April 2004, Vol. 13, No. 4 | Return to Table of Contents


Science News

From the Bay Paul Center...

Jessica Mark Welch, a Postdoctoral Scientist in the Meselson Lab was a guest last month on the Bob Rivers Show on KZOK-FM, one of Seattle's top-rated radio stations. Mark Welch spoke about a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which she and her colleagues David Mark Welch and Matthew Meselson provided the strongest evidence to date that a higher-ranking taxon, the bdelloid rotifer, has evolved without sexual reproduction. Their results demonstrate a radical exception to the biological rule that abandonment of sexual reproduction is an evolutionary dead end. Stories on Mark Welch's research also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle as well as in several international newspapers.


From the Boston University Marine Program...

Jennifer L. Bowen, a Ph.D. candidate, has been awarded one of the highly competitive NSF postdoctoral fellowships, to start next year. Jen, who is presently working in Ivan Valiela's laboratory, will spend at least two years investigating the response of nitrogen fixing bacteria to increase nitrogen loads in salt marshes. This research will be conducted with guidance from Byron Crump at the University of Maryland, and John Hobbie at the Marine Biological Laboratory. The research will be part of an ongoing NSF-funded TIDES project directed by Linda Deegan of The Ecosystems Center at the Plum Island Sound LTER under the leadership of Chuck Hopkinson, also of The Ecosystems Center.

Vanessa Miller-Sims was awarded a highly competitive NSF graduate fellowship, which will support her work on coral reef fish recruitment in Jelle Atema's laboratory. Vanessa uses a diverse array of techniques and approaches in an attempt to understand how these very small animals negotiate the ocean environment. This includes electrophysiological studies on chemo and mechanoreceptors, behavioral studies on odor choice, and population genetic studies with adjunct professor Gabi Gerlach at the MBL.

Jennifer Culbertson, a Ph.D. student, was awarded a grant by the Sounds Conservancy to support research on bioaccumulation and biomagnification of mercury in salt marsh food webs. Her work will be done in the long-term salt marsh plots started by Ivan Valiela in 1970.

Sara Grady, a Ph.D. candidate, won support from the Sounds Conservancy for specific work on population surveys of horseshoe crabs in Barnstable Harbor and Stage Harbor. The overall research being conducted will investigate stage-structured matrix modeling of exploited horseshoe crab populations of Cape Cod. This work will be part of her dissertation on the population dynamics and management of horseshoe crabs, being done in Ivan Valiela's laboratory.

Nadine Lysiak, a Masters candidate, won support from the Sounds Conservancy for work on stable isotopes as indicators of right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) growth and productivity. Nadine is a member of Ivan Valiela's laboratory.

Catherine O’Keefe, a Masters candidate, won support from the Sounds Conservancy for work on the survivability of alewife embryos under varying environmental parameters. Cate is a member of the Lobel laboratory.

Elizabeth Neeley, a Ph.D. student, received a travel award from the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology for her work on the evolution of visual communication systems in neotropical reef fishes. Beth also received a teaching fellow award from Boston University for the academic year 2003-2004. The award is given to the teaching fellow who demonstrates the greatest skill, enthusiasm, and dedication to his or her teaching.


From Marine Resources...

Roxanna Smolowitz was invited to help develop the United States National Plan for Algal Toxins and Harmful Algal Blooms. A workshop was held March 21 - 25, in Charleston, South Carolina.

Publication

Goetz F. W., B. Norberg, L. A. McCauley, and D. B. Iliev. 2004. Characterization of the cod (Gadus morhua) steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) sheds light on StAR gene structure in fish.
Comp. Biochem. Physiol. B Biochem.
Mol. Biol. 137(3):351-62.


Other News…

Lionel Jaffe presented a poster at the Northeast Developmental Biology Meeting, held at the MBL on April 25. The poster was titled, "Marine plants
may polarize fucoid eggs via chemiluminescent signals."