the lab, and will be working on American redstarts wintering in Jamaica, focusing on causes and population con-sequences of non-territorial individuals. Donata Henry (PhD 2004, and newly pro-moted Senior Professor of the Practice in EE Biology!) published a book chapter this summer; and Nicole Michel (PhD 2013), a postdoc with Canadian Wildlife Service, Saskatoon, has authored or co-authored two recent papers from Tulane work.

I organized and ran a symposium this summer on “The ecological value of mi-grant birds in the Caribbean”, part of the Birds Caribbean conference in Kingston, Jamaica. While there, I was able to ren-dezvous with former students Leo Doug-las (Kingston, New York City) and Mat-thew Johnson (PhD 1999), who is now at Humboldt St. University and who was a plenary speaker at this conference!

When not traveling or teaching, I mostly edit students’ and colleagues’ manuscripts and facilitate research by others in the lab, although I did first-au-thor one paper in 2015 (J. Avian Biology), with several more in the works.

I’m also attempting to solve a long-standing problem about how diffuse competition among species influences species-rich tropical communities (in collaboration with Susannah Halbrook, Tulane 2015, Nathalie Sanchez of Costa Rica, Cagan Sekercioglu of University of Utah and Liz Derryberry in EE Biology at Tulane, among others).

Finally, I advise “Divest Tulane,” one concrete way to address climate change and its threat to Tulane, New Orleans, and the planet.

Sherry Lab UpdateBy Dr. Tom Sherry

to showcase the beauty of the mocking-bird as an animal as well as to teach New Orleanians how lead could threaten the birds’ mating. Dr. Karubian and Dr. Ribeiro participated by helping her create the interactive features, and they were also stationed at the booth for events, such as the New Orleans Farmers’ Market, to talk about their research.

Education is also important to Professor of the Practice Dr. Tim McLean, who as a marine microbiologist works with speci-mens that are perhaps less well-known to the general public. He was eager to par-ticipate when artist Pippen Frisbie-Calder, a visual artist based in New Orleans, ap-proached him. “I’ve never had someone come up to me and say ‘I’m really inter-ested in phytoplankton’ that was not a fellow colleague or scientist,” said Dr. McLean.

Frisbie-Calder has built a career docu-menting the beauty of the flora and fauna of the Louisiana wetlands as a way to pro-mote local environmental conservation and restoration efforts. Her collaboration with Dr. McLean allowed her the opportu-nity to learn about organisms that are also important to the vitality of the marsh eco-system, but which are not visible to the na-ked eye, and therefore not as well-known.

The two collected water samples just south of the city and then went back to Tulane to investigate. “We put it under the microscope, observe and identify what we have, and see if there are things Pip-pin can represent in one form or another,” Dr. McLean explains. Frisbie-Calder was inspired by the otherworldliness of the mi-crobes and captured their exotic beauty

in intricate woodcarvings, sculptures and drawings.

The duo hope that the artwork, as well as the story of their collaboration, bring to light the importance and beauty of the tiny organisms that make up a large and vital portion of the wetlands ecosystem.

The EEB Flint & Steel collaborations dem-onstrate that bringing together people from different disciplines can result in something beautiful, beneficial and en-tirely unique.

Hank Bart Professor, Director of the Tulane University Biodiversity

Research Institute

Mike BlumAssociate Professor, Director of the Tulane/Xavier

Center for Bioenvironmental Research

Steven P. DarwinProfessor, Director of the Tulane Herbarium

Elizabeth DerryberryAssistant Professor

Bruce Fleury Senior Professor of the Practice

David C. HeinsProfessor, Department Chair

Donata HenrySenior Professor of the Practice

Jordan KarubianAssociate Professor

Tim McLeanProfessor of the Practice

Thomas W. SherryProfessor

Caz TaylorAssociate Professor

Sunshine Van BaelAssistant Professor

Tulane University6823 St. Charles AvenueLindy Boggs Bldg., Ste. 400New Orleans, La. 70118Tel. (504) 862-5191 Fax (504) 862-8706

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John “Jack” LeslieOperations Manager

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Donating directly to EEB helps fund the programs that are vital to the educational experiences for our under-graduate and graduate students.

In 2007, the EEB General Endowed Fund was estab-lished with an initial generous gift from Katherine S. Griffin (BA, 1925). You can help grow this endowed fund, which supports a variety of programs, including the Undergraduate Fellows, by making an unrestricted gift to EEB. Simply make the check out to Tulane University and write “EEB General Endowed Fund, #050195” in the memo line.

Or donate online! For details, visit http://tulane.edu/sse/eebio/giving

Thanks for your support!

Department of Ecology & Evolutionary BiologyTulane University400 Lindy BoggsNew Orleans, LA 70118-5698

DONATE DIRECTLY TO EEB FACULTY DIRECTORY

You are also welcome to make a restricted gift, which will be used in the specific way of your choosing. Please con-tact Dr. David Heins, Depart-ment Chair, to discuss restrict-ed gifts at (504) 865-5191.