Citheronia caterpillar eating leaf

Can gut microbes help insects overcome plant defenses?

Sept. 9, 2015

EBIO graduate student Tobin Hammer and Professor Deane Bowers were recently featured on the cover of Oecologia . How are herbivorous insects able to subsist on a diet that is often rich in toxic chemical compounds? In this issue Hammer and Bowers outline the ‘Gut microbial facilitation hypothesis,’ arguing that...

Giardia

Ecology advancing the fight against infectious diseases

Sept. 9, 2015

In a new study published today in the journal Science, EBIO Professor Pieter Johnson and colleagues demonstrate how community ecology, which focuses on how species interact across different scales of biological organization, can provide new analytical tools for thinking about diseases and their wide-ranging impacts. Despite continued medical advances, infectious...

Sara Berkowitz and Angela Earp editing film projects

Innovative Courses: Climate Change & Film

Sept. 2, 2015

Climate Change & Film Innovative class uses film making (by Clare Spitzer, EBIO undergraduate). This class brings students of all majors together to learn about film while obtaining a solid science background on climate change through an intense schedule of guest speakers that includes scientists, professors, artists, photographers, adventurers and...

Household dust under a microscope. Photo by NAIAD.

Home sweet microbe: what lives in your dust?

Sept. 2, 2015

The humble dust collecting in the average American household harbors a teeming menagerie of bacteria and fungi, and as CU postdoctoral scientist Albert Barberán and EBIO Associate Professor Noah Fierer have discovered, it may be able to predict not only the geographic region of a given home, but the gender...

Deane Bowers

Deane Bowers elected Fellow of the Entomological Society

Sept. 2, 2015

Deane Bowers - Curator of Entomology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and Professor and Chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Deane has been selected this year as one of ten fellows from the Entomological Society of America...

Dodo bird - public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frohawk_Dodo.png

Rescuing species from extinction

Aug. 18, 2015

Ruth Hufbauer (Colorado State University), Brett Melbourne (EBIO), Ty Tuff (EBIO graduate student) and co-authors report on their study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Three types of rescue can avert extinction in a changing environment . Preventing extinction of small populations in rapidly changing environments...

Erin Tripp standing in a river

Five questions for EBIO's Erin Tripp

Aug. 13, 2015

Erin Tripp featured in CU connections.

RECCS program at CU-Boulder offers firsthand research experience for Colorado community college students

Aug. 10, 2015

Growing up in Pueblo, Colorado, Savannah Bernal never imagined she’d be taking detailed soil measurements alongside scientists at a windswept Rocky Mountain field site. Now, thanks to a unique summer research program at the University of Colorado Boulder, she’s been given the opportunity to do just that.

Bighorn sheep in clear creek canyon, photo by Jeff Mitton

Decline in Colorado’s bighorn sheep not caused by inbreeding

Aug. 7, 2015

The health of Colorado’s bighorn sheep population remains as precarious as the steep alpine terrain the animals inhabit, but a new study led by EBIO graduate student Catherine Driscoll ( Mitton lab ) has found that inbreeding—a common hypothesis for a recent decline—likely isn’t to blame.

Camouflage insects on plants illustration

Natural selection can impede formation of new species

Aug. 7, 2015

An intriguing study involving walking stick insects led by the University of Sheffield in England and the University of Colorado Boulder shows how natural selection, the engine of evolution, can also impede the formation of new species.

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