Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal BiologyAlumni Newsletter - Fall 2015

ContentsBiospheres is published for the alumni, friends, and faculty of the Department Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Iowa State University, an aca-demic department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Agriculture and Life Sci-ences.

ChairJonathan Wendel

EditorsJacki Hayes

Barbara PleasantsJohn Pleasants

WritersRyan ArndorferDaniela Flores

Audrey McCombsRebecca PolichJoseph Veldman

Graphic DesignerJacki Hayes

Please send news about yourself and your family for future Biospheres to:

BiospheresIowa State University

Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology

Ames, IA 50011

Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. veteran. Inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies may be directed to Robinette Kel-ley, Director, Office of Equal Opportunity, Title IX/ADA Coor-dinator, and Affirmative Action Officer, 3350 Beardshear Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011, Tel. 515 294-7612, email eooffice@iastate.edu.

Department of diversity

Investingating local diversity

From the Chair

Investigating plant-insect interactions

Encouraging diversity in the sciences

Maintaining biodiversity with fire

The root of the matter

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A tool for understandign evolutionary patterns

EEOB students explore biodiversity of Costa Rica

Department news

From the field

Where are they now?

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From the Chair

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Greetings former Students, Friends, and Alumni! It is a pleasure to write to you again and provide you with a snapshot of our many on-going activities.

Summer, as many of you know and recall, is lovely and peaceful in Ames. We are all enjoying the more relaxed pace of our work, although the hallways of

Bessey remain busy with our myriad research activi-ties, student projects, and a limited teaching sched-ule. Many of our faculty, staff, and students are out in the field, around North America and across the globe, conducting the essential fieldwork that is a key component of our broad portfolio of interdisciplinary work in ecology and evolutionary biology.

In this issue of Biospheres, we draw attention to this diversity of research expertise within the department. Encompassing a breadth of conceptual research areas, geographic regions, and organismal and ecological systems, our faculty, staff and students are contribut-ing in many substantive ways to our understanding of evolution, ecology, and biology in general.

When you visit, which I hope you do, you may find yourself walking into a lab focusing on the phyloge-netics of sponges and their weird mitochondrial ge-nomes, or the taxonomic diversity of bamboos, or how the restoration of natural prairies impacts pol-linator populations, or the interplay between ecologi-cal diversity, microbial processes, and biogeochemi-cal cycling! In each of these and many other areas, the EEOB department is conducting cutting-edge and highly relevant research.

As in the past, we also highlight our globe-trotting

graduate students and share with you several of the many success experienced by recent graduates. In this issue, we also introduce you to our new Assistant Professors, Drs. Steven Hall, Chaoqun Lu, and Hal-dre Rogers. The hiring of these terrific young faculty ushers in an exciting era in ecological research in our department.

It is a privilege to be a part of this EEOB family, which is so richly contributing to the education of young minds and our understanding of nature. There are many ways in which you can help us succeed, and toward that end, we have included for your use a form on the last page of this issue of Biospheres. I thank you in advance for your commitment to the future of the department.

I hope you enjoy this issue of Biospheres. Until next issue, please stay in touch!

Jonathan F. Wendel, Professor and ChairDepartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal BiologyIowa State University, Ames, IA 50011Phone: 515-294-7172; Fax: 515-294-1337; Email: jfw@iastate.eduwww.eeob.iastate.edu

By Jacki Hayes

Computational biology, population genetics, landscape ecology, evolutionary genomics, systematics, and community ecology – these are just a few of the research areas examined within the department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology.

On Friday mornings, when the members of the department sit down for open coffee hour, you may find a graduate student in-terested in cotton evolution talking with a faculty member who studies the evolution of jellyfish. Two tables over, are two stu-dents discussing parasite-host interactions and reptile physiol-ogy.

The EEOB course catalog highlights the broad range of exper-tise within the department. Courses on animal behavior, agros-tology, bryophyte and lichen biodiversity, restoration ecology, morphometric analysis, and molecular phylogenetics are just a few of the more than 30 courses available to graduate students.

In this issue of Biospheres, we wish to highlight the disciplinary diversity of EEOB, including ecological systems, geographic locations, and levels of biological organization. In addition, to the range of research areas and expertise, many in EEOB fo-cus their research efforts on biodiversity. Still others expand the reach of science with programs focused on increasing the involvement of underrepresented populations in the sciences through outreach programs.

