by Kaoru Esther Okamoto, Undergraduate at Agnes Scott College
Sarah Orr’s journey through the scientific world is a testament to the power of resilience and adaptability. Initially dreaming of becoming a veterinarian, Sarah embarked on her academic career at the University of North Georgia, fully intent on entering veterinary school. However, life had other plans. After an unexpected rejection from veterinary school, Sarah found herself at a crossroads, illustrating a common fear among undergraduates: what happens when your plans fall apart?
Discovery Through Diversions: Master’s Degree
Without a backup plan, Sarah ventured into uncharted territory by enrolling in a Master’s program in Biomedical Sciences at Mercer University. Here, under the guidance of Dr. Christy Bridges, she discovered a burgeoning interest in research—an area she had not previously considered. Dr. Bridges played a pivotal role, opening Sarah’s eyes to the possibilities within biomedical research, particularly in toxicology. This experience was a crucial pivot, shifting Sarah’s career trajectory from veterinary care to scientific research.
PhD Pathway: Expanding Horizons
This newfound passion led Sarah to pursue a PhD in Toxicology at North Carolina State University, where she joined the Buchwalter Lab. Under Dr. David Buchwalter’s mentorship, she delved into the environmental impacts on aquatic insects, moving even further from her original veterinary aspirations. Her research during these years not only broadened her scientific knowledge but also equipped her with a unique set of skills, preparing her for the complex challenges of ecological research.
Postdoctoral Exploration: Social Insects and Environmental Impacts
Today, Sarah is a USDA NIFA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Goodisman Lab. Her current focus? The effects of pesticide exposure on bumblebees—a key area in ecotoxicology. The mentorship of Dr. Michael Goodisman has been instrumental in her transition towards studying social insects, emphasizing the importance of finding mentors who can guide and influence one’s career path effectively.
Effective Mentorship and Student Achievements
Sarah’s commitment to mentoring echoes the support she received throughout her educational journey. She fosters an inclusive and diverse research environment for her undergraduates, encouraging them to engage in various scientific discussions and activities. This approach has paid off, as evidenced by her students winning poster competitions, a clear sign of her effective mentorship and the impact it has on young scientists.
Career Goals and Aspirations
On the job market now, Sarah is seeking positions that allow her to continue her research in ecotoxicology while also fulfilling her passion for teaching and mentoring. She aims to find a role that balances both applied and basic sciences, ideally focusing on the effects of environmental stressors like pesticides on pollinators.
Conclusion: Celebrating Flexibility and Resilience
Sarah’s career is a prime example of the nonlinear paths that many scientists follow. Her journey underscores the importance of flexibility and the willingness to embrace change. For undergraduates unsure of their path, Sarah offers this piece of advice: “You just have to be able to let it roll off your back and move on. Something else better is down the road.”
Sarah Orr’s story is not just about the uncertainties of scientific careers but also about the surprising opportunities that arise when one is open to change. Her narrative offers both inspiration and practical advice for any undergraduate navigating the challenging but rewarding terrain of scientific research.
by Kaoru Esther Okamoto, Undergraduate at Agnes Scott College
Presentation Day at Agnes Scott College’s GIS Bootcamp: Welcoming members from the City of Decatur and the Center for Sustainability to view innovative student projects on digital mapping and community planning.
At Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts institution renowned for its dynamic approach to education, the recent GIS Bootcamp marked a significant stride toward integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) across diverse academic realms. This initiative was spearheaded by Dr. Jennifer Kovacs, an Associate Biology Professor at the college, during the college’s dedicated Peak Week—a time set aside for Applied Career Experiences (ACEs) designed to equip students with practical skills for the professional world.
Immersive Learning with ArcGIS Online
The five-day bootcamp welcomed eight participants from various majors, none of whom had prior experience with GIS. This diverse group embarked on a journey through the capabilities of ArcGIS Online, leveraging the platform’s extensive tutorials to master digital mapping and spatial analysis. The program’s comprehensive curriculum covered the fundamentals of map design, ethical considerations in data handling, and sophisticated storytelling techniques using ArcGIS StoryMaps.
A Spectrum of Projects
Students eagerly applied their newfound skills in an array of projects that illustrated the versatility of GIS in academic and real-world contexts. One notable project involved the overlay of historical maps from Asian-American literature onto current urban layouts, offering a visual exploration of evolving neighborhoods. Another ambitious endeavor utilized iNaturalist data combined with soil analyses to predict hotspots for periodic cicadas, showcasing GIS’s potential in environmental science.
