| January 18, 2013 | ||
| Jake and Kerry Oliver submit a proposal to NSF's IOS Program in Symbiosis and Self Recognition. Fingers crossed. | ||
| January 11, 2013 | ||
| Jake attended a presentation by summer high student Kiran Jagtiani at the Haverford School. Kiran gave a nice 5 minute talk on his summer research with Drew, before presiding over a poster summarizing his summer research. A picture of Jake, Kiran, and his mother Julapa can be found on the "photos" site in the "Russell Lab: Fall and Winter 2012/2013" folder. | ||
| January 3, 2013 | ||
| Drew and Jake begin plans for another quarter of Population Ecology Lab (ENVS 285), where students will implement several experiments on aphids and their secondary symbionts. | ||
| December 20, 2012 | ||
| The lab enjoys lunch at the Lemon Grass Thai Restaurant in University City—a nice way to close out a good year for the lab. | ||
| December 20, 2012 | ||
| Jake's "long-awaited" manuscript on heritable symbionts is published in PLoS One. The research started back in 2005 and culminated with work done at Drexel by former tech Colin Funaro. It is great to have this one out there, FINALLY. It documents the diversity of heritable symbionts across ants and butterflies, infection trends within each group (e.g. high rates of multiple Wolbachia infection in ants), and the taxonomic and ecological correlates of symbiont infection across the arthropods. Link to Article | ||
| December 12, 2012 | ||
| Jake administers his Genomics (BIO 413) final, and is glad to wrap up a stimulating and successful course. | ||
| December 11, 2012 | ||
| The Oliver and Russell labs' collaborative paper on pea aphid symbionts ("Uncovering symbiont-driven genetic diversity across North American pea aphids") is accepted at Molecular Ecology. | ||
| December 10, 2012 | ||
| Jake travels to Syracuse University to give an invited seminar entitled "Exploring nature's microbiome: what variable bacterial communities tell us about the causes and consequences of symbioses" for the department of Biology. Hosts David Althoff and Kari Segraves were stellar companions, scheduling lots of stimulating meetings with faculty and postdocs, and spending generous amounts of time talking science. | ||
| December 7, 2012 | ||
| The "Week of the Gauntlet" is finally done—3 Ph.D defenses by students having Jake as a dissertation committee member. | ||
| December 3, 2012 | ||
| travels to Hamilton College, her alma mater, to give an invited seminar entitled " Fishing for microbes: the interactions among fish, bacteria and their environment". | ||
| November 16, 2012 | ||
| Jake and his co-editors, Jenn Rudgers and Nicole Dubilier, finish recruiting authors for a special issue of Molecular Ecology entitled "Nature's Microbiome" to be published in late 2013/early 2014. Thirty papers on symbiosis are slated for submission, review, and potential publication! | ||
| November 11-14, 2012 | ||
| Piotr, Drew, and Jake travel to Knoxville for the Entomology meetings, where all three presented talks. It was great to hang out with the Oliver & Moreau labs, other symbiont researchers, and old friends. And the symbiosis symposium organized by Jen White, Mariana Mateos, and Raul Medina was excellent! | ||
| November 10, 2012 | ||
| Piotr's article on symbiont defense against Pandora fungal pathogens is published online at Ecology Letters. This chapter from his Ph.D documents the roles of three additional symbionts — Rickettsia, Rickettsiella, and Spiroplasma — in protection of pea aphids against this natural enemy. There are now four symbionts in pea aphids that protect against this one species of fungus, raising interesting questions about how all can be maintained. | ||
| October 25, 2012 | ||
| Yi gives the first student seminar of the year for the new BEES department, entitled "Variation of symbiotic gut communities across diets, colonies and developmental stages of the ant Cephalotes varians". | ||
| October 23, 2012 | ||
| Jake gives his "tenure talk" for the Biology department, entitled "Exploring nature's microbiome: what variable bacterial communities tell us about the causes and consequences of symbioses". | ||
| October 11, 2012 | ||
| Yi, Karen, Drew, Karen, and Piotr present posters at the Academy of Natural Sciences' 200th Bicentennial Symposium. | ||
| October 10, 2012 | ||
| Jake and Kerry Oliver submit a review paper to Functional Ecology for possible inclusion in an upcoming special issue on defensive symbionts. The paper is entitled "Defensive symbiosis in the real world—diversity and maintenance of protective bacteria across aphids and other insects". It aims to summarize results on defensive symbionts of insects from the lab and the field, suggesting ways forward to better-study these symbioses in their natural habitat. | ||
| October 1-4, 2012 | ||
| Piotr and Yi travel to the Florida Keys to collect Cephalotes varians. Sadly, there was no time for scuba diving, but their collection efforts were very productive. You can catch a photo of Piotr from the field in the "photos" site in the "Russell Lab: Fall and Winter 2012/2013" folder. | ||
| September 27, 2012 | ||
