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June 28, 2021

The Interfaces of Global Change IGEP awards four Ph.D. fellowships every academic year, each covering tuition and stipend. These graduate research assistantships are awarded based on the student’s professional credentials, the student’s level of engagement in the IGC IGEP, pertinence of the student’s research to global change, the interdisciplinary nature of the work, and the student’s plan for using the one-year fellowship.

Please join us in congratulating Chloe Moore, Luciana Alves Pereira, Meredith Semel, and Sara Teemer Richards – recipients of this year’s IGC Fellowships![/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]

Redundant or complementary? Identifying patterns of multifaceted anuran biodiversity in the United States

Chloe Moore

Department of Biological Sciences

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Meryl Mims

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”56364″ img_size=”500×500″ alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]“I am interested in disentangling the processes underlying patterns of biodiversity and identifying why species occur where they do to improve biodiversity conservation efforts. Many species’ habitats are under threat from global change, such as habitat loss, climate change, and invasive species. Through my research, I aim to inform local communities on the complexities of biological variation around them. To build species distribution models predicting where anuran (frog and toad) species occur, I use community science occurrence databases, such as iNaturalist. In Spring 2019, I was the herpetology leader for the Blacksburg City Nature Challenge, the local contribution to a global iNaturalist event. Using the Hidden Rivers event as inspiration, my plan is to further involve the Blacksburg community by facilitating an event combining community focused occurrence collection and discussions of how we can measure and conserve our local biodiversity.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Receiving this fellowship will allow Chloe to expand her interdisciplinary research by incorporating genetic data into her investigation of biodiversity. It will also aid her in planning the iNaturalist outreach event with the Blacksburg City Nature Challenge and VT Science Festival.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]

Movement, population structure, and growth of shovelnose catfishes Pseudoplatystoma in the Amazon Basin

Luciana Alves Pereira 

Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation

Faculty Mentors: Dr. Leandro Castello and Dr. Eric Hallerman

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]“My research is interdisciplinary and relates to global change as it integrates ecology, genetics, and conservation to help solve the problem of overexploitation and habitat degradation in the Amazon Basin. I am studying the migration of two Amazonian species of catfish, Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum, and P. tigrinum. These catfish are threatened by widespread illegal fishing and construction of hydropower dams that block their migratory movements. Despite these threats, their migrations have not been studied. I am addressing two questions: 1) What is the migration ecology of P. tigrinum and P. fasciatum and, 2) do P. tigrinum and P. fasciatum possess homing behavior? My research will thus produce knowledge needed to develop science-based policies to sustainably manage and conserve these catfish.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”56362″ img_size=”500×500″ alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The IGC fellowship will enable Luciana to more rapidly advance her research, coordinate field sampling of catfish in the Amazon, and build expertise and knowledge towards completing her thesis. She also plans to apply communication skills gained through the IGC to develop a workshop with the purpose of informing results from her research to key stakeholders, including the fishing community, government officials, and hydropower companies.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]

Conservation of wild lemurs: using poop, technology, community outreach, and entrepreneurial activities to conserve a critically endangered species

Meredith Semel

Department of Biological Sciences

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ignacio Moore

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”56363″ img_size=”1200×900″ alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]“My strong desire to work at the interface of science education and international conservation (specifically in Madagascar) drove me to attend graduate school at Virginia Tech and to engage with the IGC program. The IGC program has provided me with the science communication and policy skills needed to be successful. My graduate research investigates the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on lemur social behavior, movement, stress physiology, and conservation planning with a focus on the critically endangered golden-crowned sifaka (Propithecus tattersalli). To that end, I have completed four field seasons in the Loky-Manambato Protected Area of northern Madagascar, during which I collected over 2,000 fecal samples, 110 plant samples, and 4,000 hours of behavioral data from sifaka groups across their entire global range.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This fellowship will allow Meredith to complete three new collaborative projects directly related to her dissertation work: 1) understanding the structure of the golden-crowned sifaka gut microbiome, 2) designing specialty housings for novel lemur GPS collars, and 3) continued local outreach in Madagascar and initiation of new entrepreneurial activities.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]