Student-drawn campus map of Agnes Scott circa 1933
Community Engagement and Collaboration
A highlight of the bootcamp was the collaborative session with local stakeholders, including the City of Decatur and Agnes Scott’s own Center for Sustainability. These discussions not only provided practical insights into urban planning and community safety but also demonstrated the real-world applications of the students’ projects. This interaction underscored the importance of GIS in fostering community-oriented solutions and sustainability initiatives.
In an interview, Dr. Kovacs shared her motivations and reflections on the bootcamp. She emphasized the ease of introducing GIS thanks to modern tools, allowing students to delve into personal and relevant projects quickly. Despite initial challenges related to logistics and technology setup, the positive outcomes were manifold. The involvement of students from all majors led to a rich variety of projects, impressing both faculty and community partners. Dr. Kovacs also highlighted her plans to expand GIS instruction at Agnes Scott, including a new online summer course focused on social and environmental justice applications of GIS, further integrating this powerful tool into the liberal arts curriculum.
Dr. Jennifer Kovacs delivering a lecture on ethical mapping and facilitating a brainstorming session on storytelling at Agnes Scott College’s GIS Bootcamp.
A Week of Discovery and Innovation
The GIS Bootcamp at Agnes Scott College was not merely a technical workshop; it was a transformative experience that bridged various disciplines through the lens of digital mapping. By demystifying GIS, the bootcamp empowered students to apply analytical and creative skills to diverse challenges, paving the way for innovative problem-solving in their future careers. The success of this initiative promises exciting developments in how GIS is taught and utilized in liberal arts settings, enhancing the educational landscape at Agnes Scott College and beyond.
With all the many hardships that persist, we want to take time to focus on the beauty that is still being created. We also recognize that with the increasing recognition of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) rather than only STEM, it’s important to highlight some of the scientists/ biologists, and those who create science related art. Our Art in Bio blogs feature artwork along with the artist’s thoughts on how their art influences biology and vice versa.
Dr.Kevin Kohl
This week’s Art in Bio spotlight is a part 2 on Dr. Kevin Kohl, Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh, and ICB author. Below, Dr. Kohl shares his (re)discovery of making art, and the intrinsic ways it is related to our understanding of science.
What themes are you trying to portray with your work?
Like most art, one goal is simply to capture the attention of the audience. But in particular, I hope for viewers to be intrigued by the repurposed material. If even for a brief moment, I hope viewers are caught by curiosity and wonder – as I believe that we humans (and especially we scientists!) spend too little time in these mental states.
For other pieces, I strive for larger concepts that may causing the viewer to question what they think or understand. In particular, I have been working around themes of potential misinformation and critical thinking. I enjoy using materials from scientific books to create pieces of work that might create doubt, wonder, or uncertainty in the audience. I find this to be particularly important in the age or Artificial Intelligence, when access to information is not limited. Instead, the hurdle will be the ability for human viewers to apply critical thinking and distill information for the “truth”.
“Diptera Artfographic”
Who are your artistic inspirations?
I draw visual inspiration from many things around me, especially nature. However, I’ve enjoyed learning more about art history to recognize the artists, particularly queer and subversive artists, that laid the groundwork for me. I find this similar to tracing the history of scientific understanding over time.
In particular, I resonate with the artists below:
Jim Henson, a puppeteer who created an optimistic and vibrant world for my childhood
Eric Carle, a collage artist and children’s author who uses collage of painted paper to create bright animal forms (such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar)
René Magritte, whose absurd and surrealist art sought to subvert rational thought.
Andy Warhol, a leader of pop art and multimedia art movements.
Andrew Avinoff – Curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh from 1926-1945, who also created surrealist artwork depicting flowers and butterflies. I particularly appreciate one quote from Avinoff in regard to his artwork: “I bow to scientific fact until five o’clock. After that I may have other ideas.”
“Fish(es)”
What lessons have you learned about science in trying out these art forms?
One interesting overlap I often reflect on is the idea of both art and data as “representation”, and how the advent of new tools and techniques improves our ability to represent ideas and concepts. Visual art, be it still-life, impressionist, or abstract, is often regarded to be representational – depicting either objects, emotions or ideas. But the object or image of visual art is inherently different from what it is meant to depict. For example, a painting of a vase is not the same as a vase, just as a painting meant to depict grief is not inherently equivalent to experiencing “grief”.
Instead, the object of art represents a snapshot in time, depicting the object or concept at the time the artwork was created. The tools and techniques available to artists change over time, allowing the artist to change the way in which they represent their subject in a visual format. For example, the development of violet paint pigments for paint made this color 10x more common on impressionist paintings compared to earlier works of the 19th century.
