Congrats to Zoe Kitchel on her paper that was recently published in Global Change Biology. Her paper is titled: "The role of continental shelf bathymetry in shaping marine range shifts in the face of climate change."

Here's a sneak peak in Zoe's words: "In my work, I think a lot about how critters in the ocean are moving around because the ocean is heating up and ocean chemistry is changing. However, what do those pathways look like from less comfy habitats to more comfy habitats? In this study, we looked at how the size of the continental shelf, an important habitat for many species in the ocean, changes as critters move deeper and away from the equator. We found that there is a ton of variability! In some areas, critters may experience a loss of shelf area to live in, but in many regions, they may actually gain area to live in--potentially allowing populations of marine species to grow. Through working on this project, I learned that some of the major extinctions of marine species through geologic history (think late Ordovician) can be partially explained by the fact the continents were not arranged in a way that allowed critters to use continental shelves as corridors to seek more comfy habitats."

Read Zoe's paper at the link here: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16276

This fall we are excited to welcome 12 new students into the graduate program: Shannon Dickey, Kendall Eldredge, Daniel Fisher, Lydia Heilferty, Heidi Herb, Jillian Jamieson, Morgan Mark, Sophia Piper, Ryan Schmidt, Nicole Vaccaro, Leah Scott, & Isabelle Zoccolo. 

This past weekend they took a trip to our Rutgers field stations! At the Cape Shore Lab (left photo), they learned about oysters, shorebirds, and horseshoe crabs. They were introduced to plants, fire, and amphibians in the Pinelands (center), and they explored old growth forest at Hutcheson Memorial Forest (right). Finally, at the marine field station, they learned about coastal ecology by testing out the beach seine and bottom trawl in Great Bay.

We hope they had fun and we look forward to getting to know them all at EcoGSA!

Congratulations to Andrew Aldercotte and Dylan Simpson for their recent pub in Insect Conservation and Diversity!

Their paper is titled "Crop visitation by wild bees declines over an 8-year time series: A dramatic trend, or just dramatic between-year variation?"

To summarize, Dylan says: "We found that, across an eight year study, wild bee visitation rates to watermelon declined by a dramatic 58%! However, visitation rates were highly variable year-to-year. As a result, we could not actually determine whether the decline we observed was indicative of a larger trend, or just an artifact of regular population fluctuations."

Check out the paper here at this link: https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12589

And you can read more about their work on Twitter too! 
​@AndrewSKADI, @dylantux, @rachael_winfree

Congratulations to Seth for his recent publication in the International Journal for Parasitology! Seth studies the reproductive behavior and ecology of monogenea (ectoparasitic flatworms) on bluegill, a type of freshwater sunfish. His paper is about parasite body size/density relationships and how it relates to reproduction.

Click here to read his paper called "Monogenean body size, but not reproduction, increases with infracommunity density"!

Congratulations to Dylan Simpson, Lucia Weinman, and the Winfree Lab for their new publication titled “Many bee species, including rare species, are important for function of entire plant—pollinator networks” in Proceedings of the Royal Society B! 

Plants in nature depend on a diverse bee community, including rare bee species. Dylan and Lucy's study finds that, while few bee species are important to any one plant species, the number of important bees increases rapidly as more plant species are considered. This is because different bees are important to different plants. Previous research, which typically focused on crop monocultures, has shown that pollination often depends on just a few common bees. In contrast, this study finds that even rare bees can be important to particular plants. These results suggest that ecologists have likely underestimated the importance of bee diversity for pollination in diverse, natural ecosystems.
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Click here to read their paper!

Congratulations to Bobby Kwait for his paper published in Conservation Science and Practice! His paper is titled "Whole-room ultraviolet sanitation as a method for the site-level treatment of Pseudogymnoascus destructans." This fungal pathogen causes white-nose syndrome, a disease that kills bats. Read about it here at this link.

Abigail's second dissertation chapter was recently published in the journal Fisheries Management and Ecology! Her study focuses on the impacts of thunderstorm‐related hydrological changes on fishes’ vulnerability to two fishing gears in Mongolia. Check out the paper here!

Jaeyln Bos, a PhD student in the Pinsky Lab, was just awarded a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship! The NDSEG will fund three years of her PhD studies. Congratulations, Jaelyn!