Weibke Boeing won $200 for her 15 min. presentation on "Understanding predator-mediated inducible defenses: Costs and benefits of antipredator behavior in Daphnia pulex (Cladocera, Crustaceae)"

• Abram Madiehe won $200 for his poster titled, "Leptin resistance in OM rats due to downregulation of leptin receptor and increase in SOCS-3 expression."

 

SEE* alumnus Rick Zechman was one of two featured speakers for the 2000 BioGrads Symposium to be held in Hill Memorial Library 27 amd 28 October.  Zechman completed his PhD with Russell Chapman in 1991. He did pioneering studies on the phylogeny of green algae. Since that time he held postdoctoral appointments at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and Duke University where he was a Mellon Fellow.  He was appointed assistant professor at California State University, Fresno, in 1997, where he teaches evolution and phycology. Zechman's research focusses on the molecular systematics and ecology of marine and freshwater algae common to the California coast, vernal pools of the San Joaquin Valley, and rivers and streams of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences for these green algae elucidate the historical pattern of ecological radiations between marine and freshwater environments. Another component of his research is focused on the evolution and biogeography of the pantropical coral reef-inhabiting alga, Caulerpa and related genera. Karen Kester was an undergraduate at LSU, who went on for a master's degree in entomology (B.S., Natural Sciences, 1980; M.S. Entomology, 1983).  She completed her Ph.D. in Entomology at the University of Maryland-College Park under the direction of Pedro Barbosa in 1991. She was a postdoctoral scientist and instructor in the Biology Department at the University of California-Santa Cruz from 1991-1995, and then a visiting scholar and NIH Fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the Center for Insect Science at the University of Arizona (1995-1997).  Kester has been an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, since 1997, where she teaches Evolution and Speciation, Entomology, and General Biology for majors.  Her research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of tritrophic interactions involving parasitic wasps, herbivores and their host plants. Currently, Kester is investigating the role of learning in mediating microevolutinary changes and the role of plants in structuring parasitoid populations. This work integrates experimental laboratory and field studies with individual-based simulation modeling and molecular analyses using microsatellites.

THE ARCHEOBOTANICAL  LABORATORY The Archeobotany Lab is a well kept secret, hidden away in the basement of the Ag Administration Building in the Quadrangle and headed by Research Associate Marie Standifer. The field of archeobotany uses knowledge from both archeology and botany, and plant remains recovered from archeological sites are used to unravel human-plant interactions of the past.   Standifer has worked on projects such as the identification of tubers eaten by prehistoric peoples and the plants they used as fiber sources.  In that work, she makes use of a personal comparative collection of over 1000 items and the LSU Herbarium which has over 100,000 specimens. Identifications are based on the anatomy and morphology of the plants.  Because archeological material is quite brittle, the use of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) has been important in Standifer's studies.  Also, the higher magnification and better resolution make possible very detailed comparisons of the anatomy.  For example, by observing differences in cell appearance, it has been possible to determine the kind of pretreatment used on textile fibers.  A reference set of SEM micrographs and digital images is gradually being compiled to aid in comparative studies.  Standifer's with tuberous, food plants began years ago as a term project in the plant anatomy course taught by Shirley Tucker of the Department of Botany. Tucker became interested in the research and encouraged Standifer to expand and publish the project.  Eventually this led to several joint papers on the tubers of groundnut (Apios americana Med.). Textile identification work is being done with Jenna Kuttruff, Curator of the LSU Textile and Costume Museum.  One project has been the study of a collection of sandals  recovered from a dry cave in Missouri.  Standifer is pictured above with a sandal. One of the sandals was radiocarbon dated to 6375-6150 BC,  and the work was published in Science.The source plant used in all of the sandals was rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium Michx.), a dicot plant that mimics a monocot, with long, yucca-like leaves and parallel veins.  Research papers of the studies have been presented at meetings of the Society of Ethnobiology and the Southeastern Archaeological Society.  More popular presentations have been given for the Louisiana Native Plant Society,  the Louisiana Society of Electron Microscopy, and the Louisiana Archaeological Society. Martha Lawson, a laboratory volunteer worker, is a retired librarian with an undergraduate degree in Biology and a PhD in Library Science.  She has undertaken the task of organizing a data-basing all of the specimens, slides, photographs, micrographs, and digital images. Members of the department are invited to stop by Room 20 in the Ag Administration building for a tour.

Thaxton recently attended two meetings and presented results from his work on the effects of fire intensity on shrub demography in pine savanna.  In August, he attended the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Snowbird, Utah, and in October, he attended the Regional Conference of the Longleaf Alliance in Alexandria, Louisiana.

• Arne Schon from Sweden is a Research Associate 5 with Steven Hand; he is working on  cellular, tissue and organismic bioenergetics.
• Irene Karantzeni is a research associate in Vince LiCata’s lab, where she conducts research on Taq DNA polymerase and control of individual steps in the polymerase chain reaction.