Lab Exchange

My name is Shannon Medlock, I’m a first-year graduate student from Anchorage, AK studying at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). I study the gut and milk microbial communities of arctic ground squirrels. For the Research Coordination Network (RCN) lab exchange I am collaborating with Dr. Greg Caporaso’s lab at Northern Arizona University (NAU) where I am looking at Aberts squirrels, sometimes called tassel-eared squirrels, and their gut microbial communities using samples collected by Victor Zhang. The project examines… Read more

Through the month of December, I had the privilege of working with Dr. Frank van Breukelen and his lab at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.  I thought that Las Vegas would just be an odd collection of casinos and flashing lights. While there were a few of those, there was also an entirely separate side of the city that I fell in love with. For instance, the entire city is surrounded by mountains and there are something like… Read more

RCN Exchange to University of Santa Cruz – October 2019: Lab exchange with Dr. Ari Friedlaender (Cetacean Ecologist)

During my lab exchange, I met with Dr. Ari Friedlaender and his doctoral student, Logan Pallin, to discuss a collaborative project examining blubber plugs from humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Antarctica for hormone concentrations. Dr. Friedlander and Mr. Pallin have been collecting blubber biopsies from whales summering in Antarctica for the past 5 years and have approximately 1,100 samples. Since their laboratory… Read more

A scientific journey in northern Finland

Dr. Logan Berner

Postdoctoral Researcher

School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems

Northern Arizona University

The northern Finnish state of Lapland was burned to the ground by the Nazis during World War 2, but those dark days have passed in these northern lands where for the last 15 years two friends from these previously warring counties have brought together international groups of researchers and students in the spirit of scientific investigation and education. Professors Timo Kumpula (University of… Read more

What drives and what fuels thermogenesis in Malagasy common tenrecs?

– My trip to fabulous Las Vegas by Rebecca Oelkrug –

When I told people that I am going on a trip to Las Vegas, almost everyone replied, “Have fun gambling!” Well no, this wasn’t the purpose of my stay. I hate gambling and at that point was not even sure if… Read more

You’ve probably heard of introduced species. Perhaps you’ve seen news reports on Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades or heard about the zebra mussels taking over the Great Lakes. It is well documented that these introduced species can wreak havoc on native ecosystems and threaten biodiversity, and thus billions of dollars are used for management purposes every year. However, they also represent really interesting systems to investigate ecological and evolutionary phenomena. For example, we can ask: how do organisms… Read more