| The lab attends Mike Goodisman's seminar at UPenn. Jake, Mike, and Tim Linksvayer head down to South Street afterwards for great German food, beer and, of course, cheesesteaks. | ||
| September 25, 2012 | ||
| The lab took Nick and Amanda out to lunch to say thank you for 6 months of hard work as co-op students. | ||
| September 24, 2012 | ||
| Garret Mayo has joined the lab as a co-op student, while Andrea Messina has joined as a volunteer. | ||
| September 13, 2012 | ||
| Nancy Moran (Jake's Ph.D advisor) stops by for a quick visit before giving a seminar at UPenn | ||
| August 8, 2012 | ||
| The lab gathers for a picnic at Rittenhouse Square to say goodbye to Linh, who is about to start her Ph.D. at Georgia Tech | ||
| August 5-10, 2012 | ||
| Karen gives a talk entitled "Gut responses of Trinidadian guppies to different diets" at the Ecological Society for America Meeting in Portland, Oregon | ||
| July 22-28, 2012 | ||
| Piotr attends the International Symbiosis Society congress in Krakow, Poland, presenting a poster entitled "Do army ants and their associated arthropods share symbiotic bacteria?". | ||
| July 5-10, 2012 | ||
| Yi, Linh and Jake attend the Evolution meetings in Ottawa, Canada, where Linh and Yi present posters and Jake gives a talk. We enjoyed spending time with friends and collaborators. | ||
| June 28 - July 13, 2012 | ||
| Piotr joins Sean O'Donnell's team researching the ecology of army ants in the tropical cloud forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica. The collected samples of ants and their insect associates will allow him to compare microbial communities between and within species and colonies. | ||
| June 23, 2012 | ||
| After 10 months spent as a Fulbright Scholar at EAWAG in Kastanienbaum, Switzerland, Karen is back in the lab! | ||
| June 18, 2012 | ||
| Kiran Jagtiani joins the lab. He comes to us from the Haverford School and was placed here as part of a competitive research cooperative at his high school that places students in research labs for one summer. | ||
| June 10-19, 2012 | ||
| Yi participates in the next-gen sequencing workshop in National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, NC | ||
| June 8-11, 2012 | ||
| During a trip to Florida Keys, Piotr samples several colonies of the ant Cephalotes varians, one of the main study species in the lab. | ||
| May 19-22, 2012 | ||
| Yi and Piotr participate in the workshop on multiple sequence alignment and phylogeny estimation in Washington, DC | ||
| May 9th, 2012 | ||
| Karen is awarded an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (Award #1201695). The project is entitled "DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Patterns, causes, and consequences of gut microbial community variation across fish", and the $14,987 will fund Karen's research on gut communities of cichlid fish. | ||
| April 28th, 2012 | ||
| During the Biology Department retreat in the field station in Wareham, NJ, Piotr has given a presentation "Do army ants and their associated arthropods share gut bacteria?" | ||
| April 14-15th, 2012 | ||
| Drew attends the 2012 Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Ecological Society of America, and gives a presentation "Environmental effects on pea aphids and their defensive bacterial symbionts" | ||
| April 26th, 2012 | ||
| Jake gave an invited seminar (hosted by the PERT postdocs) at the University of Arizona, entitled: "Microbial Menageries of Ants". | ||
| April 19th, 2012 | ||
| During the Drexel University Research Day 2012, most Russell Lab members presented posters on their research (see the April 3 post for the list of titles). Two prizes were awarded in Undergraduate – Bio and Biomedical Category, both of them to members of the Russell Lab - Tyler Maruca and Linh Chau. Congratulations! | ||
| April 10th, 2012 | ||
| Jake Russell, together with his collaborators Dr. Shivanthi Anandan and Dr. Michael Waring, gave a seminar entitled "Cheaper, cleaner air: uncovering the benefits and mechanisms of biowalls for improved indoor air quality", presenting some of the labs' recent results and outlining future research on the roles of biowall plant-associated bacteria in degradation of volatile organic compounds. | ||
| April 10th, 2012 | ||
| Nicholas Jensen starts his co-op in the Russell Lab. He will study the diversity and distribution of gut bacteria in ants, and particularly in the Argentine ant. | ||
| April 9th, 2012 | ||
| The lab has had many successes recently, and this Monday Jake, Susannah, Nolan, Yi, Drew S, Linh, Ioannis, Riddhi, Steve, Piotr, Tyler, Julie, Mickey and Matt met at Pietro's restaurant to celebrate. This was a great opportunity to exchange latest news, but also enjoy delicious pizza and salads. | ||
| April 3rd, 2012 | ||
During the College of Arts and Sciences Research Day, seven members of the Russell Lab presented posters on their research:
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| April 2nd, 2012 | ||
Amanda Lee has just started her co-op, and Paige Collings and Steven Doll have joined the Russell lab as volunteers (or re-joined in Steven's case). They will study population ecology and biology of the defensive endosymbionts of the pea aphid. |
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| March, 2012 | ||
