New Bio Faculty: Luiza Aparecido

January 13, 2025

Born and raised in the São Paulo State in Brazil, her journey to the University of Utah is rooted in her lifelong passion for plants. “Ever since I was a young kid growing up in Brazil, I've always been interested in what plants are doing,” she shares. “And when it comes to the type of work that I do, I just want plants to always be around. I love plants very much, and I know that we need them for our livelihood, and their role in the ecosystem is very important.”

Aparecido’s educational path began in forestry engineering in Brazil where she was introduced to undergraduate research, inspired by her father’s career as a university professor. She then pursued a master’s degree studying the ecology of the Amazon rainforest, during which her fascination with plant ecology and physiology deepened. “When I was there, that's when I started getting more in tune with plant ecology and plant physiology, and how these fields are crucial in understanding the structure and function of forests,” she explains. However, her academic journey was not without challenges. She almost stepped away from academia before deciding to apply for a PhD program at Texas A&M University where she earned her doctorate in Ecosystem Science and Management. Her doctoral work led her to explore the complexities of plant interactions with leaf wetness in the tropics of Costa Rica.

After earning her PhD, Aparecido completed a postdoctoral position at Arizona State University where she shifted her focus to arid land ecology — a surprising contrast to her roots in the lush Amazon rainforest. “When I moved to Arizona State, I was doing preliminary work in the Sonoran Desert, and that's when I realized there's so much we don't know about these plants that are very unique and very adapted to these ecosystems,” she explains. “How are they going to look in the future? Are they really as resistant as people think they are? Are they even resilient?”

At the U, Aparecido’s research addresses crucial questions about plant resilience in urban and natural landscapes, particularly in the face of climate change. Her current research is crucial for understanding plants’ response to heat and drought stress, such as plant adaptations to urban heat islands, a common phenomena in the Southwest region of the US.

These responses can be measured through leaf gas exchange rates (photosynthesis and transpiration), stem water use and hydraulics, plant morphological traits and local microclimatic conditions. “When it comes to urban plants and plants that we see up on the hillside, understanding how resilient they are to heatwaves and drier conditions matters for restoration and conservation,” she says.

Aparecido’s work also delves into invasion ecology, examining what makes certain plants invasive and how they might outcompete native species. “Invasion is something that's going to be inevitable with climate change,” she says. “We’re trying to figure out what happens at the physiological level that allows invasive plants to dominate over native ones.”

Aparecido’s research has significant implications for both ecological preservation and agriculture. She emphasizes the importance of developing drought- and heat-tolerant plants and understanding local plant adaptations to inform conservation efforts. She also highlights the challenges of maintaining diverse urban forests in a warming climate. “When you have a large number of the same species, that makes it more attractive for pathogens or insects to come in, but it also means that there is less variability in functions and traits, which might be detrimental when all plants are stressed at the same time” she explains. “So the more diversity you have in plant communities the better off they will be in an ecosystem. I’m talking about neighborhood scale but also in your own lawn. The more diverse you go, the better.” Aparecido emphasizes that in the world of plants, small changes can go a very long way.

Looking for patterns

Beyond her research, Aparecido is a dedicated teacher and mentor. She currently supervises three graduate students working on projects ranging from the physiology of invasive Russian olive trees to the behavior of tumbleweeds and hybrid oak resilience. She is also teaching a course on ecosystem ecology this spring. “One thing about my job that I love is looking for patterns,” she says. “Plant processes are embedded in modeling for climate projections and plant distribution projections because of these patterns.” In her lab and classroom she strives to provide her students with extensive tools and knowledge to measure plants' health as they adapt to environmental challenges.

Looking ahead, Aparecido is eager to collaborate with researchers and organizations at the U, including at the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy and Red Butte Garden. She values the opportunity to work alongside like-minded colleagues who share her passion for understanding and protecting plant ecosystems. Aparecido’s enthusiasm for plants and nature extends beyond her work. She enjoys exploring Utah’s unique landscapes through road trips and hikes, often accompanied by her dog, Cookie. “I think I always felt very connected to the land,” she reflects. “And I just love working with plants and understanding the environment through them.”

