Life Science Hour Seminar

Title:

Seriously? Is there anything we don't already know about wolves?

Abstract:

Gray wolves have been studied for decades both in Alaska and the lower 48 states. Several long-term studies and seminal works have laid a solid foundation from which biologists and the public alike now understand wolves and their roles in ecosystems. Wolves were reintroduced to Idaho and Yellowstone Park in 1995-1996. So what's left to know? Can we simply take lessons learned from more northerly wolf populations and apply them to Rocky Mountain populations in the states? I will highlight new discoveries we have made while studying Idaho's reintroduced wolves. Our findings add to a wealth of existing knowledge but also contribute to a broader understanding of how mortality (in the form of persistent annual harvest) affects behavior, reproduction, and group persistence in cooperative breeders.

About the Speaker:

David Ausband obtained his PhD from the University of Montana. He works for the U.S. Geological Survey as the Assistant Unit Leader at the Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit in Moscow, Idaho.

Life Science Hour Seminar

Title:

Physiological ecology of overwintering and cold-adapted arthropods

Abstract:

Arthropods are ubiquitous and plentiful in nearly all ecosystems across our world. They play major roles within the ecosystem, from decomposers to pollinators, from being a pest to controlling a pest. To understand how their tiny world can impact the ecosystem as a whole, we must have a solid understanding of how climate change, specifically temperature regime shifts, will alter their individual physiology and subsequent cascading impacts.

My work focuses on this collection of basic knowledge from a common arthropod, the wolf spider. The wolf spider is a top predator in many habitats, however, unlike other “wolves” this animal is very understudied. We know they play major roles in pest control, serving as biological control agents, altering both the green and brown food webs significantly. However, we don’t know much about their overwintering physiology, or how climate change will alter their ability to survive the winter season.

This is the core of my research, understanding how climate change will influence wolf spider overwintering physiology and ecology. Today I will be discussing the highlights of my PhD work, and my goals and objectives for the spiders and community of arthropods found here in Alaska.

About the Speaker:

I received my PhD in entomology from the University of Kentucky in 2020. I recently accepted a Centennial Post-doctoral Fellowship at UAF, working with Christa Mulder within the Institute of Arctic Biology.

Life Science Hour Seminar

Title:

Understanding environmental health through the lens of genomics

Abstract:

Temperatures in high-latitude regions are rising at twice the global average, inducing widespread changes to the biotic and abiotic environments that affect human health. Alaskan communities are at the center of large and rapid environmental changes occurring as a result of global change dynamics. Thawing permafrost is inducing rapid, large-scale shifts in ecosystems. The changing permafrost ecosystem can have direct effects on the associated soil microbial communities by altering both community composition and activity. In this presentation, I’ll share results from two of my lab’s Alaska based projects examining soil microbial communities using recently developed third generation sequencing methods. Soils have long been implicated as a reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes that can be transferred to human pathogens via horizontal gene transfer. We characterized the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes across a permafrost thaw disturbance gradient and found that antibiotic resistance was widespread. However, the types of antibiotic resistance genes clustered more strongly by bacterial taxa rather than permafrost thaw. This result emphasizes evolutionary origins of resistance and the role vertical gene transfer has in shaping the core resistome. A second research project helps build an understanding of how shifting microbial communities may affect ecosystem health. We used a combination of metagenomics and greenhouse studies to link changes in plant growth with changes in soil microbial communities. Looking outside of Alaska, my lab is using the lens of genomics to understand the evolution and spread of a globally important food borne pathogen, African Swine Fever Virus. I’ll share our latest results from this pathogenomics project based in Ukraine.

Life Science Hour Seminar

Title:

Combining long-term research with contemporary monitoring in wildlife management

Abstract:

The Starkey Experimental Forest and Range is a unique project that has combined long-term, multi-disciplinary research to answer a variety of forest, wildlife, and rangeland management questions. A 40 square mile ungulate proof fence, as well as interior ungulate exclosures, provide researchers a control to study the effects of herbivory and ungulate competition across large scales. Additionally, 30 years of telemetry data along with various habitat manipulations has offered opportunities to investigate the effects of rangeland and forest management on ungulate space use. Our current research includes questions on climate change impacts on forage conditions, carnivore space use, and hunter-ungulate interactions. Leveraging our long-term datasets with novel wildlife monitoring technologies greatly enhances the opportunities for research on large mammal behavior, reproduction, and conservation.

About the Speaker:

Casey Brown received her PhD in Biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She works for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as a Research Wildlife Biologist in La Grande, OR. She works in close collaboration with the Pacific Northwest Research Station at the Starkey Experimental Forest and Range.