Mickey Drott has just accepted a Ph.D. position in plant pathology at Cornell University. Congratulations! |
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| March, 2012 | ||
Linh has secured a Ph.D. position at Georgia Institute of Technology. She will study evolution of sociality in social insects under the supervision of Dr Michael Goodisman . Matt has been accepted to med school - University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Congratulations! |
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| March 1, 2012 | ||
Piotr, Yi, and Jake attended the Drexel Microbiome Workshop, organized by Russell lab collaborator Gail Rosen. Gail put together a fantastic line-up of guest speakers who focused on the "virome" and the human microbiome. Yi and Jake both presented posters - Yi on her ant research and Jake on Karen's guppy gut bacteria research. |
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| January 30-31, 2012 | ||
The Lab hosted John Jaenike from the University of Rochester , who gave a fascinating talk entitled "Endosymbiont-mediated protection against parasitic nematodes". |
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| January, 2012 | ||
Commencement of Population Ecology Lab course, taught by Jake Russell and with Drew Smith as a TA. During the course, students will conduct a series of experiments on various roles of secondary symbionts in aphid biology. |
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| December, 2011 | ||
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Jake Russell becomes a subject editor for Molecular Ecology |
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| December, 2011 | ||
Two papers authored by the Russell Lab members have been accepted for publication in Molecular Ecology! Jake, Karen and Yi co-authored a paper "Highly similar microbial communities are shared among related and trophically similar ant species". Karen is the first and Jake the last author of the second article, entitled "Environmental and ecological factors that shape the gut bacterial communities of fish: a meta-analysis". |
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| November, 2011 | ||
Yi and Karen submit their NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant applications. Fingers crossed! |
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| November 13-16, 2011 | ||
Drew, Yi, and Jake attended the Entomology 2011 meeting in Reno, Nevada. |
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| October, 8 2011 | ||
Jake, Susannah and Nolan host The Lab for a celebration of Yi and Hezhe's wedding |
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| September, 2011 | ||
Commencement of Molecular Ecology Lab course, taught by Jake Russell and with Yi Hu as a TA. During the course, students will characterize microbial communities of army ants. |
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| September 19, 2011 | ||
Piotr Lukasik joins the Russell Lab as a postdoc. Piotr, who has just completed Ph.D. in the ecology and evolution of defensive endosymbionts of aphids at the University of Oxford, UK, will study the diversity and functions of gut bacteria in ants. |
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| September 19, 2011 | ||
Three students start their Co-ops in the Russell Lab. Julie Keppler will assist in the study of gut bacterial communities of ants. Tyler Maruca will participate in research on secondary endosymbionts of aphids. Ioannis Anastopoulos was hired to study bacterial communities associated with the Biowall. |
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| September, 2011 | ||
Karen commences a year-long Fulbright Fellowship at EAWAG, Switzerland. |
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| August, 2011 | ||
Yi and Jake spent a week in Florida Keys together with Corrie Moreau and Ben Rubin (Field Museum of Natural History), collecting Cephalotes varians and other ant species. The live colonies they brought back will keep the lab busy during the winter months! |
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| August 12, 2011 | ||
Karen presented a poster entitled "Distinct gut bacterial communities across wild Trinidadian guppy populations" at the ESA Meeting in Austin, TX. |
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| August 4-14, 2011 | ||
Yi attends The Ant Course in Portal, AZ, developing expertise in ant identification. |
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| August, 2011 | ||
The Russell Lab moves into a shiny and spacious new lab at the Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building |
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| June 28, 2011 | ||
Yi Hu gets married to Hezhe Lu during a ceremony in Daging, Heilongjiang province, China. Congratulations and the very best wishes from the whole lab! |
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| Aug 2, 2011 | ||