Diversity, it seems, is the culture of EEOB.

Department of diveristy

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By Rebecca Polich

People often underestimate the impact humans have on the environment. Al-though Iowa is mostly agricultural land, many native species might exist in small pockets of habitat. By studying lichen diversity in Iowa, Dr. Jim Colbert hopes his lab’s work will help to determine whether such pockets of biodiversity ex-ist. The crucial work of the lab is largely performed by graduate students.

Recent graduate, Amy Podaril, docu-mented lichen diversity in southeastern Iowa. She discovered five species of lichen never encountered before in the state. Besides these exciting finds, Po-daril documented some disheartening losses. According to her research, around 40 to 50 species no longer exist in Iowa.

Master’s student, Katie Thompson, will document li-chen diversity in northeastern Iowa. She is also hop-ing to reintroduce a species locally extirpated from Iowa, Lobaria pulmonaria.

The Colbert lab is also involved in new approaches to teaching biodiversity.. Krystal Wikstrom, a mas-ter’s student, has been surveying teachers in Iowa to understand their knowledge of biodiversity. She also studies how they approach this subject in their class-rooms. Her goal is to understand current methods for teaching biological diversity, as well as devise new methods.

Wikstrom and Colbert recently developed a biodi-versity workshop using lichens as model organisms. The workshop challenges students to identify species, group species with their closest relatives, and to de-fend their decisions. Wikstrom presented this work-

shop at the Iowa Science Teaching Section meeting last October and was well received by attending teachers.

By investigating the diversity of lichens and taking new approaches in teaching, the Colbert lab contin-ues to expand our knowledge and understanding of human environmental impact on species diversity.

Investigating local diversity

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Katie Thomson, Colbert lab master’s student, hones her lichen identifica-tion skills in the field.

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Maintaining biodiversity with fire“Fire has shaped the ecology and evolution of life on earth, yet because of widespread human modification of fire regimes, the role of natural fires in producing and maintaining biodiversity is underappreciated by scientists and the public,” said Dr. Joseph Veldman, research associate in EEOB.

To improve scientific understanding and policies that affect biodiverse fire-dependent ecosystems, Veld-man’s research extends the concept of ‘old growth’ – a concept originally applied to forests – to ancient grasslands, savannas, and open-canopy woodlands.

According to Veldman, “Many of the world’s grass-dominated ecosystems are thousands to millions of years old and are composed of plants that may live for centuries or longer. But because frequent fires – a defining characteristic of many old-growth savannas and grasslands – repeatedly consume aboveground biomass and kill trees, evidence of ecosystem antiq-uity and plant longevity is often hidden belowground in the form of long-lived roots, soil organic matter, and plant fossils.”

In his ongoing collaborations with Bolivian scientists, and now with several members of EEOB, Veldman is initiating a project in eastern lowland Bolivia, a re-gion of South America with rich cultural and biologi-cal diversity, to use fire-dependent bamboo thickets as a model system for exploring questions of envi-ronmental change in the tropics. Veldman suspects that Bolivia’s bamboo thickets may be a unique form of old-growth grassland, created and maintained by fire, but overlooked by ecologists and conservation-ists.

Veldman collects GPS coordinates in an old-growth savanna in Bolivia for satellite image analysis.

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By Rebecca Polich

The grass family includes more than 11,000 species. Consisting of more than twelve subfamilies, little re-search exists on the diversity of root anatomy of these plants. EEOB graduate student, Monica Cox, is look-ing to rectify this lack of information with her thesis research.

Cox is a second year Masters student under the su-pervision of Dr. Lynn Clark. The Clark lab focuses on systematics and morphology of grasses, with a special emphasis on the woody bamboos native to Central and South America. The primary goal of this research is to construct a hypothesis of evolution within this genus. This hypothesis can answer broader questions relating to bamboo evolution and biodiversity.

Cox’s work fits well within this framework as she is intending to conduct an informative survey of Poa-ceae species. Her work will sample a diversity of Poaceae from different habitats with a variety of pho-tosynthetic pathways. Cox’s project is ambitious for a variety of reasons, one of which is the size of the grass family.