Similarly, I then think about the scientific process and how all of our data are representations, often using the newest available tools to gain better representations. We as scientists do not ourselves empirically observe our data. Instead, we use tools and technologies (much like paintbrushes) to create representations. For example, my lab uses a digital scale that converts an animal’s body mass into a representational number. We also readily adopt newly developed tools and techniques to represent the world: pH or oxygen probes, or complex methods to represent the sequence of DNA or the concentration of particular metabolites. These new representations expand our view and understanding of the world, but remain limited and imperfect representations from the time of the experiment. As such, the field of science continues to advance new tools and techniques to improve our representations.
I find photography to be an interesting medium that crosses disciplines. The development of photography has a largely scientific history, with this medium now being so extremely widespread (every phone is a camera), that so many of us can now create visual depictions that are “worth a thousand words”. However, historically, the development of the photographic technique was more limited, and allowed for the precious capture and representation of so many iconic events: from the photo of the last surviving Tasmanian Tiger (1936), to Rosalind Franklin’s photograph of the double helix (1952) to Rosa Park’s mugshot (1956).
It is in this fashion that I think art has the potential to cross disciplines and interact with science. Visual images can both represent data and elicit responses in the viewer. In my own artwork, I look forward to continuing playing with collage materials, the viewer’s perspective, and our own evolving understanding of the world.
Optimal Foraging Theory
You can follow Kevin over various digital venues below:
With all the many hardships that persist, we want to take time to focus on the beauty that is still being created. We also recognize that with the increasing recognition of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) rather than only STEM, it’s important to highlight some of the scientists/ biologists, and those who create science related art. Our Art in Bio blogs feature artwork along with the artist’s thoughts on how their art influences biology and vice versa.
This week’s Art in Bio spotlight is a focus on Dr. Kevin Kohl, Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh, and ICB author. Below, Dr. Kohl shares his (re)discovery of making art, and the intrinsic ways it is related to our understanding of science.
“Cynara cardunculus”
What led to you embark on the journey of exploring art and science?
My exploration into art really begins with a rediscovery of the Humanities in general – a wide area of study that I have always enjoyed. Through middle and high school I was heavily involved in humanities, music, and drama. During my undergraduate training at University of Wisconsin – Madison, this time was occupied instead by new things: socializing and scientific training. I don’t specifically recognize an absence of the arts during my undergraduate training, as it was a time of growth in other directions. However, during my graduate and postdoctoral training, I can retrospectively recognize a flurry of hoop-jumping professional activities. At this time, I was grasping for creative outlets, but always fighting an overbearing mindset that these were distractions and that time should be spent on professional and scientific activities. It is also during graduate school that I also came out as gay, which has been an important and continual process of self-discovery and self-acceptance.
Starting a lab at a research university was the next chapter in a series of mounting professional responsibilities. While I thoroughly enjoy research and the privileges that come with an academic position, it has been a journey in making this position sustainable for myself and my personal relationships. I hit particularly low points during the pandemic, where I felt overtasked with the upkeep of a research lab, training new mentees, and continuing to generate research productivity. This combination of isolation and overwork led to burnout and depression leading me to seek out therapy and meditation.
For better or worse, it was also during this time that I was preparing my tenure dossier due in Summer 2022 – leading to introspection towards my time, priorities, and future. I began watching YouTube videos, especially about philosophy and contemplating how we generate knowledge and information. I was also engaged in book clubs for books that I now consider life-changing: Holding Space by Aminata Cairo and Braiding Sweetgrass by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer. From here, I began initiating coffee meetings with colleagues from diverse departments around the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. I have been amazed to learn the perspectives and expertise of colleagues from Departments such as History and Philosophy of Science, or History of Art and Architecture.
One thing that I find interesting in expanding my professional network was a recognition of the many different types of products, knowledge, impact, and understanding that can be created. While the “scientific paper” is one, I now also recognize the importance and impact of other types of scholarly work, including artwork.
Kevin Kohl
From this exploration, came a rebound towards the humanities. After submitting my tenure dossier summer 2022, this poem was written September 6th, 2022.
What other artistic media have you explored, and what has your artistic process been?
