August 2008

Defense of Proposals

Adriana Galvis, MS candidate (major advisor: Dr. A. Barbieri), defended her thesis proposal entitled: "Functional Determinants of Ras Interference 1 (Rin1) Mutants Required for Their Inhibitory Activity on Endocytosis" on August 15.

Janna L. Rose, Ph.D. candidate (major advisor: Dr. Bradley Bennett), defended her dissertation proposal entitled: “Anti-Diarrheal Plants of Central Anatolia; Do They Inhibit Diarrhea-Causing Bacteria?” on August 27.

Presentations at Meetings

Roxaneh Khorsand, Ph.D. candidate, presented a poster with her major advisor Dr. Suzanne Koptur at the Ecological Society of America's (ESA) Plant-Pollinator Interactions Conference in Milwaukee, WI. (Aug.2-3) titled: Pollination Interactions of Three Sympatric Palms of Southern Florida Pine Rocklands.

Several graduate students from Dr. Laurie Richardson's lab, Masters student Beth Zimmer and PhD students Kristin Kuehl, Aaron Miller and Lonnie Kaczmarsky, recently gave oral presentations and/or presented posters at the International TCoralT Reef TSymposiumT (TICRST) JULY 7-T11T, 2008 in Ft. Lauderdale.

Oral. Longin T. Kaczmarsky*, Raju Sekar, DeEtta K. Mills, Esther C. Peters, Laurie L. Richardson. TCharacterizations of the Major Coral Diseases of the Philippines: Porites Ulcerative White Spot Syndrome and Novel Growth Anomalies of PoritesT

Oral. Aaron Miller*, Laurie Richardson. TThe Effect of Sediment and Heat Stress on the Initiation and Spread of Black Band DiseaseT

Oral. Laurie Richardson*, Miroslav Gantar, Jamie Myers, Aaron Miller. TProduction of Cyanotoxins by Black Band Disease CyanobacteriaT

Poster. Donald Deis, Beth Zimmer*, Leslie Duncan TPost-Hurricane Rita assessment of four sensitive banks in the vicinity of the Flower Garden Banks, Gulf of Mexico.T

Poster. Longin T. Kaczmarsky*, Matthew Draud. TCoral Community Composition in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands in Relation to Sources of Major Anthropogenic ImpactsT

Poster. Raju Sekar, Longin Kaczmarsky, Laurie Richardson* TCharacterization of Microbial Communities Associated with Black Band Diseased Corals by Targeting the 16S rRNA and DsrAB GenesT

Poster. Kristin Kuehl Differences in the susceptibility to black band disease (BBD) between two species of Diploria on the reefs of Bermuda

After the meeting a reporter from the Virgin Islands newspaper "The St. Croix Avis" interviewed Lonnie for an article that was printed July 27 entitled "Coral Reef Crisis: VI environmentalists attend international symposium" in which Lonnie was quoted as saying "On a local level, people can help reduce the impact of the global factors by improving local water quality because it appears that local impacts like sewage effluent exacerbate the problem".

Publications

Ph.D. candidate Rudi von May (major advisor: M. Donnelly) recently published the following paper:

Von May R., M. Medina–Müller, MA Donnelly, K. Summers. 2008. The tadpole of the bamboo-breeding poison frog Ranitomeya biolat (Anura: Dendrobatidae) Zootaxa 1857:66-68.

Ph.D. candidate Longin Kaczmarsky (major advisor: Dr. LL Richardson) co-authored a paper that was recently published.

Sekar, R., L. Kaczmarsky and L.L. Richardson. 2008. Microbial community composition of black band disease on the coral host Siderastrea siderea from three regions of the wider Caribbean. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 362:38-98.

Alumna Laura May-Collado, Ph.D. (major advisor: Dr. D. Wartzok) published the following paper:

May-Collado, L. J. and D. Wartzok. 2008. A comparision of bottlenose dolphin whistles in the Atlantic Ocean: Factors promoting whistle variation. Journal of Mammalogy. 89(5):205-216.

Ph.D. candidate Flavia C. Brito (major advisor: Dr. L. Kos) contributed the image that appeared on the cover of the most recent issue of Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research that accompanied her paper:

Brito, F.C. and L. Kos. 2008 Timeline and distribution of melanocyte precursors in the mouse heart. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. T21T:T464-70.T

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