Project Mentors & Areas
Faculty research interests:
Faculty Member |
Project Area |
Elizabeth J. Walsh |
Evolutionary Genetics and Ecology of Freshwater Invertebrates |
Vanessa L. Lougheed |
Ecosystem Ecology of Desert and Arctic Environments, Nutrient Limitation of Primary Production |
Jennie McLaren |
Plant Community and Ecosystem Ecology |
Michael L. Moody |
Botany, Evolution and Genomics |
Philip Lavretsky |
Population and Evolutionary Genetics |
Elizabeth LaRue |
Ecosystem Science, Remote Sensing, Plant Species Distributions and Structural Diversity of Ecosystems |
Brett Seymoure |
Animal behavior, Sensory Ecology, Light Pollution, Predator-Prey, Entomology |
Michael J. Harvey |
Diversity, Evolution and Genomics of Birds |
Kelly S. Ramirez |
Impacts of Climate Change on Environmental Microbiomes and Plant-Microbe Interactions. |
Anthony Darrouzet-Nardi |
Soil Biogeochemistry, Plant Ecophysiology, and Global Change. |
Marguerite E. Mauritz |
Ecosystem function and how ecosystems respond to climate change and other pressures |
Project Details
Proposed Projects:
Exploring patterns of dispersal, population structure, and genetics of animals in temporary aquatic habitats in the desert southwest USA using molecular tools.
Mentees will collect samples regionally to characterize microinvertebrate communities of temporary playas and rock pools. Projects will focus on metacommunity assemblages and gene flow among populations. Species will be characterized using phylogenetics, genomics, and light microscopy. Potential to work with a university partner from the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Effect of a changing climate on nutrient limitation and growth of algae in Arctic aquatic ecosystems and sea ice.
This project will enhance work as part of the Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER and may include fieldwork in northern Alaska and lab-based incubations of algae under different experimental treatments. Potential to work with university partners from Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
Biogeochemical impacts of changing arctic plant communities.
Mentee projects will examine the consequences of changing plant communities in tundra. Mentees will conduct fieldwork at one of Dr. McLaren’s Alaska Fieldwork sites – either near Toolik Field Station or near Unalakleet. Mentees will collect plant data and soil from manipulative or observational experiments under the direction of McLaren and her research group. Soils will be taken back to the McLaren lab at UTEP where mentees will learn biogeochemical analyses
Plant phenology and genomics in a changing Arctic.
In Collaboration with Ned Fetcher (Wilkes University). This project will provide an opportunity to work on NSF funded Collaborative Research with scientists from multiple institutions (OPP 2109946). The project has opportunities to pursue a project that could include summer fieldwork at the remote Toolik Field Station in Alaska to collect data on plant phenology and examining plant materials brought back to the labs at UTEP for genomic work exploring genes that may be involved in leaf phenology processes.
Population structure of Mexican ducks and Mallards of Southwestern USA.
Mentees on this project will take part in a new field site in southern Arizona where Lavretsky and team are beginning to shed light into habitat use, population structure, and hybridization among locally breeding mallards and endemic Mexican ducks. Students will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience in capture methods, handling, banding, and attaching telemetry units on live waterfowl in the field, as well as the latest genomic techniques as part of the Lavretsky Lab at UTEP. Mentees will have the chance to analyze habitat, movement, and molecular data to increase our understanding of breeding populations in Southwestern USA, especially of the relatively unknown Mexican duck that was recently elevated to full species.
The structural diversity and habitat characterization of micro to macro dryland ecosystems.
This project will work toward characterizing the landscape patterns of ecosystem structural diversity of dryland communities and habitat. The post-bac will learn how to collect field data with drones and computational programs to analyze geospatial data. Potential projects include characterizing biocrust or vegetation structural diversity across NEON sites in the desert southwest, drone-based monitoring of forest restorations after elk overgrazing and wildfires, or the remote sensing of wildlife habitat in the Chihuahuan Desert. Potential to work with university partners from New Mexico State University.
Examining how light cycles and artificial light at night disrupt the visual and behavioral ecology of terrestrial arthropods and their prey.
Dr. Seymoure runs the visual and behavioral ecology lab at UTEP. His lab focuses on understanding how natural light cycles have driven biodiversity and how artificial light is impacting organisms. Organisms have evolved under natural light cycles for millennia and use these consistent clues to time activity as well as provide adequate lighting conditions for foraging and avoiding predators. However, due to artificial light at night, organisms have much of their biology disrupted. The student for this project will investigate how light underlies diversity and abundance of terrestrial arthropods through predator-prey mechanisms and visually guided behavior. The student will learn advanced techniques in entomology, predator-prey field experiments, survival and diversity analysis, R, and techniques for measuring ecologically relevant lighting.
How the environment shapes diversity, and how can both diversity and natural evolutionary processes be protected in the face of environmental change.
The Harvey lab studies the evolution of bird diversity at both large and small scales. We use phylogenetics and diversification models to understand how species diversity accumulates across geographic areas and among lineages. We also study the earliest stages of diversity formation across populations and between incipient species. We use a combination of field studies, genomic data, population genetic analyses, and phylogenetic comparative methods in our work. Many of the birds we work with live in the Neotropics (Central and South America) or the desert Southwest.
Interacting effects of climate change and land-use on microbiomes and carbon storage in dryland systems
The goal of this project is to link soil microbiome diversity and functions to soil carbon dynamics and ultimately make dryland ecosystems more sustainable for livestock grazing, support livelihoods of ranchers, and increase resistance to the pressures of climate change. Mentees will assist with collection of soils across the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts, conduct a greenhouse experiment, and develop molecular skills to assess microbial communities. Potential to work with University of Arizona partners.
Function of soil microbes and biocrusts in drylands
Students will help to establish laboratory and field experiments testing the functions of soil bacteria, soil fungi, and surface soil communities known as biological soil crusts (biocrusts) in dryland ecosystems. Experiments will include removal of these functional groups followed by measurements of ecosystem processes such as decomposition, trace gas production, plant productivity, and water balance. Field sites may include local parks, local research sites such as the Jornada Experimental Range, and UTEP's Indio Mountains Research Station. There will also be opportunities to connect with global research communities in areas such as critical zone science and biocrusts, especially via the upcoming launch of a new distributed experimental network called CrustNet.
Carbon dynamics in dryland ecosystems
Our projects seek to understand carbon dynamics in dryland ecosystems with a particular focus on long-term variation. Are these systems sources or sinks of carbon? How do they respond to climate extremes? Mentees will gain numerous data skills while working with long-term datasets of ecosystem carbon and water exchange, or metrics of plant physiology. Depending on interests of the mentee, projects could include fieldwork to collect additional plant and soil physiology data, or computational and modeling approaches.
Mentors From Partnering Institutions
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Funding Acknowledgment
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number BIO DBI 2319855.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.