As Luiza Aparecido settles into her new role, she remains committed to following her passion for plants and inspiring others to do the same.

by Julia St. Andre

Riley Peck BS’09 named new DWR director

January 13, 2025

A resident of Eagle Mountain, Utah County, Peck started working for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in 2006 as a native aquatics technician. In 2009, he transitioned to working as a wildlife biologist before eventually being promoted to Central Region wildlife manager in 2016. He worked in that role until 2019, when he became the once-in-a-lifetime species coordinator. Peck has served as the division's legislative liaison from 2019 until now.

With a bachelor's in biology from the University of Utah and a master's degree in plant and wildlife science from Brigham Young University, Peck has always had a passion for the outdoors and wildlife conservation.

"I have always loved wildlife, fishing, hunting, camping and all things outdoors and always had a desire to operate in that space," Peck said. "Getting to do what I am passionate about as a living has been a great privilege, and I feel truly lucky that I have had the opportunity to work in wildlife management. At the DWR, we have made a lot of strides to gather some of the best wildlife data in the entire U.S. As director, I'd like us to continue to build on that and use that information to manage our wildlife species in Utah even more effectively."

"During his 19-year career with the DWR, Riley has garnered a lot of experience and knowledge and has also proven himself as an exceptional employee — he was recently named the 2024 DNR employee of the year. I feel confident in his ability to oversee the management of Utah's fish and wildlife," Ferry said.

Peck grew up in Riverton, and enjoys recreating in the outdoors hunting, fishing and camping with his wife and kids.

Peck replaces former DWR Director J Shirley, who retired Dec. 31, 2024.

In Detox: Woodrats use ‘quantity over quality’ as a plan

January 9, 2025

Part of the team doing field work in California to capture wild woodrats.

The critter’s constitution has astounded biologists and represents a decades-long debate—over evolutionary time, how do animals adapt to a deadly diet? Do detoxification enzymes become more specialized or more abundant?

The study, led by University of Utah (U) biologists, is the first to pinpoint the specific genes and enzymes that allow woodrats to eat the near-lethal food without obvious harm. The scientists compared the detoxification pathways of two woodrat species that encountered creosote independently in their evolutionary histories to those who had never encountered creosote. Before creosote invaded parts of the Southwest, woodrat populations had a smaller number of genes that coded for enzymes that process creosote toxins. As creosote grew to dominate the landscape, natural selection drove a detox-gene duplication bonanza, resulting in massive increases in the numbers of genes that produce enzymes that eliminate creosote toxins. Curiously, these enzymes did not become more specialized to detoxify creosote—there was just much more of them.

The authors propose that gene duplication is an important mechanism by which animals initially adapt to new environmental pressures.

“These woodrats have only been exposed to creosote bush for about 15,000 years—in an evolutionary timescale, that’s very little time,” said Dylan Klure, postdoctoral researcher at the U and lead author of the study. “Some other changes may happen in the future, but right now, the duplication innovation is what’s allowed them to become so toxin-resistant so quickly.”

The study published on Jan. 10, 2025, in the journal Science.

There are two primary hypotheses for how animals evolve tolerance to toxic chemicals. The first is that new DNA mutations modify existing detoxification enzymes to metabolize toxins faster and more efficiently—a lower quantity, higher quality approach. The second is that detoxification genes and the enzymes they produce don’t change much, but duplicate in number over evolutionary time, allowing animals to produce more detoxification enzymes in response to toxin consumption—a greater quantity, lower quality approach. Previous research found that herbivorous insects process toxins using specialized enzymes that metabolize chemicals faster. Since the 1970s, biologists have favored this “enzyme quality over quantity” hypothesis. This study found the exact opposite.

