Leonora recently received an early career award from the Simons Foundation! It provides funding for 3 years for work in the pitcher plant aquatic system.
Lab cross-country skiing
We had a great time cross-country skiing up at Bogus Basin - even though it was 7 deg. F when we arrived! A beautiful, sunny day above Boise.
Welcome Chih-Yun!
Chih-Yun will join the lab in January 2023 as a Research Assistant. She will initially be helping to test our frozen culture collection for viability after a -80 freezer failure, but will likely continue to work on new questions as well. We are happy to have you!
Congratulations to Jessica and Jacob for passing their Comprehensive Exams!
Big congratulations to our new PhD candidates, who recently passed their comps. They did really well, and are making great progress in their PhDs.
Welcome to Elle and Adedotun!
We are thrilled to have two new graduate students in the lab - Elle in the EEB PhD program and Adedotun in the Biology Masters program.
Two new pitcher plant papers out!
Our lab group recently published two new papers about pitcher plant-associated communities. Check them out:
Heil, J.A., Wolock, C.J., Pierce, N.E., Pringle, A, and Bittleston, L.S. 2022. Sarracenia pitcher plant-associated microbial communities differ primarily by host species across a longitudinal gradient. Environmental Microbiology https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15993
Bittleston, L.S., Benson, E.L., Bernardin, J.R. and Pierce, N.E. 2022. Characterization and comparison of convergence among Cephalotus follicularis pitcher plant-associated communities with those of Nepenthes and Sarracenia found worldwide. Front. Plant Sci. 13:887635. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.887635
Jacob and Jessica both helped move these papers forward, starting with data that I gathered during my PhD. It’s great to see the findings finally published!
PI Meeting in Florida for NSF Pitcher Plant Project
We had a great meeting in Florida to hash out details for our Sarracenia purpurea microbiome project and our big sampling effort this summer.
The Team
Lovely visit and talk from Dr. Lauren Shoemaker
It was great to have Dr. Lauren Shoemaker visit our lab group and give a departmental seminar this past April.
Lauren and Leonora in the sagebrush
Congratulations to Jessica for Redfield Fellowship!
Jessica won the Redfield Graduate Fellowship from BSU’s Department of Biological Sciences, and will be awarded funds to use for her fieldwork this summer.
Congratulations to Jacob for the Graduate College Mentoring Award!
PhD student Jacob Heil won the Boise State Graduate College Mentoring Award, and we celebrated at the ceremony, where Jessica was also recognized for her 3 Minute Thesis win.
Jacob Heil, Leonora Bittleston and Jessica Bernardin