Trevor gave a virtual talk at this year’s virtual Evolution conference in June 2021: “The First Draft Genome of a Brood Parasitic Bee: Holcopasites calliopsidis” (title slide pictured). This presentation unveiled the first preliminary results of the ongoing genome sequencing project for this species, including investigations into its apparent genome size reduction (the smallest currently known among bees!)
Jon’s Recent News
In the last year, Jon was the recipient of the Andrew ’78 and Margaret Paul Graduate Fellowship and the Cornell CALS Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. Jon presented his work on arboreal mammals and the K-Pg extinction at both the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology and the American Society of Mammalogists meetings, and was invited to give a research talk to high school students in the UK.
Welcome Lucia to the lab until March!
Lucia is a Biology undergraduate from Peru and is working with Trevor and Jon on projects involving phylogenetics.
Congratulations, Jon on your A-exam!
In December, Jon passed his A-exam, so that particular hurdle is not hanging over any of the grad students in the lab anymore! We were able to have a nice celebration afterwards and, for a change, we actually identified exactly where the champagne cork hit the ceiling!
Trivia Champs!
Nick, Ellen, Trevor, Ben, Karissa, Henry, Amanda and Jon won the Trivia Quiz at the 2018 EEB Holiday Party on Saturday 8 December.
Congratulations!!
(Jeremy is notably absent and helped drag another team into oblivion in terms of rankings.)
Very cold Thanksgiving!
Those of us who stayed in Ithaca over Thanksgiving experienced really low temperatures. According to the Cornell climate records it was -5F on Friday November 23, i.e. in the early hours following Thanksgiving Day. That is the coldest November temperature in Ithaca since records began in 1883!
See: http://www.nrcc.cornell.edu/services/blog/2018/11/26/index.html
Grant congratulations!
The Searle lab just got awarded a Center for Vertebrate Genomics seed grant for $14,400. This is for a project entitled “Transcriptomic analysis of mitonuclear epistasis in lungless salamanders” which Ben will be working on!
Night at the Museum!
On the evening of Wednesday November 14, Nick gave a guest lecture to undergraduates at the ‘Night at the Museum’ at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates.
Catch-Up For Undergrad Students
CATCH-UP FOR UNDERGRAD STUDENTS!
Jailene Hidalgo
Summer, 2016: studied moose and deer populations in the Adirondacks for Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources.
Summer, 2017: Studied marsh wren genetics and seaside sparrow populations at Florida’s state agency Fish and Wildlife Commission.
Summer, 2018: Studied arctic ground squirrel distribution and genetics in Denali National Park, Alaska.
Nikrumah Frazer
Summer, 2017: Awarded a Biology summer internship program (BioSIP) stipend to intern at a small animal veterinary clinic in Philadelphia. While there, he observed animal surgeries and assisted in animal care.
Summer, 2018: Took oral communications and cognitive sciences courses at Cornell and worked for Cornell Catering.
Anita Michalak
Summer, 2017: Worked as a wildlife assistant with BiodiversityWorks on Martha’s Vineyard, MA, helping with a variety of research projects involving bats, reptiles, and shorebirds.
Fall, 2017: Conducted her own research as a junior at Cornell, studying gray squirrel foraging behavior under Jeremy’s supervision in the mammalogy course. This project ultimately won the award for best undergraduate poster at the EEB Graduate Student Symposium.
Spring semester, 2018: Studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. With a focus on Arctic biology, she had the opportunity to travel to both Sweden and Norway to conduct class-based field work. She ended her experience abroad with a three month internship at the Mammal Research Institute in Bialowieża, Poland. There, she further developed her experience working with bats, as well as a variety of other small mammals.
Currently: She is working on a senior research thesis on the genetic structure and origin of bobcats in New York State, under the supervision of the Therkildsen Lab.
Christopher Watson
Summer 2017: Ran long distance with high school friends and relaxed at home in Redmond, WA.
Summer, 2018: Studied philosophy and Francophone literature in Avignon, France.
Avery Voehl
Summer, 2017: Worked as a camp counselor for the YMCA and was an aide in Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital’s surgical center.
Summer, 2018: Continued working as a camp counselor and transitioned to Ridgeview Hospital, where she was an aide in their Emergency Department and on different floors of their general hospital. Also worked at Ashery Lane Vineyard.
Graduated Students:
Jeremy Pustilnik
Tamar Law
Austin Wong
Catch-Up For Grad Students
CATCH-UP FOR GRAD STUDENTS!
The Searle lab website has been dormant since summer 2017, and a lot has happened since then!
Jacob Tyrell
Spoke at Cornell Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Symposium, December 2017
Spoke at Cornell Evo Group, February 2018
Trevor Sless
Presented a poster at the American Genetic Association President’s Symposium, Toronto, March 2018
Was awarded an NSERC fellowship on “Evolutionary Genetics of Host-Parasite Relationships in Bees”, officially started in September 2018, for two years.
Henry Kunerth
Presented a poster at the Evolution Meetings, Portland, June 2017
Won the Whittaker Award for best graduate student talk at Cornell University Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Student Symposium, December 2017
Attended the Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation University-wide GET SET teaching conference, March 2018
Spoke at EvoDay, May 2018
Publication:
David Duneau, Haina Sun, Jonathan Revah, Keri San Miguel, Henry D. Kunerth, Ian V. Caldas, Philipp W. Messer, Jeffrey G. Scott, and Nicolas Buchon. (2018) “Signatures of insecticide selection in the genome of Drosophila melanogaster.” G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics 8, 3469-3480.
Ben Johnson
Spoke at Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Rochester, July 2018
Jonathan Hughes
In the last year, Jon was the recipient of the Andrew ’78 and Margaret Paul Graduate Fellowship and the Cornell CALS Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. Jon presented his work on arboreal mammals and the K-Pg extinction at both the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology and the American Society of Mammalogists meetings, and was invited to give a research talk to high school students in the UK.
Presented a poster at the Population, Evolutionary and Quantitative Genetics Conference (Genetics Society of America), Madison, May 2018
Attended the Evolutionary Biology Workshop in Guarda, Switzerland, June 2018
Spoke at the 6th Symposium on Evolution and Biodiversity at Hokkaido University, July 2018
Presented a poster at the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution conference in Yokohama, July 2018
Publication:
Frédéric Delsuc, Melanie Kuch, Gillian C. Gibb, Jonathan Hughes, Paul Szpak, John Southon, Jacob Enk, Ana T. Duggan, Henrik N. Poinar. (2018) “Resolving the phylogenetic position of Darwin’s extinct ground sloth (Mylodon darwinii) using mitogenomic and nuclear exon data.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 285, 20180214.
Nick Fletcher
Spoke at Ontario Ecology, Ethology and Evolution Colloquium, Kingston, May 2017
Presented a poster at the Evolution Meetings, Portland, June 2017
Spoke at the American Society for Mammalogists meeting, Manhattan, Kansas, July 2017
Spoke at Cornell Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Symposium, December 2017
Symposium organizer in North American Congress for Conservation Biology, Toronto, July 2018
Received the 2016-2017 Deanne Gebell Gitner ’66 and Family Annual Prize for Teaching Assistants
Nick Fletcher and Nicolas Lou
Publication:
R. Nicolas Lou, Nicholas K. Fletcher, Aryn P. Wilder, David O. Conover, Nina O. Therkildsen, Jeremy B. Searle. (2018) “Full mitochondrial genome sequences reveal new insights about post-glacial expansion and regional phylogeographic structure in the Atlantic silverside (Menidia menidia).” Marine Biology 165, 124