“We discovered that creosote-feeding woodrats don’t have specialized enzymes to metabolize creosote toxins, just more—many more, and from a wide variety of existing detox enzymes,” said Denise Dearing, U biologist and senior author of the study. “These duplications of existing genes increase the quantity of detoxification enzymes produced, enabling more toxin to be eliminated.”

Coyote numbers are often higher in areas where they are hunted

January 9, 2025

Coyote populations across the United States are influenced by a number of factors, but surprisingly their abundance is found to be higher in areas that allow hunting of the predator, according to research by a University of Utah wildlife biologist and colleagues in other states.

As U.S. landscapes became increasingly plowed and paved over the past couple centuries, wildlife has become less abundant thanks to the loss and fragmentation of habitat. But not coyotes, North America’s most successful mid-sized predator, which have expanded their range despite eradication campaigns and rapid urbanization.

Coyotes are bold generalists, eating anything from seeds, trash, roadkill, rodents, deer fawn, even pets, and fill niches left vacant by the elimination of bears, wolves and cougars, according to co-author Austin Green, a researcher with the U’s Science Research Initiative and former graduate student in the School of Biological Sciences.

It is reasonable to expect hunting to reduce species abundance, especially in conjunction with other anthropogenic factors that spurred the wave of Holocene extinctions. Unregulated hunting, after all, resulted in the disappearance of the passenger pigeon, dodo and monk seal, and near-extinctions of many other now-rare species, including iconic megafauna such as the American bison and white rhinoceros.

Coyotes, on the other hand, have displayed a pronounced resiliency in regions, such as Utah where hunting and trapping these predators is heavily subsidized and barely regulated, according to the findings based on extensive camera surveys.

“This is corroborating a lot of other evidence that direct hunting and intervention is actually not a really good way to manage coyote populations, if the goal is to decrease their abundance,” Green said.

The new study, which was funded in part by the U’s Global Change and Sustainability Center, was led by the University of New Hampshire (UNH). It relied on data compiled by Snapshot USA, a sprawling collaborative campaign to sample wild mammal populations with motion-triggered trap cameras arrayed in transects each fall.

Alumnus Paul Keim, 2024 Lark Lecturer

January 8, 2025

One of this year's distinguished alumni awardees, Keim was a natural pick for the distinction, not only because of his work with Lark in the 80s but because of his auspicious career in The Pathogen and Microbiome Institute (PMI), an impressive cross-disciplinary research unit at Northern Arizona University where, after graduating from NAU with a BS, he returned to and has been on the faculty for the past 36 years.

PMI is closely associated with TGen North, with whom the institute shares infrastructure to maximize Arizona’s investment in science.

At the U Keim studied everything from soybeans to kangaroo rats. “We did everything," he says about the lab’s variety. “It’s what I call either the Lark curse or the Lark blessing… Gordon was willing to work on any interesting biological problem.” This was before Keim found himself working in infectious diseases, in particular with the deadly bacterium anthrax and later cholera and more recently the SARS-COVID-19 coronavirus, among others. At one highly elevated juncture he would find himself on the world stage as, following the attacks on American soil September 11, 2001, letters laced with anthrax spores started showing up in people’s mail. Five individuals eventually died from it.

The "Father of the Dept. of Biology," now the School of Biological Sciences, K. Gordon Lark (1930-2020). The annual Lark Lecture is in his honor. Credit: Ben Okun

How the story played out during the era of the “Anthrax Letters,” the title of a recent Netflix docudrama in which Keim is prominently featured, has all of the intrigue you would expect of a compressed but harrowing era starting in October 2021. It was a time when the country was rattled to the bone and saw terrorists, it seemed, around every corner–and in every letter delivered by the postal service. It was through the use of genomic technology and evolutionary principles at PMI and TGen North that Keim and his team were able to trace the specific, professionally processed spores, used in the attacks to an American microbiologist, vaccinologist, Bruce Ivins, a professional acquaintance of Keim’s and a known expert in the handling of anthrax spores.