I have been on sabbatical for Spring 2024 and have used this time to explore my own creative outlets. I have a partner who is a high school art teacher, and he was able to provide me with some simple materials and lessons before I left to spend 2.5 months living with my parents in Wisconsin. I took this time to explore techniques of watercolor and collage to create mixed-media artwork. This process actually started with going thrift shopping with my parents to collect collage material, often in the form of old science books. Then, I would create watercolor backgrounds at the kitchen table of my parent’s house, adding new layers every few hours and allowing them to dry while spending time with family. Next, finished watercolors would move to my “workspace”, where I would pour through my collage materials until hit with inspiration that matched the moment and the background.
The assembly is usually the most enjoyable part of the process. Here, I play and grapple with how I wanted compositions to come together. I find that the process is somewhat similar to putting together a puzzle, but that it is me that is deciding whether the pieces “fit”.
“Yellow-billed Hornbill”
Stay tuned next week for more about Kevin’s work…
You can follow Kevin over various digital venues below:
By Elizabeth Surovic , third-year PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Sydney in Australia.
Samantha Burke PhD candidate at University of New South Wales Sydney.
Curiosity is a common spark for questions that could change the world. But the spark will go out unless someone is there to communicate the concepts behind the world.
Samantha Burke says that Science communication, or sci com, is “the way of getting people outside of science to understand more about what science is, how it works, and how they also play a part in it”.
Sammy is an early career scientist and science communicator and has been involved in science communication for many years. Through her experiences, she shows her story of how science communication is changing the world around her one spark at a time.
Sammy’s first interest in science communication came from seeing people’s interactions with science in the world around her. She grew up with parents who were scientists, so learning about science was an early experience for her, and it inspired questions and her curiosity about the world around her. But people she met at school thought that science was too hard to understand and something that could never be grasped. Seeing this, she was inspired to take action to try and bridge the gap between science knowledge and the everyday person. Sammy embarked on several sci com activities to build up her skills – presenting at science fairs, speaking to students in remote communities, tutoring at university, writing articles, interviewing people on a podcast, and presenting at conferences.
Sammy learned many lessons about how sci com can reach people. In particular, she learned the importance of understanding her audiences. “Reaching people in the area where they’re comfortable … rather than expecting them to seek out that information, I think, is a really great way of showing how accessible science can be”.
Samantha Burke
Sammy has done a program in Sydney, Australia, called Pint of Science, which has festivals worldwide and brings scientists into pubs to talk to the community. She has also done some very different science comedy, using humor to draw audiences into science. “The presentation was 80% science and 20% comedy. We met with some professional comedians, and they helped us to restructure a scientific talk using more comedic techniques – by incorporating more jokes, incorporating language that people can understand, and graphics”.
image from site at the bottom of the blog
The same holds when dealing with school kids. “One of the biggest hurdles for younger scientists in science education is that sometimes things get too complicated too soon, or they don’t engage with the content as much because it seems too abstract”. However, “if you teach science in a way that can engage the students, then it’s much more digestible and understandable for them.” Sammy finds that effective sci com can nurture students’ curiosity. She really enjoys “teaching kids who are just starting to get curious about the world, … and allowing them to grow”.
Through her experiences, Sammy believes that communicating with the public is an integral part of science. Sci com can teach people to be curious and get them involved in the world around them. Effective sci com can also engage people in citizen science and conservation, and sci com can affect public opinions on policy and science funding. Sammy hopes to continue her sci com journey, making science accessible to everyone, though the scarcity and precarity of paid sci com roles make it difficult to pursue as a career.
Science communication is an essential part of the scientific process and can cause significant change in the world around us. Sammy advises young scientists who want to get into science communication to “find people that you look up to in sci com to find communication styles that you like, then go and try it in your community”. Science communication can be very rewarding. And it all starts with being curious.
If you would like to contact Sammy, her social media details are below
BloggerElizabeth Surovic is a third-year PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Sydney in Australia. This year, she is a Mangum blogger. She also practices sci com and is part of a science podcast.
The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science recognizes that writers come to the table with different needs and audiences. Through solid examples and concrete advice, Montgomery sets out to help scientists develop their own voice and become stronger communicators. He also teaches readers to think about their work in the larger context of communication about science, addressing the roles of media and the public in scientific attitudes as well as offering advice for those whose research concerns controversial issues such as climate change or emerging viruses.
by Alyssa Sargent, PhD candidate at the University of Washington
Rosalee preparing a mask respirometry setup for her complementary fieldwork to see how aggression changes in more ecologically complex scenarios.
