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Can invasive legumes nodulate with a greater diversity of rhiozbial symbionts than non-invaders? We set out to test this idea in a large nodulation assay, comparing the diversity of rhizobial isolates that could nodulate each of four invasive and three … Continue reading
After reading Stuart Pimm’s book review in Biological Conservation, in which he compared a fellow scientist to a whoring prostitute, which is a very gender-specific and woman-degrading metaphor, I wrote a letter (BiolCons 2014) to Book Review Editor Phil Cafaro, … Continue reading
We’re meeting tonight to update the website!
This is a really nice article with examples of 10 basic rules for effective figures.
Back from sabbatical and back into teaching. This year, I’m incorporating a lot of learning activities into the lecture section of my upper division course in ecological genetics. Some of this is motivated by my reading of Magdalene Lampert’s Teaching … Continue reading
Check out our new paper: Porter_Simms_2014_EcologyLetters, which reports that natural selection favors cheating in rhizobia but not host legumes.
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Specialization-Generalization Trade-off in a Bradyrhizobium Symbiosis with Wild Legume Hosts Abstract Specialized interactions help structure communities, but generalist can occupy more environments and partake in more beneficial interactions. So, why do specialists persist? The “Jack-of-all-trades is a master of none” … Continue reading
Helen passed her quals and is ready to embark on her research using bacterial microcosms to explore how the spatial arrangement of subpopulations affects the resilience of metapopulations to disturbance.
Undergraduates pursuing honors sometimes feel adrift and overwhelmed at the prospect of writing their thesis. The following links provide helpful information: UNC-Chapel Hill UC Berkeley MCB Department UC Berkeley IB Department (pdf)
Kimberly La Pierre has joined our lab as a postdoc. Kim arrives here from the Smith lab at Yale U. She will study how different methods of managing and eradicating invasive legumes affect soil populations of rhizobia. She is particularly interested in how plant-soil feedbacks influence the durability and economic feasibility of various management methods. Her work is funded through the BiGCB with a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.