Keim was readying to testify in court when Ivins took his life. “Whether or not Bruce Ivins actually did it or not is still hotly debated. But the Justice Department is convinced that he did it and they shut the whole thing down and destroyed all the evidence. So all the evidence that we were analyzing, all the anthrax strains, all the letters,” he says with some disappointment if not bitterness “... it's gone.”

Being pressed into the harsh and sometimes unforgiving media light (and hype) has been a defining feature of Keim’s career, but it has always been unapologetically rooted in the ethic of scientific inquiry that relentlessly follows the facts, honors the data and reaches conclusions that counter sacred paradigms in different scientific fields. His mentor Gordon Lark would be proud.

Why mobile farm technology won the 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize

January 7, 2025

This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism.

A "pyrolizer," a machine that can apply high heat without oxygen to crop waste and create a soil additive called biochar, dumps loads of the substance into bags. Applied Carbon, a Texas startup, has received a $500,000 prize from the U's Wilkes Center to develop the technology as a way to store carbon. Credit: Applied Carbon

The stalks and husks of corn plants — the waste product left by combine harvesters — could be a key tool in the fight against climate change, and the University of Utah is putting up $500,000 to test the idea.

The U.’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy recently awarded its half-million-dollar Wilkes Climate Launch Prize to Applied Carbon, a Texas-based startup.

Applied Carbon won the prize for its mobile farm technology, which turns crop waste into a soil additive that decreases the need for fertilizer and stores the remaining carbon in the earth’s soil.

William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center, said one of the main selling points of Applied Carbon’s technology is its potential to be made for scale.

“The scalability is very exciting, and you can see a path for them to really scale up across many different agricultural fields in the next couple of years,” he said.

The crop waste is produced when combine harvesters sail through tall corn fields, their rotating blades slicing through the stalks, filtering them into the machine’s mouth, where its spinning cylinders rip the corn kernels from the husk and stems. The combine saves the kernels of corn in its body and spits out the stalk and husk remnants, leaving it to waste on the flattened field.

The prize, one of the largest university-run climate prizes in the world, was created in 2023 to help jump-start promising climate solution ideas. At a September reception in partnership with the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine, Anderegg awarded the prize money to Jason Aramburu, Applied Carbon’s CEO and co-founder.

At the reception, Aramburu said that “as a startup company … there’s often a funding gap, particularly in this sector, to get your technology to market.” He later added that the prize money will help the company produce more of their biochar machines and get them into the field.

Applied Carbon now has four mobile pyrolizers, a machine that can reach high temperatures without oxygen, and the company will apply the prize money to its field operations in Texas, Aramburu said. These operations, he said, work in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“We’ve got about 4,000 acres of corn that we’re working with. We will test our equipment [in Texas] and also test how effective the biochar is on the soil,” he said.

The yield and soil chemistry testing, Aramburu said, will determine if the process works and to measure the impact of the technology. The project, in its first multi-season trial run, is expected to remove 100,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere by 2026, he said.

Biochar, a charcoal-like substance derived from biomass waste, is made through pyrolysis, a heat-driven process that uses virtually no oxygen and stores carbon in the waste product, according to Utah State University. Biochar, Anderegg added, is promising as a nature-based tool for fighting climate change because its carbon storage is stable and lasts hundreds of years.

“By contrast, a huge number of companies and governments are interested in tree planting, … but forests are at increasing risk from fire and drought and climate change,” he said. “We really worry about planting trees in one area that may be dead in 10 to 20 years.”

By Giovanni Radtke

You can read the full story for free at Amplify or with a subscription in the Salt Lake Tribune.

SRI Stories

December 23, 2024

If there were a single word to describe the Science Research Initiative (SRI), “mutualistic” would rank among the best choices. Most are aware that the program uniquely allows undergraduate students to build a strong undergraduate resume, connect with expertise in the field, and ultimately learn if the career path is right for them far earlier and easier than what tradition entails. But did you know a similar benefit exists for the mentors?