I first met Rosalee Elting when I was just starting my PhD in the Behavioral Ecophysics Lab at the University of Washington—I was phasing out of my research technician position, and she was phasing in. Rosalee made an immediate mark on us all. She had a galvanizing sort of energy and an organizational capacity that put us all to shame; she could juggle prodigious responsibilities that boggled the mind, and single-handedly transformed the lab into a well-oiled machine. We became fast friends, and I got to witness her rapid rise to a position as lab manager, and, soon after, a PhD position at the University of Montana—to begin what I can only imagine will be a long and tremendously successful career studying hummingbirds.
At SICB this year, Rosalee gave an exceptional talk on her current work and future plans: Applying the Phenotype-Performance-Fitness Paradigm to Explore Aerial Combat in Hummingbirds. I jumped at the chance to interview her about her project, and to explore some of the unique insights that she has regarding her path to a fascinating PhD.
During Rosalee’s talk at SICB, she utilized her own art like this to help the audience visualize how fights may escalate from simple chases to face-to-face fights (like here).
AJS: Could you explain a bit more about what you’re studying, and the broader applications of your work?
RE: Of course! I am looking at certain behaviors, such as male-male fighting, and asking how much these activities cost an organism. The presumption is that certain behaviors are “worth it” because they allow access to mates or other resources. But this isn’t always measured! I think this is really interesting and enables a whole area of research, especially in organisms that have historically been hard to study because they’re small, hard to find in the wild, or not of immediate conservation concern.
These studies are interesting because they can tell us a lot about the evolution of these behaviors. If we find that certain behaviors are really expensive (use a lot of an animal’s daily energy), then maybe that behavior is only beneficial when food is abundant, or the animal isn’t living under really harsh conditions. It might tell us something about the landscape of the past and conditions that existed to allow for these behaviors to evolve.
This type of work is interesting to groups beyond biologists, too, as the high-resolution measures—such as the cost to daily energy budgets or the cost of certain maneuvers needed to accomplish the behavior—can be of interest to fields such as engineering and helpful for machine design. Animals are often really good at what they do! So, using these near-optimized organisms can help us understand how better to build machines that we want to be efficient at maneuvers or energy conservation.
Rosalee preparing for lab trials investigating combat in male hummingbirds. Here, she’s setting up equipment for “mask respirometry” and high-speed videography with her advisor, Dr. Bret Tobalske.
AJS: What’s drawn you to hummingbirds in particular?
RE: I was really fortunate to sort of “fall into” hummingbird research. An established researcher, Dr. Don Powers, was a faculty member at my undergraduate institution (George Fox University) and I knew I wanted to get involved with research. His seemed most interesting, as he was studying thermoregulation and physiology in extreme environments, and I thought the ecological implications were really interesting. I was persistent, as he wasn’t able to accept me as a researcher during my first year, but we collaborated in my second. There were multiple pivot points in my career in which I could have studied other organisms, but I kept turning back towards hummingbirds. It’s been really fun studying such a charismatic taxon, and I really like the challenge of constantly trying to miniaturize technology to be used with these often-tiny birds! The species I work with, the Calliope Hummingbird, is 2.5 grams, or the weight of 2.5 paperclips!
AJS: You have such a unique set of experiences. Do you think any of those especially prepared you for where you are now?
RE: Definitely. As strange as it may sound, I think my experience in both food service and retail has really served me well. It’s far from the linear academic path many take, but nothing else quite prepares you in the same way for conflict resolution, time management, and interpersonal connections. I wouldn’t say those are the only things that prepared me, but they laid a really solid foundation for knowing how to operate in the world, work with people, and get things done. My time as a lab manager married those skills with more practical academic tasks, which I think has set me up well for my PhD now. Academia has some bureaucracy, so learning about permitting, purchasing, grant writing, and training people during my time of lab management really gave me a lot of confidence in navigating new institutions and starting new projects.
AJS: What would you say to someone who’s considering grad school but isn’t sure whether they’ve taken the right path?
RE: Don’t worry about the timeline. It is worth being better-equipped and really finding your research identity before you start a project. If you can, work for a bit, whether in the field or helping in a lab. It might feel like a delay, but there is a lot of luxury in being an employee and working hard, but still having some bandwidth at the end of the day to write down the questions you have. I applied to grad programs several times and it took a while to find the right fit. I worked in between, got more experience, and really tried to bolster my resume. The comedian, Amy Poehler said, “find your currency,” and I believe in that. If you don’t have a lot of pubs, what else can you do in the meantime? Maybe you can make a website that emphasizes your on-the-job skills (PIs love when someone knows how to write their own permits), your outreach (this can be as simple as a social media presence with a science focus), or your writing skills (apply to grants/scholarships even if you don’t think you’ll get them; then you have some documents to share).
