EEMB in the News

Bill Murdoch Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences today (April 29) announced the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

Alice Alldredge Receives National Award

Alice Alldredge has received the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography.

2007 Naturalist of the Year

Genevieve (Genny) and Shane Anderson have been chosen as the 2007 Naturalist of the Year by the Western Society of Naturalists (WSN). WSN was founded in 1916 and is the second oldest surviving natural history society on the Pacific coast.

UCSB Researchers Discover The Dawn of Animal Vision

By peering deep into evolutionary history, scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered the origins of photosensitivity in animals.

The findings are published in this week's issue of the scientific journal PLoS ONE. The scientists studied the aquatic animal Hydra, a member of Cnidaria, which are animals that have existed for hundreds of millions of years. The authors are the first scientists to look at light-receptive genes in cnidarians, an ancient class of animals that includes corals, jellyfish, and sea anemones.

Scientists Warn That Species Extinction Could Reduce Productivity of Plants on Earth by as Much as Half

An international team of scientists has published a new analysis showing that as plant species around the world go extinct, natural habitats become less productive and contain fewer total plants –– a situation that could ultimately compromise important benefits that humans get from nature.

UCSB Children's Education Program Receives Prestigious Governor's Award

Kids in Nature, an innovative children's education program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is one of two recipients of the prestigious Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award in the category of Children's Environmental Education. The award will be presented at a formal ceremony in Sacramento this evening.

Congratulations to Biology Undergraduates Who Received Top Awards at Commencement, 2007

Areo Saffarzadeh, a double major in Biological Sciences and Business Economics, received the Thomas More Storke Award, the campus's highest student honor, for outstanding scholarship and extraordinary service to the University, its students and the community.

Timothy Cody, a major in Ecology and Evolution, was awarded the Francis Colville and Terry Dearborn Memorial Award for outstanding academic achievement in the sciences.

UCSB ranked 1st in nation in research impact in the area of Ecology/Environment

UCSB was ranked first in the nation in research impact in the area of Ecology/Environment and fifth in the nation in Plant and Animal Science for the period 2001-2005 by the Institute for Scientific Information (Science Watch, November 2006). EEMB faculty, students and post docs play a significant role in this extraordinary ranking along with those in the Departments of Geography, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management , and the Marine Science Institute.

A paper in Nature by Justin Whitall and Scott Hodges suggests that birds, bees and moths drive flower evolution.

Over 140 years ago, Darwin proposed the first model of coevolution in attempting to explain the exceptionally long nectar spurs of an orchid, Angraecum sesquipedale. His 'race' model predicted a gradual process whereby pollinators' tongues and plants' spurs would continually get longer. Though he successfully predicted the existence of a moth with an tongue equally long as the orchid's spur, his coevolutionary 'race' model has remained contentious. Former EEMB graduate student, Justen Whittall, and EEMB professor Scott Hodges show in the 7 June issue of Nature that in the columbine genus Aquilegia, a more one-sided and punctuated process likely produced exceptional spur lengths. They show that spurs length has likely evolved through predictable and directional shifts in pollinators and that change is concentrated at speciation events. Nature (447:706-709)

Assistant Professor Bradley Cardinale publishes landmark paper on the "Effect of Biodiversity on the Functioning of Trophic Groups and Ecosystems" in Nature, 443:989-992, 2007

Until recently, scientists knew much about the causes of global species extinction, but very little about the ecological consequences. In a groundbreaking statistical analysis, Dr. Bradley Cardinale and colleagues combined the results of more than 100 experiments performed throughout the world to show that species extinction generally causes ecosystems to become less productive, and less efficient at capturing biological resources. In practical terms, this means that diverse ecosystems are likely to be better at controlling pests, breaking down organic matter, and absorbing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Their study further suggested that certain types of species perform these functions better than others; thus, both the number and types of species going extinct are changing the "services" that ecosystems provide to humanity.

Todd Oakley receives prestigious NSF Career Award

Todd Oakley, assistant professor of Ecology Evolution and Marine Biology at The University of California-Santa Barbara, has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the amount of $600,000 to develop his research and teaching in macroevolution over the next five years. The research involves integration of fossil and molecular data to test hypotheses about the evolutionary origins of eyes as a model complex trait. The education component will enhance EEMB-102 (Macroevolution) and allow continued outreach through the UC-President's Postdoctoral Program, CAMP, and the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration.