SRI mentors are able to build a resume of their own as they teach and foster their students’ growth, showing proof-positive results that they can help students thrive under their leadership. That’s useful in its own right, but they also get to “home-grow” a roster of assistants with tailor-made expertise to assist with their projects. These are assistants that then use that expertise as groundwork for projects of their own. It’s a system that benefits everyone involved

Kendra Autumn is a prime example.

Parasitic fungi adaptation

Kendra arrived at the U with a BA in Biology from Willamette University in tow and quickly became involved with SRI as a graduate student stream leader. Under the guidance of her PhD advisor Bryn Dentinger, she developed a research focus on how parasitic fungi adapt to their hosts and how they might adapt to switch to a new host. The study of parasitic relationships can lead to deeper understandings of the evolution and mechanism of parasitism and often leads to practical applications.

“Say you’re trying to grow a crop plant and a pathogenic fungus attacks that plant,” Kendra explains, “you can get a different fungus that is a parasite of the crop-attacking fungus to deal with the issue, which is a potential pesticide-free approach to mitigating fungal crop pathogens.” She is currently studying the DNA of several mushroom specimens and their mold parasites, building evolutionary trees to better understand how these parasites have adapted to counter their hosts' defensive measures.

SRI's signature mutualism

This sort of adaptive specialization is a potential goldmine of breakthroughs as parasitism is all around us. Its utilization could affect everything from medicine to waste reduction. But as these parasitic studies built momentum, so, in tandem, did the new SRI with its signature mutualism. Now in its fifth year, the program for undergraduates is perfectly poised to place a handful of undergraduates under Kendra’s leadership, allowing them to adapt and grow together, often in ways you might not expect.

Kendra explains that “Many streams are able to create a lab culture, where fresh SRI students will go on to become learning assistants or TA’s in their stream to help mentor new students. There’s an actual sense of community. It’s something [where] I’m looking around and asking, ‘How do I develop this more in my stream?’” It becomes not just a project that students are invested in, but an environment, a place, where they feel comfortable enough to plant a few roots and start growing in turn.

Even SRI's infancy, the benefits to both students and mentors, like Kendra, have been astounding. Now with her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology awarded last spring, she gets to lead her upcoming students as a fully fledged SRI Fellow, to ask more ambitious questions and find new ways to expand student’s horizons as the program continues to evolve.

Kendra Autumn has big plans, ranging from introducing genomic studies in an accessible way, to creating and involving her students with outreach programs to build their science communication skills. And all the while they will be helping her lift her own projects towards new heights. It truly is a mutualistic relationship, as the years continue to pass it's no longer a question of if SRI will benefit students. Instead, it’s a question of what kind of extraordinary new heights both mentor and students together will be able to reach.

The Next Antibiotic Revolution: Viruses to the Rescue

December 10, 2024

Talia Backman, a University of Utah doctoral candidate wrapping up her final year in the School of Biological Sciences, found her project and niche in studying bacteria and the viruses that infect them.

She studies how bacteria create and use weapons, called “tailocins,” by repurposing genes from viruses.

“I’m especially interested in how bacteria have taken this a step further,” Backman said, “using remnants of past viral infections as a novel defense mechanism.”

“Phage” is the word that refers to the viruses that infect bacterial cells. While phages do not attack human cells, a lot can be learned from the strategies used by bacteria to survive a viral infection. Working with Talia Karasov, the principal investigator and assistant professor of biology (yes, they share the same first name), Backman recently helped make an unexpected discovery.

Repurposing viruses

“The bacterial strains (Pseudomonas) that I am studying are essentially repurposing the viruses that infect them,” Backman said, “retaining features from the infectious particles that ultimately help them to kill or co-exist with other strains of bacteria. These repurposed phage parts are called ‘tailocins.’ Understanding the role tailocins may be playing in shaping the prevalence, survival, and evolutionary success of certain bacterial strains is not well understood and is a major focus of the research in the Karasov lab.