Keep working hard, keep the big picture in mind, and don’t settle for anything less than a great fit with an advisor. It’s worth finding a productive and healthy workspace for you, whether in a grad program or not, and doing so will be so much more fulfilling than doing anything “on time” or the “right way.”
Rosalee Elting
You can check out Rosalee’s website here, to follow along with her research trajectory; there are sure to be many updates and milestones to come!
connect with Mangum blogger Alyssa Sargent , a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, where she studies hummingbird movement ecology. You can check out her work on her website or follow along with her Instagram, @the.bird.girl.
Alyssa
free ICB related reads:
Ontogeny of Flight Capacity and Pectoralis Function in a Precocial Ground Bird (Alectoris chukar)
Bret W. Tobalske (Rosalee’s advisor) , Brandon E. Jackson, Kenneth P. Dial Author Notes
Locomotion and Energetics of Divergent Foraging Strategies in Hummingbirds: A Review
A J Sargent (Mangum blogger) , D J E Groom, A Rico-Guevara (Assistant ed ICB) Integrative and Comparative Biology, Volume 61, Issue 2, August 2021, Pages 736–748, https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icab124
Traditional understanding of major hummingbird foraging strategies. (A) Quintessential territorialist represented by the Sparkling Violetear (Colibri coruscans), which feeds from numerous generalist plants, including Elleanthus (left), Siphocampylus (middle), and Guzmania (right). (B) Quintessential trapliner represented by the White-tipped Sicklebill (Eutoxeres aquila), which is a nearly obligate mutualist with plants like Heliconia. Scale bars included to show example spatial scale of visited flowers. Figure created with BioRender.com.
ICB has an array of amazing followers, readers and authors. From time to time we like to highlight what they’re doing in their spare time. This week we are highlighting author Dr. Shaz Zamore, author Assistant Professor Noah Bressman, and social media followers, Dr. Jaimi Gray and Dr. Vanessa Pirotta.
By: Colleen Hecker, Master’s Student at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA
Last year, the Florida Atlantic University Owls turned heads as the underdogs of the NCAA March Madness Tournament. As both an alum and current graduate student at FAU, I’ll admit that I may have neglected my studies a bit last March, as I watched our Cinderella story unfold. Commentators that referred to us as “FA-who?” were quickly shown exactly who we were- unsung heroes who, despite all predictions, carved out a coveted spot in the Final Four of the tournament. Ultimately, a buzzer beater shot by the San Diego State Aztecs sent us home from the tournament, but we FAU students couldn’t have been prouder of our team! They put us on the map and quickly eliminated “Fa-who?” from the media’s lexicon.
While we’re likely all familiar with the March Madness Tournament, there’s another, lesser-known tournament in March that’s sure to grab the attention of biologists- March Mammal Madness! March Mammal Madness is a combat tournament organized by Arizona State University that answers the question, “which animal would win in a fight?” In this hypothetical showdown, mammals (and other organisms) are pitted against one another in a knockout tournament. Factoring in the various animals’ behaviors, diets, environment, and combat styles, the featured animals are broken down into four divisions. This year’s divisions are Epic Animals, Rainbow Collection, Take a Bow, and Connoisseur Critters. Each division has 16 contestants, which are ranked from 1-16, with 1 being the best ranked fighter and 16 being the worst.
As an FAU student who loved watching our underdog story play out in last year’s NCAA tournament, I’ve decided to celebrate March Mammal Madness by highlighting some poorly ranked, potential underdog combatants in each of the four divisions (and the wild card). Let’s dive on in and see what these critters are made of, and whether any of them are capable of upsetting the tournament!
Epic Animals- Schizomid.
The schizomid is ranked as #16 in the Epic Animals Division. These tiny arachnids reach only a few millimeters in length, and are known commonly as short-tailed whip-scorpions. Following March Mammal Madness’ Latin Binomials, the particular schizomid species participating in this year’s tournament is Draculoides bramstokeri. These eyeless critters inhabit subterranean systems in cave environments. Pitted against the sperm whale (ranked at #1 in the Epic Animals Division), the odds are stacked against this tiny critter. As a fan of upsets and underdogs, I’m going to take a chance on them and add them to my personal bracket.
Rainbow Collection- Rainbow Scarab
Since the 16th ranked animal in this division will depend on the wild card draw on March 11th, I’m highlighting the animal ranked at #15, the rainbow scarab (Phanaeus vindex). These beetles have an entrancing coloration, similar to the rainbow sheen atop gasoline; According to the March Mammal Madness Combatant Info Slides, this remarkable coloration led to their being worshiped in ancient Egypt! Notably, these beetles feed on animal poop, making them important members of the nutrient cycle in their grassland habitats. Go on, take a chance on these charming, poop eating invertebrates!