Cox must sift through all the species to determine which best represent the diversity of habitats and photosynthetic pathways that she is attempting to capture. The time to delve into this material is ripe. Recent research indicates that cell variation in root structure and photosynthetic pathways is likely much greater than once thought.

For her research, Cox will use tissue staining with a light microscope. She will be documenting charac-teristics such as epidermis, exodermis, cortex, endo-dermis, pericycle, phloem, xylem, pith, intercellular space, and vascular arrangement. These are all fea-tures that Cox and her colleagues are expecting to vary across the different Poaceae species. If this first phase of the study is successful, a second phase will follow. In the second phase, Cox will study drought tolerance. She hopes to develop a protocol to standardize the sectioning of grass roots in longitudi-nal and transverse dimensions on a rotary microtome. Her work will further our knowledge of the amount of root phenotypic plasticity within the grass family and explore the role of roots in grass evolution.

Although Cox is excited about the different com-ponents of her thesis, she is especially excited about the potential role her research will have on understanding root plasticity in the grass family and in understanding how roots have influenced grass evolution. She believes that this work will add important insight to this less understood, but likely important, aspect of plant morphology.

The root of the matter

Cox sifting through soil to find roots that she will later examine under the microscope.

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Investigating plant-insect interactionsBy Ryan Arndorfer

Over the last 350 million years, insects have co-evolved with flowering plants in mutualistic rela-tionships. Sometimes this involves one specific insect which pollinates one specific plant. The two change and shape each other for their mutual benefit. The diversity of plant-insect rela-tionships makes each system a fascinating object of study. Here in EEOB, several labs study plant-insect in-teractions, some with the goal of reversing population declines.

Dr. John Nason and his team study a fig species, Ficus peti-olaris. Its single wasp pollinator travels great distances between these sparsely dis-tributed trees. There are 11 other species of wasps that use the developing fig fruit to nourish their young but do not pollinate the plant. They rely on the pol-linator to escape from the fruit. The group is inves-tigating geographic variation in mutualism “fitness” and how it is influenced by host population size, flowering phenology, and interactions with the non-pollinating fig wasps.

Several EEOB faculty are working toward the goal of increasing insect diversity in an agricultural landscape:

Dr. Amy Toth studies wasps and bees; her research uses a whole-colony approach. She studies wasp and bee behavior and how it relates to colony health. Her focus is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a condition where an entire honeybee colony deserts

its home and young. She hypothesizes that CCD results from poor colony health and that a diverse diet supports better im-munity and the ability to withstand environmental stresses.

The Toth lab collects the pollen brought back to the hive and analyzes its nutritional content. Ten different species of pol-len have been identified and used for further test-ing. Whole colonies were then fed either monoflo-ral (rose or chestnut pol-len), polyfloral (a mix of naturally occurring types) or a pure sugar solution. Bees were then analyzed for overall health and fat stores.

The hypothesis was that polyfloral pollen would provide a more rounded diet and healthier bees. This turned out to be true. In addition, although both monofloral pollen types were deficient in iron and calcium, chestnut pollen resulted in better over-all health than rose pollen. The lab plans to use soy-bean pollen in its next monofloral test.

Agricultural monocultures are one reason for mono-

Dr. John Nason and graduate students Justin Van Goor and Nick Davis in the field.

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floral diets. The Toth lab conducted a citizen sci-ence project, asking local beekeepers for samples from their hives. Surrounding land was classified as high cultivation (80% or higher) or low (40% or less). The lab found that high levels of cultivation led to lower nutritional states when controlled for parasitic mites.

Even in highly cultivated areas there are some grasslands. These grasslands are the focus of Dr. Diane Debin-ski. Her work r e v o l v e s around the study, main-tenance and restoration of Iowa’s prai-ries with the goal of im-proving habi-tat for pol-linators and other insects. Like bees, several but-terfly species have been d e c l i n i n g in numbers. Some grass-lands are remnant prairies which are untouched. Others are reconstructions, converted from farm-land and grassland. Still others are cattle pastures, some of which have been over-seeded with native species. All have been shaped by the people who use the land.

Dr. Debinski has developed a rapport with many farmers, land managers, and landowners. Through these interactions, she has gained a valuable re-source for her research. With more access to land, her graduate students are able to catalog plant and insect species across Iowa and Missouri. Debins-

ki’s group is counting bees, butterflies, and nectar-producing flowers and calculating biodiversity for various sites. Information is shared with landown-ers in hopes they will make habitat improvements.