Research on bacteria, and their unique viral pathogens, might just offer a novel solution to the antibiotic crisis. Beyond revealing how microbial communities combat infection, compete and evolve is the adjacent opportunity and potential to discover a new class of antibiotics.

SRI Stories: Parker Guzman

November 2, 2024

SRI Stories: Of Bees & Pigeons

May 29, 2024

“We were given the opportunity to ask novel questions,” Parker Guzman says of the Science Research Initiative (SRI) in the College of Science, “as well as the methods and process of experiments. That’s lacking in undergraduate research a lot of the time.”

Parker worked in the Briggs/Steffen SRI stream, which focuses on pollination biology. The lab, in which students actively participate in field research and molecular protocols, studies native bees and their molecular structure in order to better understand the plants they pollinate and how to help native bees in the environment.

Parker is majoring in biology, with an emphasis in ecology and evolution with a minor in integrative human biology.

“After I leave the U,” Parker says, “I want to work in the field and then apply for a PhD program in ecology and evolution. I could see myself staying in academia, I enjoy teaching or doing research.”

In 2023, Parker won the Department of Chemistry’s Kodak Educational Service Fellow Award for mentorship. He works as a teaching assistant for organic chemistry classes.

“A professional hero of mine is Hank Green,” Parker says. “He’s an author and science communicator and has done a lot of work on platforms like YouTube to make science more accessible.”

Parker is the president of the undergraduate chapter of SACNAS at the U, a club that promotes and supports diversity in STEM. SACNAS often attends conferences, such as the one in Portland, Oregon last year. Parker also organized a smaller, local conference at the U in April, where around one hundred people participated. SACNAS won the Recognized Student Organization award for belonging from the University of Utah.

Along with SACNAS, Guzman works in the Clayton/Bush lab in the School of Biological Sciences. He became interested in their research after attending a lecture on parasitology. Focusing on host-parasite coadaptation and diversification, the Clayton/Bush lab works with birds, using captive birds as well as field work to research these mechanisms.

Guzman’s research within the Clayton/Bush lab is on the relationship between molt and preening behavior in captive pigeons.

“Molt is a huge but necessary energy investment for pigeons,” explains Parker. “So we expect them to downregulate other behaviors. But preening may not be downregulated due to the role it plays in maintaining plumage health.”

“Despite what most people think,” adds Parker Guzman, “pigeons are one of the smartest animals in the world.”

by CJ SIebeneck

New Faculty: Eleinis Ávila-Lovera

September 27, 2024

In the field.

This stalwart resilience fascinated Eleinis Ávila-Lovera in her undergraduate years, an interest that has guided her entire educational journey as a plant ecophysiologist. Drawn to the deserts of the region, she has found her way here as an assistant professor of the School of Biological Sciences.

Starting in Venezuela where she was born and raised, Ávila-Lovera was inspired by her grandparents to live her life to its fullest potential. Her grandmother Leonidas Guevera de Lovera taught her to read and write at the age of four. When combined with her grandfather Luis Lovera’s work ethic setting a perfect example, Ávila-Lovera was able to adapt and thrive as efficiently as the plants she would eventually study. Guided by the insightful teaching of her undergraduate mentor Wilmer Tezera, she was quickly drawn to the arid environments of the region. It’s hard enough to weather the world while immobile, exponentially more so in the scorching heat with no water. And yet, countless plants are able to adapt and thrive in these conditions.

“There’s a particular genus called Parkinsonia (palo verde),” Ávila-Lovera explains when asked for an example, “Whose bark is completely green. It’s a drought-deciduous plant, meaning that it loses its leaves during the dry season. In a desert this could lead to zero carbon gain, yet the palo verde is still able to withstand the arid heat, because the green stem helps them continue acquiring carbon despite the lack of leaves.”

