Dan hit the Ecological Society of America meeting in Louisville, Kentucky with his poster on stoichiometric development of larval anuran development which will comprise his first thesis chapter. He had some good conversations and saw a bunch of interesting talks. The mussel biodiversity crew was also very busy the past two weeks and completed sampling at two Sipsey and two Buttahatchee River sites! The summer has flown by and now it is time to get back into the academic year here!
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We attended the 2019 Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, and Flint Basin mussel workshop this past week at the Jones Ecological Research Center. It was great continuing seeing mussels over this past week after fieldwork on the Paint Rock River and Bear Creek the weeks before. It was a a good musselcation and nice to meet and catch up with other colleagues in the southeast. It was a great time exploring different streams and learning about other mussels! We also were able to catch up with Dan Knapp and give him comments on his poster for the Ecological Society of America meeting. Looking forward to getting back down there.
The semester is nearly completed and the lab is getting geared up for lots of summer fieldwork. However, we are having several departures. Lucas Glisson, Jillian Hochstrasser, and Jane Kunberger are all graduating! We will miss them dearly and wish them the best in the future. Lucas is working up his snail study for publication, Jillian is going to Oregon for a job in freshwater fisheries, and Jane is off to graduate school at LSU. Jane has been working in the lab since her freshman year, so things are going to be a lot different without her. Here's a message from Jane:
It has been a busy week! Brian and Carla both gave oral presentations on ongoing research in the lab at the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society meeting. It was a wonderful meeting held in San Antonio, TX that allowed us to meet new scientists and catch up with old colleagues. Additionally, Carla got back in time to receive UA's President's Faculty Emerging Research Scholar Award. It was quite the ceremony!Carla, Brian van Ee, Lucas Glisson, and Jane Kunberger went over to Jackson, MS for the Mississippi Water Resources Conference. Carla gave a oral presentation the first day and all of the students gave poster presentations on their work. Jane Kunberger, an undergraduate researcher in the lab, received 3rd place for her poster! The crew finished up their visit in Jackson with a visit to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.Ansley Hamid received a research grant from the College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate and Creativity Research Academy to fund her upcoming research. She will be working in the lab over the summer to collect samples for her project: "Bioaccumulation of Microplastics in Freshwater Clams." Big congratulations to her on her first funded project! She's already done some cool work as evidenced by her poster on freshwater mussel bioturbation that she presented earlier this week. We look forward to field work over the summer and supporting Ansley's ideas and work!The Atkinson lab was out in full force today with five undergraduate students presenting their work at the University of Alabama's Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity conference which was held in the Ferguson Center. Jane Kunberger presented her work examining how land use and physical attributes of the stream impact freshwater mollusk community composition and density. Lucas Glisson presented his work conducted in collaboration with Hal Halvorson (Southern Miss) on snail growth and physiological rates. Ansley Hamid talked about bioturbation and movement by freshwater mussels. Maya Owens-Freeman talked about nutrient excretion and egestion rates of three freshwater mussel species. Lucas Edgren presented his work on the bottom-up role of various freshwater mussel species on in-stream primary productivity.
Garrett Hopper and Irene Sanchez Gonzalez will be joining the Atkinson lab soon! They are both coming on to work on the Mussel Dimensions of Biodiversity project starting this summer. Garrett is finishing up his PhD in Keith Gido's lab at Kansas State University. While Garrett's research background is mostly with fish, he has had a great deal of experience with mussels and has collaborated extensively with the Caryn Vaughn lab. We look forward to having his expertise on the project. Irene has a MS from Arkansas State University will be joining us with a background in freshwater mussel ecology and water quality. She currently lives in Barcelona, Spain and works as an aquatic toxicologist. They already both have a lot of great ideas coming in the door. We are looking forward to having them both around in the lab!
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Dr. Carla L. AtkinsonMy life is like a float trip! Archives
April 2023
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