The CAREER Award is given to faculty members at the beginning of their careers and is one of the NSF's most competitive and prestigious awards, placing emphasis on high-quality research and novel education initiatives.

Bill Murdoch awarded the 2007 Outstanding Service Award by the American Institute of Biological Sciences

Professor William Murdoch will receive the Outstanding Service Award from the American Institute of Biological Sciences at their annual meeting in May, 2007. The Award is conferred for Professor Murdoch's "enormous contributions to the development of the community of professional ecologists, the establishment of an infrastructure to promote collaboration (the National Center to Ecological Analysis and Synthesis), his incredible publication record of seminal papers, his development of a generation of graduate students and post-docs, his voice on import issues associated with sustaining global biodiversity, and the numerous awards that others have conferred upon him".

Professor Robert Warner receives the William R. and Lenore Mote Eminent Scholar Chair in Fisheries Ecology and Enhancement for 2006-2007

Professor Robert Warner has just been appointed as the William R. and Lenore Mote Eminent Scholar Chair in Fisheries Ecology and Enhancement for 2006-2007 (the short version is the Mote Eminent Scholar). The award is made by Florida State University and Mote Marine Laboratory. Professor Warner will be the sixth recipient of this international award and joins an impressive list of prior recipients and eminent scholars from the US, Canada, and Argentina. The award includes a $30,000 honorarium, plus expenses associated with visits to Florida.

Rare Success at Rearing Native California Rockfish, Collins Lab Fish Celebrate First Birthday

EEMB biologists have successfully reared brown rockfish from birth through juvenile development providing essential information on the early life-history of this threatened component of the West coast rockfish fishery that can assist marine managers in their continued efforts to effectively manage the fishery and its rehabilitation. The ability to culture rockfish in captivity from oocyte and embryonic development through critical larval stages allows for the examination of the effects of various environmental changes and for the exploration of the potential to raise rockfish for marine enhancement and food resource programs.

EEMB Graduate students Sarah Lester and Julie Simpson win campus awards for excellence in mentoring undergraduates in research

Two EEMB graduate students, Sarah Lester (with Gaines) and Julie Simpson (with Cooper/Schimel/Melack), have been awarded a Fiona Goodchild Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring. This is a very prestigious award open to campuswide competition. It goes to graduate students who have shown unusual leadership and dedication in mentoring undergraduates in research. They will receive the award at a reception immediately following the Undergraduate Research Colloquium on on Thursday, May 18, at the Lagoon Plaza, at 2:00 p.m.

Project of the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Resotration wins Goleta Beautiful Award

The UCSB Manzanita Village & Restoration Project has won the 2006 Goleta Valley Beautiful award in the public and institutional division. The project was first conceived and promoted by Wayne Ferren, then Director of the Museum of Systematics and Ecology (now CCBER) in EEMB. Melanie Powers and her Manzanita Team including staff and undergraduate student interns began implementation of the project in August 2002. The Manzanita Village Restoration Project is 6-acres of Coastal Grassland, Vernal Pool, Vernal Marsh and Coastal Sage Scrub restoration and 1300 linear feet of bioswale creation. To date, more than 80,000 native plants, grown organically at the CCBER greenhouse, have been installed by CCBER staff with the assistance of more than 100 UCSB student interns and volunteers. Ongoing monitoring and maintenance will continue in perpetuity.

The project manager, Melanie Powers, and the Manzanita Village Restoration Team will be honored at the 32nd Annual Awards Banquet on May 20th.

EEMB Postdoc Paige Miller and Professor Bill Rice Describe how War Between the Sexes Influences Evolution in the April 7 issue of Science

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) - Competition and conflict between males and females start inside the egg in some species, say scientists.

UCSB Environmental Scientist Wins Prestigious Fellowship

Joshua Schimel, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology and chair of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara, is one of 18 academic environmental scientists from the U.S. and Canada to be awarded an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship this year.

Three EEMB Instructors win prestigious Teaching Awards

EEMB Professor Robert Warner and EEMB Graduate Students Craig Nelson and Stuart Levenbach were recently honored with 2005-2006 Distinguished Faculty and Teaching Assistant Awards by the UCSB Academic Senate. Only eight faculty and four TA's across the whole UCSB campus were so honored.