Dr. John Pleasants has been studying the decline in Monarch butterflies. Over the past fifteen years, Monarch populations have decreased ninety per-cent. This coincides with the adoption of herbicide resistant crops and the resulting decrease in milk-

weed popu-lations in agricultural fields. This is of great concern since m i l k w e e d s are the only larval host plants of the Monarch but-terfly.

Dr. Pleasants is working on projects to determine how to go about restor-ing milkweed populations.

Recently the problem of decreased pollinators has become a focus for some government agencies and there has been an increase in funding for research. Biologists can now conduct experiments, with the help of landowners, to test conservation techniques and determine viable solutions. One option under review would involve land enrolled in the Conser-vation Reserve Program (CRP). This land, which is rented by the USDA and remains un-tilled, could be used to plant milkweeds and other flowering plants. These techniques could ultimately save species like the Monarch from extinction.

Dr. Diane Debinski’s field crew install a solar powered phenocam in Grand Teton National Park, WY.

Encouraging diversity within the sciencesby Daniela Flores and Rebecca Polich

It’s not a surprise that minorities and women are un-derrepresented in the sciences. Not only is drawing more underrepresented populations key to meeting equality goals, it also makes for better science. To that end, ISU and members of the EEOB department are commited to reaching minorities and women through a variety of venues and channels.

Iowa State’s Symbi GK-12 program was created to help graduate students develop their communication proficiency when speaking to the general public, and to expose middle school and high school students to inquiry-based learning experiences that help them master core scientific concepts. These outreach pro-grams aim to, and often succeed, in benefitting the lives of both the general public and the scientists per-forming the outreach.

“The GK-12 experience is all about making science accessible to everyone. With a focus on schools that historically haven’t had this sort of ‘Scientist in the

Classroom’ integration, the GK-12 program aims to democratize and popularize science by showing both that science is a job done by real people, as opposed to only wild-haired mad scientists, but also that any-one can be a scientist if they’re willing to question their world and perform good experiments,” said EEOB’s Bob Literman, a past participant in the GK-12 program.

Another example of outreach is Dr. Fred Janzen’s Turtle Camp Research and Education in Ecology (TREE) program. Since 2007 Dr. Janzen and his lab have invited high school and undergraduate stu-dents, generally from underrepresented groups, to learn about scientific research at their field site. In two weeks, students learn about ecological concepts through multilevel mentorship by assisting in lab re-search, partaking in their own group research proj-ects, and presenting what they learn to public and sci-entific audiences.

Reaching underrepresented scientists is also the aim of The Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/

Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). This is a national organization committed to advancing the careers of minor-ity scientists while celebrating and utilizing their cultural identities. EEOB faculty member and Sacnista Dr. Tracy Heath describes her SAC-NAS experience as “inspiring.”

As scientists it is important to not only share findings with the scien-tific community, but also to capture the attention and involve diverse au-diences. Developing creative ways to do so may not be a simple task,

however, there is an array of opportunities available to achieve this goal.

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Participants of the 2015 TREE program with Dr. Fred Janzen.

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by Ryan Arndorfer

The extraction of dinosaur DNA from mosquito-lad-en amber remains science fiction. But, using phylo-genetic models, scientists can analyze character data from both living and fossil species to reconstruct their evolutionary history . The tools used in creating these models are more than intellectually interesting. They provide real-world applications in understanding the evolutionary process.

Dr. Tracy Heath is an expert in computational and sta-tistical phylogenetics. This area of research develops models based on biological concepts and infers phy-logenetic processes from them.

Heath is developing a Bayesian phylogenetic infer-ence program, called RevBayes, to provide a platform for understanding evolutionary patterns over deep time scales. Heath and her collaborator, Dr. Daniel Ksepka, use RevBayes to uncover the evolutionary history of living and fossil penguins.

A fully integrative phylogenetic analysis combines all possible sources of data. Morphological data, con-tinuous trait data, biogeographical data, stratigraphy, and DNA provide information about the structure of the phylogenetic tree, rates of evolutionary change, and the geological timeline. Scientists must infer this from biogeographical and stratigraphic data from in-dicator fossils.