Connoisseur Critters- Bear’s Head
The bear’s head (Hericium abietis) isn’t an animal at all, but rather, a fungal species! The bear’s head lives in conifers, growing in fantastic bundles at the tips of their branches. The bear’s head may not have the colorful appearance of the rainbow scarab, but their dazzling, white clusters upon conifers give the illusion of a snow-frosted forest. Ranked as 16th in its division, the bear’s head is slated to face off with the kob, a horned, grassland mammal. This dazzling fungus species may be at a disadvantage against the herbivorous kob due to its edibility. Nevertheless, the bear’s head is an important decomposer in conifer forests, and deserves our praise!
Wildcard:
At the time of first writing, the wildcard winner hadn’t been drawn yet. The wildcard winner was chosen on Monday, March 11, and was the sparklemuffin peacock spider! With a name like that, I had to investigate. These tiny spiders are gorgeous, shaded in magnificent hues of blues and yellows. Most interestingly, they are renowned for their hopping abilities!
Take a Bow:
Last but not least, let’s celebrate the worst ranked contender from the “Take a Bow” division, the Asian cornborer moth (Ostrinia furnacalis). This aptly named pest feeds on corn crops in Asia and Europe. Pesty as it may be, I think it could stand a chance against its division contender, the Northern elephant seal, through evasive tactics like flight. Interestingly, the combatant slides states that males of this moth species’ calls sound similar to those of hunting bats!
The odds are certainly stacked against these critters (and fungus), but as a fan of underdog stories, I felt that they deserved a little recognition! If you’d like to participate in the tournament, I recommend starting here, at Arizona State University’s website, and filling out your bracket today! While you’re at it, have a peak at my personal bracket below! Although I couldn’t resist betting on the poorly-ranked creatures highlighted in this blog, I ultimately went with the giant squid taking the tournament home. Of course, I may be a little biased, as my squid blog was recently featured for ICB.
Best of luck to you all in the tournament! The championship round will take place on April 3rd.
Further reading:
Kate Hinde is the originator of March Mammal Madness
by Mangum blogger Kaylee Velasquez, Graduate Student in the Stark Lab at Villanova University
Life depends on water. All organisms on Earth have been shaped, whether indirectly or directly, by the movement of water at various biological scales from an entire ecosystem to cellular membranes. Similar to water, personal identities, and cultural backgrounds inadvertently influence every facet of life, including scientific research (i.e., how we navigate collaborations, sharing of data, building community, culture molding our scientific interests/priorities, and how we navigate the world). At SICB 2024, the Feel the Flow: How Water Movement Shapes Organisms and Ecosystems symposium brought this intersection to the forefront by recruiting a diverse platform of speakers highlighting how water has shaped organisms across all levels of biology. Scientists and scientific presentations are often viewed as asocial homogenous beings, leading to science-only symposia that do not highlight individuality.
Feel the Flow wanted to challenge this standard of asocial practices in science by introducing concepts that had parallels between fields, facilitating community building among scientists. Like water, how we navigate the world and build relationships is fluid, even within science. For this reason, a goal of the Flow symposium was also to highlight the importance of our individual identities and perspectives. This was done through a series of formal and informal Fluid events including discussions of the inequities faced by historically excluded groups in science and social events meant to celebrate the uniqueness we all bring to our scientific societies.
This symposium was spearheaded by Bryan Juarez and Molly Womack. Juarez (@bhjuarez) is currently in his second year as a Post Doctoral Scholar in the Hadly and O’Connell labs at Stanford University studying anuran ecology and evolution from the molecular to global scale. As a first-generation Chicano from Los Angeles, the intersectionality of science and personal identity has been a consistent theme throughout his career. Juarez is passionate about catalyzing discussions about structural disparities and has regularly supported our colleagues from historically excluded groups in many ways throughout his career.
Overall, this symposium was deemed a great success, with much attendee participation and positive feedback. For his own individual presentation, Juarez found that people thought his talk was very informative and described the Latino experience in STEM in a way that they had not heard before. Some attendees stated that Juarez’s presentation allowed them to build a deeper and emotional connection to the Latino and Chicano experience in academia. Juarez expresses his intention to organize similar events at upcoming conferences, aiming to reshape the scientific discourse and expand the diversity of scientists invited to present, thereby amplifying a broader range of perspectives. I think I can speak for many by saying more symposiums centered around both science and identity are needed.
