Author: kdmclean

My youngest kiddo and I had a great weekend helping Kristel Sanchez and Nikesh Dahal introduce Frontiers Masters students to aquatic ecology at the E.S. George Reserve. To be clear, it was only a weekend for us, but the students are living on the reserve for 10 days to get a full field work experience. I’m so jealous…

We dealt with so much mud and so many hours at the microscope. The Frontiers students unanimously declared it the worst experience they’ve had so far at the field station–so I’m pleased we got to give them a realistic look into field work. 😉 Jokes aside, everyone warmed up to the experience once they started to master the annoying process of identifying microinvertebrates. Soon enough we were all gathering around different microscopes to gawk at bright orange water mites and little blue copepods. Those alien bugs charm everyone in the end. 👽🐛🦐🦟

I’m so glad we got to drop in and engage with the whole field ecology experience! I really enjoyed exploring the reserve, learning about everyone’s research interests, and learning how to make spring rolls at the end of the day. Thanks for inviting me along, Kristel!

This one was a head scratcher! I’d love to see someone follow up on this work to help us figure out just what is going on in these populations. Read and share ➡HERE⬅

https://rdcu.be/cQvWm

Whoa, we’re back. We all know why there was a 3 year lag between conferences, so let’s just talk posters! I’m pretty proud of this one:

It’s a cool research area (dose effects in a multi-parasite system!) and I got many compliments on the poster’s aesthetic (the true measure of scientific success ;)), so I’m delighted with this little guy. I still need to finalize the simulation results and really wrangle the final story into the manuscript I’m writing, but this poster did a good job and it was wonderful to attend EEID 2022 in person.

Thanks, little poster.

First thing first: Evolution was a blast.  I highly recommend anyone with an evolutionary bent to their research attends next year.

My talk was titled “How Do Sex and Migration from the Past Impact the Diversity of Resistance?”.  I went into this conference weekend with very last-minute data and a very rough presentation, but I’m pleased with what I was able to pull off.  Additionally, the audience was lovely, I got to go to dinner with colleagues I met in Switzerland, and I met another Daphnia researcher I hadn’t been acquainted with before!  The talks were plentiful and very interesting– I do wish I was more active on Twitter at that time, since it would be fun and useful to reread tweets about the talks I attended.  Next year!

 

Haniyeh Zamani graduated in December 2018 with Honors.  She completed her thesis titled “Detecting the Impact of Parasitism and Egg Bank Recruitment on Host Genetic Diversity in a Daphnia-Parasite System” and is moving on to work in the biomedical sciences.   We were so lucky to have her in the lab–she had excellent ideas, insightful questions, and was also quite patient when I had to scramble to catch up with her. 🙂

Best of luck, Haniyeh!

Haniyeh is taking her newest poster titled Does sexual recombination slow the evolution of resistance? to the Ecological Society of America conference in New Orleans.  I can’t attend, but if you’re at ESA this year swing by the Latebreaking Poster Session on Friday morning between 8:30 – 10:30 am to say “hi!”–you can catch Haniyeh in the PS 54 Community Ecology section at Poster #103.

UPDATE: Haniyeh says her poster session went very well and that she got some excellent feedback.  Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

I was able to attend the week-long Evolutionary Biology Workshop (located in Guarda, Switzerland) this past June!  What a learning opportunity. The Guarda Workshop is a one-of-a-kind scientific retreat for early-stage graduate students.  You spend a week surrounded by people at a similar stage in their scientific career, and you band together to think deeply (and write quickly) about questions in evolutionary biology.  You are guided by four leading evolutionary biologists, and through a combination of high-pressure group work and late night discussions with professors you develop a stronger scientific identity and a network of caring and intelligent peers.  But don’t take my word for it!  If you or someone you know is a 1st- or 2nd-year graduate student in evolutionary biology, check it out.  One significant downside: The workshop does not offer financial support of any kind, so start figuring out finances early if you plan to apply.

I’ve included some of my own cell phone photography below for anyone curious about the Guarda experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re thinking of applying but would like to know more about this American’s experience in Guarda, feel free to contact me!

 

Scotland, here we come!  I’ll be attending the 16th annual Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease (EEID) Conference in Glasgow, Scotland along with my fellow Duffy lab member Camden Gowler.

I’m taking my research on the impact of co-infection and spore dose on within-host dynamics across the pond, so I’m particularly excited for Session 4: Within-host pathogen dynamics: co-infection to wild immunity.  All of the sessions look amazing, to be honest.  As this will be the first time I attend a disease-centric conference, I intend to embrace the role of over-enthusiastic graduate student and attend all the sessions, absorb all the information I can, and network alongside those nervous butterflies I’ll be sporting.

Do you have any suggestions for international conference travel? What about comfortable yet professional footwear for women scientists?  And of course, food recommendations are always appreciated!

The first blog post on this site, and with some excellent news.  Haniyeh Zamani, who has been an undergraduate research assistant on the Host Diversity Project since May 2017, is presenting a poster at this year’s annual meeting for the Society for Freshwater Science! Haniyeh’s research examines how sexual reproduction and gene flow from the egg bank of Daphnia change genetic diversity in those populations.  Haniyeh’s insight has helped shape our host diversity project as a whole, and thanks to her year of hard work, the Duffy lab can now quickly and easily genotype Daphnia.

Thanks Haniyeh!