It can be tricky to decipher when in the timeline a morphological trait correlates with a genetic trait. This can lead to a debate of whether the genetic trait preceded the character change due to phenotypic plasticity or an environmental shift. Combining these models gives strength to the system but is also dif-ficult to apply. If done with an improperly calibrated model, the investigator is likely to make spurious in-ferences about the system.

RevBayes provides a suite of tools to overcome these problems. Few phylogenetic tools consider fully-in-tegrative problems, rendering them useful for only a narrow range of applications. RevBayes has a diverse target audience, including paleontologists, ecologists, and epidemiologists.

Epidemiology has turned to using phylogenetic mod-els for rapidly evolving viruses. These models help investigators understand the virus’ evolution and pre-dict the future of the virus. Applying phylogenetic models to infectious diseases can reveal epidemic patterns in their evolution and aid in building better vaccines.

While Heath applies this program to biological ques-tions, RevBayes can also be used to analyze phylog-enies of language evolution. Sometimes words pass through several languages before coming to their cur-rent form. Or words will skip several generations to reappear in the common vernacular. These cultural characters are like traits seen in biological evolution. Thus, it’s intuitive to use similar models to enumerate the links.

Phylogenetic models created by programs like RevBayes are useful in many fields. The develop-ment of a flexible modeling framework could be a giant leap for biologist everywhere. For that reason, Heath contributes open-source software for academ-ic research. To download RevBayes visit GitHub at http://revbayes.com.

A tool for understanding evolutionary patterns

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EEOB students explore the biodiversity of Costa Ricaby Jacki Hayes

This past May, seven EEOB students explored the rain-forests of Costa Rica for the EEB 585 Field Course. The course, led by ISU’s Jill Pruetz and Dr. Thomas LaDuke of East Stroudsburg University, highlighted the non-human primates and herps of El Zota Biologi-cal Field Station.

Delayed by tornadoes in Texas, the field trip encom-passed seven days in the Central American country. The students spent three days at the field station located in the northeast portion of the country. Here they spent a day familiarizing themselves with the trail system, conducted leaf litter plot exercises to find local amphib-ians and reptiles, and surveyed the primate population.

The final half of the trip took place in Tortuguero, lo-cated along the northeastern coast. Tortuguero is well-known as a sea-turtle nesting site, but rough seas kept the students from witnessing turtles during their time along the coast.

When asked what she enjoyed the most about the trip, student Tori Pocius replied, “Tromping through the rainforest. You see it on National Geographic, you see it on the Discovery Channel. But I don’t think anything can really prepare you for being out there. You can flip over a leaf and find ten bats; you can see a butterfly two feet away. Looking up and seeing the canopy, and you can’t really even see the sun because it is so dense. And you think to yourself, ‘This is why I am a biologist’.”EEOB graduate student, Daniela Flores, takes a selfie during

a rainforest hike in Costa Rica.

Valenzuela honored with Mid-Career Achievement Award

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In 2015, Dr. Nicole Valenzuela received the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Mid-Career Achievement in Research Award. This award recognizes faculty members who have a national or international reputation for outstanding contributions in research at the mid-career stage.

Valenzuela is an evolutionary biologist whose research has had a tremendous impact in understanding how ecology affects the structure, function, and evolution of genomes and thus theinfluence of environmental interactions on the development and evolution of complex phenotypes. Her work integrates ecology, genomics, and epigenetics to understand the diversity of sex-de-termining mechanisms by which organisms develop into males or females in different lineages using turtles as a study system. Her research helps us to understand the evolution of biological diversity and how it responds to environmental change.

EEOB welcomes new facultyThis Fall, EEOB is excited to welcome three new faculty mem-bers to the department.

Dr. Steven Hall is a biogeochemist and his research focuses on understanding patterns of organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. This work spans sites ranging from tropical forests to urban wetlands.

Dr. Chaoqun Lu is an ecosystem ecologist, using a systems mod-eling approach to understand, quantify, and predict ecosystem processes and patterns in repsonse to climate change, land use, land management, and atmospheric composition.

A species interaction ecologist, Dr. Haldre Rogers studies di-verse kinds of mutualisms among organisms, and the relation-ships of these interactions to societally relevent issues such as invasive species biology and conservation science.