Effects of temperature on behavior and disease transmission in house finches

Sara Teemer Richards

Department of Biological Sciences

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Dana Hawley

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]“Widespread transmission of infectious disease has the ability to bring the world to a devastating halt, and simple interactions between healthy and infected individuals can alter life for millions. Yet, we still know little about which behaviors influence infectious disease spread in non-human animals, and how those change with environmental factors. My work uses a contact tracing method–fluorescent powder that can be detected in trace amounts with a UV light–to reveal the links between environmental factors, behavior, and contact rates in a wildlife host system subject to outbreaks of a deadly infectious disease. House finches are a common songbird species in the United States that experience seasonal outbreaks of conjunctivitis caused by the bacterium Mycoplasma gallisepticum. However, little is known about the factors affecting transmission of this disease. Understanding the nuances of conjunctivitis transmission in finches can give insight to other diseases, especially when considered in the context of a rapidly changing world.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”45564″ img_size=”600×600″ alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The IGC Fellowship will provide Sara much needed financial and logistical support and will allow her to focus on interdisciplinary research and science communication efforts. Outside of the experiments and lab work, she looks forward to presenting her work at local and national conferences, as well as mentoring and training new undergraduate and graduate students joining the lab.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator style=”shadow”][vc_column_text]The Interfaces of Global Change (IGC) program is an innovative interdisciplinary graduate education program designed to address the multidimensional aspects of global change.  Funded by the Virginia Tech Graduate School with additional support from the Fralin Life Sciences Institute (FLSI), this program is one of several Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Programs (IGEPs). These programs address a variety of complex societal issues requiring interdisciplinary teams of scholars. Participants (Ph.D. Fellows) typically enter the program at the beginning of their graduate studies and continue to participate throughout their time at Virginia Tech.

The Interfaces of Global Change program is closely aligned with the Global Change Center, one of four campus-wide research centers housed within FLSI, which focuses on the social, economic, and environmental causes and consequences of rapid global change.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator style=”shadow”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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March 29, 2021

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IGC fellow Lauren Maynard, PhD candidate in Susan Whitehead’s lab, has received a NSF Non-Academic Research Internships for Graduate Students (INTERN) award to support an internship with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.  During the six-month internship, which begins this summer, she will work on a collaborative research project with senior scientist John Parker and participate in mentoring and outreach activities within the Smithsonian Institution.

As a scientist, Lauren is interested in plant-animal interactions and the chemical mechanisms that mediate them. Her dissertation research aims to understand the ecological consequences and functional roles of plant chemistry in multi-species interactions with both mutualists and antagonists. During her internship at SERC, she will focus on the interaction among plants, invertebrate herbivores, and vertebrate predators. When attacked by an insect herbivore, plants emit complex chemical cues—herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs). HIPVs are commonly used as foraging cues by invertebrate carnivores, and there is mixed evidence that they are used by birds. However, it is unknown if insectivorous bats use HIPVs as foraging cues. The primary objective of her project is to examine the ecological role of HIPVs in insectivorous bat and bird foraging.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”28246″ img_size=”large” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Lauren is excited for how this internship will position her to work at the interface between basic and applied science and to translate current advances in chemical ecology to agriculture and conservation. After completing her Ph.D., Lauren aims to work for a natural history museum in a position that combines research with outreach and extension. This NSF INTERN award and project with the Smithsonian Institute will bolster her career goals by providing experiences to work directly with agriculture, research and extension farms, as well as growers in the surrounding communities, and to hone her science communication skills.

Congrats, Lauren!![/vc_column_text][vc_separator style=”shadow”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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February 3, 2021

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IGC fellow Alaina Weinheimer has been selected as the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Young Ambassador to Virginia. Because Virginia Tech (VT) doesn’t have a formal microbiology department, Alaina was motivated to apply for this role to support her effort in creating opportunities to bring together grad students and researchers in the field. As ASM Young Ambassador to Virginia, she will serve as a point of communication between microbiologists here at VT and the surrounding area for events, materials, and other resources provided by ASM. She is also planning to revive the student chapter of ASM at VT to provide a communication outlet and foster collaboration between local microbiology grad students.

If you are interested to learn more about Alaina’s ASM initiatives, send her an email here.

Congrats on your leadership designation, Alaina!

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