Overall, the theme of “flow” was two-fold; highlighting the flow of water in shaping organismal evolution, and flow in the context of identity, whether that be gender, sexuality, culture, or race. To complement the symposium, Juarez and Womack organized a “Fluid” art on-site—more on the art and Womack in a later issue.
connect with blogger Kaylee Velasquez via Instagram @kaylee.velasquez
R. Brian Ferguson’s book — Chimpanzees, War, and History: Are Men Born to Kill? (published by ICB’s publisher , Oxford University Press)—addresses whether the study of chimpanzee behavior can provide meaningful insight into human warfare. If you’re looking for a systematic analysis of primary research in chimpanzee group behavior, then Ferguson’s book is for you. If you don’t want to slog through 454 pages of meticulous documentation (plus another 100 pages of tables and references), then here is the main takeaway summarized in the book’s last two sentences:
“Men are not born to kill, but they can be cultivated to kill. Don’t blame evolution.”
Talk about burying the lead.
Ferguson presents an extended case-study into how science research is conducted by flawed human beings. The specifics of each report were interesting enough, but for a non-chimp expert like me, Ferguson’s treatise serves primarily as a cautionary tale reminding scientists to be careful about squeezing their data to fit a preconceived idea shared within an academic field, no matter how tantalizing and impactful that idea might be. He shows readers point by point how data can be (mis)interpreted and how those interpretations set trajectories that eventually need course corrections.
Ferguson occasionally humanizes the jargon, interspersing the text with “Whoas” and “Huhs?” that hint at the author’s exasperation, as if he’s scolding scientists for jumping on bandwagons with shoddy reasoning. He puts each observation of a chimpanzee killing in its historical context, and all too often (by his count, at least) the conclusions in the literature just don’t hold water.
He warns the reader of “Gombe vision,” where researchers recorded one outstanding experience that subsequently overshadowed every scientific observation and inspired a re-evaluation of existing data, rather than leaving the experience as the outlier it (most likely) was. To understand “Gombe vision” in its full context, you’ll have to read the book. For me, it serves as a symbolic representation of how confirmation bias can creep into a scientist’s interpretation of data. Ferguson makes a convincing case, reminding the reader:
“When one hypothesis is dominant in an academic domain, incomplete information may easily be interpreted for the hypothesis rather than against it” (Nakamura and Itoh 2015:381).
He highlights serious problems in the literature: namely, the criteria for categorizing chimpanzee killings are shockingly loose. Much of what has been described as killings caused by chimpanzee conflict has a whole host of other possible interpretations — another warning to avoid over-interpreting data. Ferguson presents his own system of tallying chimpanzee deaths, and even by his conservative calculations the literature is vastly inflated. The data as he presents it just doesn’t jive.
The caveat, of course, is that Ferguson’s analysis falls well outside the realm of my own expertise. His logic seems sound to me, but I’ve only seen his point of view and the pieces of evidence he selected to include. And he’s not without his own biases. He sounds like an anthropologist, building up a biological argument and dismantling it piece by piece to fit the narrative provided by his own expertise.
Still, I think biologists could learn from Ferguson’s careful re-evaluation of the chimpanzee literature. It’s not a bad thing to interpret results cautiously and probe alternative explanations. Bold conclusions should be airtight — Ferguson is just pointing out the leaks.
“Since the time of Charles Darwin, we have been fascinated by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) as windows onto the origins of the human mind. Though research has now shown that chimpanzees are not unique within the animal kingdom in their use of tools as Darwin may have believed, this species continues to provide insight into the fundamental question: what is unique about being human? “
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Ape Consciousness–Human Consciousness: A Perspective Informed by Language and Culture
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, William Mintz Fields, Jared Taglialatela
FIG. 2. Left upper panel. Sherman (seated left) looks at the kinds of foods on the tray in front of him and decides which item he would like to eat first. Left lower panel. He then selects the symbol on the keyboard to represent that food as Austin observes. Right upper panel. Austin picks up the food that Sherman has indicated and gives him a bite. Right lower panel. Austin then takes a bite of the same food for himself. These communicative behaviors were carried on between Austin and Sherman with no experimenter present in the room. They occurred because sharing and turn-taking were part of the everyday cultural tradition in the laboratory. These behaviors were not programmed or shaped, but rather modeled as the proper decorum surrounding food
connect with blogger Brent Foster via X @_brentmfoster
Integrative and Comparative Biology 