September 2021: Check out these new papers from the lab out this month:
- Individual‐based networks reveal the highly skewed interactions of a frugivore mutualist with individual plants in a diverse community. **PDF**
- What structures diurnal visitation rates to flowering trees in an Afrotropical lowland rainforest understory? **PDF**
- Simplified communities of seed-dispersers limit the composition and flow of seeds in edge habitats. **PDF**
September 2021: Dr. Jadelys Tonos successfully defended her dissertation! Off to Berkeley for a post-doc!
August 2021: After being awarded Best EEB Research Talk this year, PhD Candidate, Jadelys Tonos, will give one of the keynote research talks at this year's Rice BioSciences Research Retreat.
August 2021: NSF GRFP fellow, Eric Wuesthoff arrives to start a PhD with our group! Welcome Eric!
July 2021: Check out our recently published work lead by lab alum, Dr. Therese Lamperty on ecological drivers of seed dispersal services for a hyperdominant palm tree! Link here.
April 2021: Recent PhD, Dr. Andrea Drager, received a Fulbright to study pollination ecology of non-timber forest products and links to food security in Cameroon! Congrats Andrea!
March 2021: Amy Dunham was invited to be a fellow and Research Committee Member of the Pan-African Scientific Research Council.
March 2021: Amy Dunham and co-authors' paper "Biodiversity and ecosystem services on the African continent – What is changing, and what are our options?" was just published in Environmental Development.
January 2021: Past PhD student group member, Dr. Onja Razafindratsima, started a position as assistant professor at Berkeley this month! So proud!
December 2020: PhD student, Jadelys Tonos won "Best Presentation" in our yearly EEB Graduate Student Symposium!
December 2020: Paper with Colin Chapman and collaborators, "Primates Can Be a Rallying Symbol to Promote Tropical Forest Restoration" is now published.
August 2020: Congratulations to Dr. Andrea Drager for successfully defending her PhD Dissertation about pollination of rare tropical trees in an African rainforest.
August 2020: Undergrad research alum, Anecia Gentles, starts a PhD program at UGA to study wildlife infectious disease biology! Arielle Liu starts PhD program in Anthropology at Arizona State U to study Lemurs!!
May 2020: Jordan Graves and Arielle Liu win Distinction in Research Awards! Arielle also wins a Huxley Award for Research Excellence for her work on ecological associations of dichromatism in primates.
March 2020: Jadelys Tonos is awarded a graduate Wagoner Fellowship for her dissertation work on lemur foraging networks in Madagascar!
February 2020: Undergraduate EEB majors, Arielle Liu, Kaela Wilbur, and Lillie Stockseth receive Wagoner Fellowships to conduct research on lemur movement behavior in Madagascar!
January 2020: Therese Lamperty successfully defended her dissertation about the ecological impacts of defaunation in tropical forests! Congratulations!
December 2019: Congrats to Therese on her new paper out in Biological Conservation about impacts of defaunation on vegetation and invertebrate communities.
November 2019: Amy Dunham, Lydia Beaudrot, and Allison Hunter were awarded an InterDisciplinary Excellence Award (IDEA) from the Creative Ventures Fund for their proposal “Imagining Biodiversity; Creative Collaborations Between Art and Science in Madagascar”
May 2019: Graduating senior Ella Matsuda receives a Distinction in Research Award and a Julian Huxley Award for Excellence for her work in Madagascar!
May 2019: Jadelys Tonos is an IBB Travel Award winner! Congrats!
April 2019: Ella Matsuda wins award for best poster at the Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium for her research in Madagascar!
March 2019: Amy Dunham and Lydia Beaudrot received Rice's Award for International Collaboration for their project "Enhancing Rice’s Strategic International Collaborations in Madagascar"
January 2019: Recent alumna, Anecia Gentles is off to Madagascar for a year to study infectious disease ecology in fruit bats with Cara Brook's group from Berkeley.
NEWS ARCHIVES (2018)
October 2018: Undergrad group member, Ilana Nyveen was nominated by Rice as a finalist for the Watson Fellowship. Good luck Ilana!
October 2018: Former group member, Jake Krauss '17 featured in Rice Magazine's alumni feature "20 under 30"
August 2018: It's finally online: IPBES Summary for policymakers of the regional assessment report on biodiversity ecosystem services for Africa
July 2018: New paper out on the role of frugivores in forest carbon storage .
July 2018: New paper out about primate seed dispersal and forest restoration.
June 2018: Anecia Gentles awarded ESA's Biogeosciences Travel Award to present her undergrad research at ESA meeting!
June 2018: Jadelys Tonos received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for her work on lemur foraging networks in Madagascar!! Congratulations!!