The addition of these three new faces to EEOB will enhance the existing diversity of research interests.

Department News

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From the Field

by Audrey McCombs

Today was a day for nectar collecting and butterfly surveys. My field tech Toni and I arrived at the warming structures at our Pilgrim Creek field site a bit before 7am. Our window for col-lecting nectar is only two hours, but Toni – gregarious and be-dreadlock’d – is a master at manipulating the tiny glass capillary tubes we use to draw nectar out of small disc florets.

We surveyed 24 arrowleaf balsamroot flowers in four of our twelve experimental plots. Climate change is expected to in-crease temperatures and reduce snowfall in montane meadows like this one at Grand Teton National Park, and our work here will help managers and scientists understand how critical mead-ow resources like nectar could be affected by climate change.

After we finished nectar it was almost time for butterflies. Lepi-doptera are picky about their flying weather, so we waited until the temperature hit 21°C. Barely a breeze, not a cloud in the mountain sky. Ready? Go! Twenty minutes sprinting through the sagebrush after Parnassius clodius butterflies, catching every one that we could.

Today was a record day – we caught 25 butterflies in one plot! At the end of twenty minutes, we marked each butterfly with a unique number, using a Sharpie to carefully write on their hind-wings. Then we let them go. We will catch some of these in-dividuals again, and depending on how many we catch fresh versus how many we recapture, we can estimate the population size of this high-elevation pollinator species.

The butterflies of Grand Teton National Park

Toni Proescholdt at work in the field. photo credit: Audrey McCombs

Where are they now?

by Rebecca Polich

Dr. Dawn Redding received her PhD in 2011 from the EEOB Department working under Dr. William Clark. Her dissertation examined the link between landscape connectivity and gene flow in bobcats, and was honored with an NSF Doctoral Disser-tation Improvement Grant. She is currently a visiting professor of biology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

At Luther College, Redding runs an active research lab that fo-cuses on how natural and anthropogenic forces shape patterns of genetic diversity and influence the persistence and evolutionary trajectory of species. She also teaches two highly rated under-graduate classes, Principles of Biology: Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity and an upper level genetics course.

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EEOB grad focuses on patterns of genetic diversity

Alumnus honored for work in diversityby Daniela Flores

The Diversity Award is a prestigious award given by The Wild-life Society to outstanding individuals dedicated to promoting diversity in the natural resource professions. Alumnus Jeramie Strickland has a passion for doing just that and was the 2014 recipient of the award.

Strickland was recognized for his many outreach endeavors, in-cluding serving as a mentor for the Ecology Society of America, the Minorities Striving and Pursuing Higher Degrees of Success in Earth System Science Program, and the U.S. Fish and Wild-life Service’s Career Discovery Intern Program.

After earning his Master’s degree with Dr. Fred Janzen in 2008, Strickland was hired by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. As a Wildlife Biologist, Strickland is involved in biological surveys and manages the head start program for the conservation of the Illinois state-threatened Ornate Box Turtle (Terrapene ornata).

Redding at Luther College.

Strickland at work at the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge in Thomson, IL

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Making a DifferenceThe Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Or-ganismal Biology at Iowa State University is com-mitted to providing outstanding opportunities for the universtiy community. In order to have the resources necessary to take these programs into the future, support for the department is essential. Funding is required to aid the program in developing new opportunities in technology, continuing and advancing outreach activities, and maintaining and expanding current perfor-mance and educational opportunities, and sup-porting students and faculty. These services are crucial as the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology strives to keep up with student demand for these experiences. To help make a difference, simply fill out the form, drop it in the mail (ISU Foundation, 2505 University Blvd, Ames, Iowa 50010-8644), and check your next newsletter.

For more information about making a gift to the Department of Ecology, Evolutions, and Organ-ismal Biology or including ISU in your estate plans, please contact the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Development Office at 515-294-3607 or Teresa Albertson at talberts@iastate.edu.www.foundation.iastate.edu/las_gift

I wish to support programs in EEOB at ISU.Enclosed is my gift of:_____ $1000_____ $250_____ $100_____ $50Other $ _____

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Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal BiologyCollege of Liberal Arts and SciencesCollege of Agriculture and Life SciencesAmes, IA 50011