Biodiversity Blog
From the ground up: exploring biodiversity in your backyard
April is here, and we invite you to join the monthly Science Under the Stars event on April 11th as we explore the beauty and importance of Central Texas Biodiversity. Sarah Ortiz, Stengl-Wyer Fellow and PhD candidate from the Department of Integrative Biology, will talk about why biodiversity at the local levels matters, how we are studying b...
Talk with Dr. Lina Valencia
Dr. Lina M Valencia is the Andean Countries Coordinator at Re:wild, an international non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore biodiversity. Dr. Valencia is a researcher and conservationist with more than fifteen years of experience who focuses on expanding Re:wild's program in the Tropical Andes by developing collaborative, i...
Meet Stengl-Wyer Scholar: Priscila Albuquerque de Moura
Priscila Albuquerque de Moura is one of our 2023 Stengl-Wyer Scholars. Priscila is a biologist particularly interested in integrating behavioral ecology and neurosciences to help understand the spatial dynamics of neotropical butterflies. She conducted her doctoral research at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil, where she used a ...
History of UT Botany, Part 5: Beryl Simpson
This article originally appeared as part of the Department of Integrative Biology History Project. Beryl Simpson, Professor Emerita in Integrative Biology, is a phylogeneticist and biogeographer with most of her work focusing on South American plants. She was born on April 28, 1942 in Dallas, Texas, but spent only six months in the state before mov...
Science Under the Stars: Amazing adaptations under the sea
Coral reefs are declining around the world, and humans are rushing to restore them. In this talk, graduate student Kristina Black will dive into the major strategies used by coral restoration practitioners and cover true stories from the Caribbean. She'll also talk about genetic approaches to help corals adapt to their changing environment. Kr...
Careers in Conservation: A Talk with Nikhil Advani
Join us for a talk exploring careers in conservation. Graduate and Undergraduate students are both welcome. We will hear from UT alum (BS 2004, PhD 2012) Dr. Nikhil Advani, who is currently the Senior Director for Wildlife and Climate Resilience at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington DC. Dr. Advani will talk about how his time at UT prepared hi...
Building a Future for Coral Reefs
We are pleased to announce that science writer and ocean expert Juli Berwald will be giving a seminar followed by Q&A on the UT campus this month. TITLE: Building a Future for Coral Reefs DATE: Wednesday, March 27th TIME: 3 pm LOCATION: NHB 1.720 About the talk: "Coral reefs support 25% of all marine life - but under current th...
BioBlitz: Come one, come all!
We are excited to announce that we will be holding a BioBlitz at Brackenridge Field Lab on Saturday April 13th, 2024 from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm. This event is open to everyone at any experience level! Arrive anytime and stay as long as you’d like. Activities include: Plantae surveys Animalia surveys Fungi surveys Lunchtime...Insectum: A Sonic Exploration of the World of Arthropods
The sounds and rhythms of the natural world are often a great inspiration for the world’s composers, and no less so for UT researchers and local musicians. Over the last few years, Alex Wild (Curator, Entomology Collection) and Jo Holley (Associate Professor of Practice) have been participating in a fabulous sonic experiment with a... 
The UT Spring 2024 Bee Competition
Bring us the first Travis County mason bee of 2024, you’ll win a copy of the poster “Backyard Bees of North America”! Rationale: One measure of our changing climate is the shifting dates of emergence of our earliest spring flowers and insects. As Texas warms, some of our local bees may start coming out earlier in the year, and the Biodiversity Cent...
Meet Stengl-Wyer Fellow: Jeffrey Coleman
Jeffrey Coleman is one of our 2023 Stengl-Wyer Fellows. He is a PhD candidate who works with advisor Dr. David Cannatella to investigate poison frogs of the Neotropics, which sequester skin toxins from an arthropod diet. Jeffrey talks here about how his interest in tropical ecosystems started and where his research is headed as ...
Bull Shark in the Ichthyology Collection
By Adam Cohen (Collections Manager, Ichthyology Collection) and Nicole Elmer The fish collection recently received a juvenile Bull Shark (Carcharhinus leucas) found dead on the beach at Indian Point (Corpus Christi Bay), near Corpus Christi, Texas, by one of our frequent specimen donors (posted on iNaturalist). It likely was caught by an angler and...
History of UT Botany, Part 4: Billie L. Turner
This is part four of a History of UT Botany series. This piece ran originally for the Department of Integrative Biology History Project on April 12, 2021. Posing in 1970 with Perityle turneri (Asteraceae), one of many species named in Turner's honor. (Photo: Mike Powell) I first met Billie Turner in early 2016. That was when I’d started w...
Meet Stengl-Wyer Scholar: Korin Rex Jones
Korin Rex Jones is one of our 2023 Stengl-Wyer Scholars. Korin is a microbial community ecology researcher fascinated by the role the microbiome can play in health and development across a wide variety of host organisms. He works in the labs of Dr. Nancy Moran and Dr. Jeff Barrick. As part of the Stengl Wyer Endowment, the Stengl-Wyer Postdoct...
Beneath the Waves
This month's Science Under the Stars event is "Beneath the Waves: Exploring coral reefs' vital ecological role and community-led conservation." Thursday, December 14th, 7 pm Brackenridge Field Lab, 2907 Lake Austin Blvd, Austin, TX 78703 This talk features Dominique Gallery, a PhD candidate in the lab of Dr. Misha Matz. Her presentation wil...
Hidden Greenhouse Gems
On the roof of the Patterson building (PAT) lives one of the world’s most diverse greenhouse collections of mainly neotropical vines from the large genus of Passiflora. Dr. Larry Gilbert, Director of the Brackenridge Field Lab, has been growing them for studies of coevolution, chemical ecology and biodiversity of the insect fauna that relies on the...
Meet Stengl-Wyer Fellow: Xinyi Yan
Tell us where you came from before UT, and what you studied then? I was born and raised in the Yangtze Delta region in China, where the lush nature started my interests in botany. In my undergrad, I studied Biology and Applied Math at UCLA, and did research with Gaurav Kandlikar in Nathan Kraft’s lab group. I integrated my training in math and ecol...
Meet Krushnamegh Kunte
Field work in the Andaman Islands Dr. Krushnamegh Kunte is Principal Investigator and Faculty Coordinator of the Biodiversity Research Collections in Bengaluru, India, where he is also Curator of Lepidoptera, Cicadas, and Odonata. He is also Associate Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences. Kunte received his PhD here from UT i...
New graduate student funds in biodiversity research
We are pleased to announce funding, supported by a generous gift from the Winkler Family Foundation to the Biodiversity Center, to support graduate student research in Biodiversity. The fund for UT graduate students will provide support for unanticipated research supplies and laboratory charges to help graduate students complete Dissertation Resear...