June 2018: Our paper linking rainfall variability to fruiting phenology in Madagascar's rainforest is now published! click here.
May 2018: Ella Matsuda is off to Madagascar's rainforest to start her senior research study on the effects of invasive plants on soil fauna and ecosystem processes!
May 2018: Recent graduate Ben Johnson is joining the research team in Ranomafana to study behavioral ecology of movement of Eulemur rubriventer (red bellied lemurs)
May 2018: Congratulations to undergrad group member, Lucrecia Aguilar, on her Distinction in Research Award, and her Clark P Reed Award for Excellence in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology for her research on the effects of logging on Jaguar habitat use in Belize!
May 2018: Group member, Laura Nicholson won best poster at the U of H Ecology and Evolution Symposium, for her work with grad student Andrea Drager on pollination networks of rainforest trees! Nice work!
April 2018: Grad student, Jade Tonos is off to Madagascar for her study of spatially explicit seed dispersal networks in Madagascar's rainforest.
April 2018: Our paper, "Consequences of lemur loss for above-ground carbon stocks in a Malagasy rain forest" was accepted! Student authors include Anecia Gentles (undergrad) and Andrea Drager (PhD student).
April 2018: Review paper with Colin Chapman, "Primate seed dispersal and forest restoration: An African perspective for a brighter future" accepted!
April 2018: Congratulations to Ella Matsuda and Jadelys Tonos for their Explorer Club Awards to support their research in Madagascar on invasive species and bat seed dispersal. Congratulations to Jadelys also for her Wagoner fellowship!
April 2018: Congratulations to Lucrecia Aguilar on winning Outstanding Natural Sciences Poster at Rice RURS for her work on Jaguar habitat use and logging.
March 2018: After 3 yrs of work, IPBES Africa's landmark biodiversity report and summary to policy makers is approved by >100 member nations! Amy was a coordinating lead-author on the reports. Lab alum, Onja Razafindratsima served as a Madagascar delegate and author. See NYTimes Article about the call to action.
March 2018: Lucrecia Aguilar is awarded the prestigious Watson Fellowship!! She will use it to explore big cat conservation and research programs around the world for a year.
March 2018: Our collaborating grad student in Madagascar, Zo Fenosoa was awarded a Rufford Grant to support her work on mistletoe seed dispersal in Madagascar!
February 2018: Hasinala Ramangason has joined our lab as a visiting graduate student from Université Claude Bernard Lyon (France). Hasinala is from Madagascar and will be collaborating with our research group for 5 months on a project exploring forest gap regeneration.
February 2018: Our paper is out! Edge effects on components of diversity and above-ground biomass in a tropical rainforest
February 2018: Congratulations to Therese Lamperty on her Edgar O’Rear and Mary Morse IBB Travel Award!
February 2018: Congratulations to Laura Nicholson, Ella Matsuda, Lucrecia Agulair, and Ben Johnson on their Wagoner fellowships supporting international research experience!
NEWS ARCHIVES (2017)
November 2017: Congrats to Rice EEB undergraduate lab member, Ilana Nyveen for winning best poster at the Texas Association of Biological Anthropology meeting!
October 2017: EBIO Conservation Biology students post news blogs about the latest research in conservation biology
September 2017: Tenure!
August 2017: Our PNAS paper is out! Seed dispersal increases local species richness and reduces spatial turnover of tropical tree seedlings
June 2017: Paper led by former group member, Onja Razafindratsima, was accepted by the Journal of Applied Ecology. It's about the impact of habitat edges on components of rainforest diversity and above ground biomass.
June 2017: Andrea Drager wins Joe Davies Prize for Outstanding Service as a Teaching Assistant!
June 2017: Jade Tonos was awarded the Peter Savvas Nelson Award for excellence in EEB!
May 2017: Congratulations to Jade Tonos on her Primate Conservation Inc grant!
April 2017: Therese Lamperty was awarded an ASN fellowship, an Explorers Club Award, and a Lewis and Clark Exploratory Fund fellowship to study impacts of defaunation in Peruvian rainforest! She also was awarded a student fellowship to attend the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation Meeting 2017 in July!
April 2017: Congrats to Laura Nicholson on her Spurlino Summer Research Fellowship !
April 2017: Congratulations to Ella Matsuda for her Garden Club of America Award, The Parish Fellowship, and the Owl Edge Summer Experience Fellowship to fund her research on seed dispersal in Madagascar this summer!
March 2017: Congrats to Jacob Krauss on his Best Presentation Award for the Catalyst Scientific Communication Symposium and his Distinction in Research Award
February 2017: Congrats to Jadelys Tonos on her Bat Conservation International research grant!
February 2017: Amy co-led an IPBES writeshop for African Regional Assessment Authors in Golden Gate National Park, South Africa.