Plants such as this are the focus of Ávila-Lovera’s research. Her lab is currently working on two projects: One, led by graduate student Osedipo Adegbeyeni, is comparing the water status regulation between leaves and photosynthetic stems in desert plants. The other, led by postdoctoral researcher Oranys Marin, is studying the link between hydraulic conductivity and stem photosynthesis in desert plants. Ultimately the former project aims to decipher differences in how stems and leaves tolerate drought conditions. The latter explores the potential coordination of traits that allow better performance of plants in drought conditions.

Ávila-Lovera also currently teaches BIOL 5460, Plant Ecology in a Changing World. Taking inspiration from the adaptations she has studied, she wishes to create a classroom environment that provides students all the tools and resources they need to thrive. Being over 3,000 miles from home herself, she’s well versed in the process of learning to flourish in unfamiliar soil. She aspires not just to transmit information, but to provide the basis that allows students to master and apply their newfound knowledge in turn.

“It’s important to remember that ecology as a science has the same rigorous background as other sciences,” Ávila-Lovera explains. “I do consider myself an environmentalist. I do not eat red meat or poultry and try to reduce my carbon footprint. But ecology itself is a science; we’re testing hypotheses, and it’s critical to approach it with the organization and structure one would expect.”

Having been allowed to thrive by multiple mentors before her, Ávila-Lovera eagerly looks forward to providing a similar mentorship role to her current and future students.

College of Science

bio-news

New Bio Faculty: Luiza Aparecido

New Bio Faculty: Plant Ecologist Luiza Aparecido

Luiza Aparecido is a new assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences and an expert in plant ecophysiology, focusing on how plants respond to a changing climate.

Looking for patterns

Riley Peck BS’09 named new DWR director

Riley Peck BS'09 named new DWR director

Utah Department of Natural Resources Executive Director Joel Ferry named Riley Peck as the new director for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, effective Monday, Jan. 13.

In Detox: Woodrats use ‘quantity over quality’ as a plan

Woodrats use ‘quantity over quality’ as a Detox plan

Woodrats are one of the only animals that can tolerate large quantities of creosote, a shrub with leaves coated in a chemical cocktail of poisonous resin.

Coyote numbers are often higher in areas where they are hunted

Coyote numbers are often higher in areas where they are hunted

Counterintuitive findings are based on images from hundreds of trap cameras deployed in nationwide campaign to document wildlife.

Alumnus Paul Keim, 2024 Lark Lecturer

2024 Lark Lecturer: Paul Keim

In October, Paul Keim, one of the longest-serving postdoctoral researchers in the lab run by the late K. Gordon Lark, was tapped to present the annual Lark Lecture at the School of Biological Sciences Science Retreat.

Why mobile farm technology won the 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize

How mobile farm technology won the 2024 Wilkes Prize

A Texas company, winner of the 2024 Wilkes Climate Prize, aims to develop technology to create 'biochar' as a soil additive that could benefit farmers.

SRI Stories

SRI Stories: Mutualistic Mentorship

Creating stepping stones for students and mentors alike

Parasitic fungi adaptation

SRI's signature mutualism

The Next Antibiotic Revolution: Viruses to the Rescue

The Next Antibiotic Revolution: Viruses to the Rescue

From multicellular organisms, like us humans, to single-cell bacteria, living things are subject to attack by viruses. Plants, animals and even bacteria have evolved strategies to combat pathogens, including viruses that can threaten health and life.

Repurposing viruses

SRI Stories: Parker Guzman

SRI Stories: Of Bees & Pigeons

“We were given the opportunity to ask novel questions,” Parker Guzman says of the Science Research Initiative (SRI) in the College of Science, “as well as the methods and process of experiments. That’s lacking in undergraduate research a lot of the time.”

New Faculty: Eleinis Ávila-Lovera

New Faculty: Eleinis Ávila-Lovera

Like all living things, plants have to respond and adapt to various stressors in their environment. But unlike most living things, plants must cope with these issues while being completely immobile.

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