Karen Sullam has received a Jordan Award from the American Cichlid Association for a total of $1500. The grant will fund collaborative research with Dr.'s Kilham and Russell, along with Dr. Peter McIntyre from the University of Wisconsin's Center for Limnology. In brief, the work aims to explore the gut bacterial communities of ecologically diverse cichlids from Lake Tanganyika. These fish have evolved different diets over a relatively short timescale. Karen's work aims to determine whether the dietary shifts have been accompanied by shifts in gut commnities. This could suggest a role for symbionts in the remarkable radiation within this group. |
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| June 18-22, 2011 | ||
Jake recently traveled to the Evolution meetings in Norman, OK, where he gave a talk entitled "Microbial Menageries of Ants". |
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| June 7, 2011 | ||
Jake recently published a review article/meta-analysis on Wolbachia of ants, which came out in June in the Online Earlier edition of Myrmecological News. The article can be found at the following website: myrmecologicalnews.org |
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| April 8, 2011 | ||
Jake and his wife Susannah welcomed the arrival of their son, Nolan Christopher Russell, at Lankenau Hospital. |
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| March 31, 2011 | ||
Karen had a co-authored paper accepted at Ecology Letters. This manuscript was authored by students who took a summer course at Eawag in 2009. |
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| March 31, 2011 | ||
Karen Sullam was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study abroad in the labs of Dr. Helmut Bürgmann and Dr. Blake Matthews at Eawag (the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) in Switzerland. Karen will travel abroad for this wonderful opportunity from September 2011-August 2012. |
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| March, 2011 | ||
Jake recently had two NSF grants awarded to study symbionts of ants and aphids. The "ant grant" (more information below) is a collaboration with fellow PI Corrie Moreau (Field Museum of Natural History), and is a three year project designed to examine the role of gut bacteria in the evolution of herbivory across the ants. The "aphid grant" (read below for more information) is a collaboration with Kerry Oliver (University of Georgia) and is designed to understand the forces driving natural dynamics of defensive symbionts and bacteriophage and their natural enemies. The funding will support Yi and Drew's Ph.D research, while also providing support for a postdoctoral researcher on the ant grant. Award details: NSF, DEB—Population and Community Ecology. "Collaborative Research: Inferring bacterial roles in the evolution of trophic level across the ants." $450,00. 2011-2014. (With PI Corrie Moreau from the Field Museum of Natural History) NSF, IOS—Symbiosis, Defense, and Self-Recognition. "Collaborative Research: Factors shaping the maintenance of variation in a symbiont-mediated host-enemy interaction." $394,119. 2011-2014. (With PI Kerry Oliver from the University of Georgia) |
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| January, 2010 | ||
The Russell lab recently hosted visitors from Harvard and the Field Museum of Natural History, for a "mini-conference" on microbial communities of ants. Steffi Kautz and Ben Rubin (from Corrie Moreau's lab) and Jon Sanders (from Naomi Pierce's lab) worked with Jake, Karen, and Yi to address issues in data analyses and to show off exciting results on the bacteria residing in the guts of ants. |
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| January, 2010 | ||
Jake and former Russell lab technician, Colin Funaro, published a manuscript in Applied and Environmental Microbiology entitled "Army Ants Harbor a Host-Specific Clade of Entomoplasmatales Bacteria". First author, and former Russell lab technician Colin Funaro, has moved onto NC State where he is working on a Ph.D in Entomology. Co-author, Daniel Kronauer, captured the photo that was awarded the cover of the journal's first issue of 2011 (http://aem.asm.org/content/vol77/issue1/cover.dtl). |
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| December 11-15, 2010 | ||
Jake ventured to San Diego for the Entomology Meetings to give an invited talk at a symposium ("Diversity and Function of Microbial Symbioses in Solitary and Social Insects") organized by Kirk Anderson and Angela Douglas. |
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| November 19, 2010 | ||
Jake, along with Michael Waring (PI) and Shivanthi Anandan (co-PI) were recently awarded a "GRID" award to study the roles of root-associated microbes from "biowall" plants in purifying indoor air. The long-term goal of this work is to engineer more efficient biowalls (living walls of plants) to purify the air we breathe. As such, the 4-story biowall to be installed in Drexel's Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building will provide a great opportunity for future research.
Award details: |
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| October 4, 2010 | ||
| Jake traveled to Athens, Georgia to give an invited seminar for the Entomology Department at the University of Georgia, and was hosted by Kerry Oliver and his lab. | ||
| June 16, 2010 | ||
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The Russell Lab has officially launched! | |
| June 1, 2010 | ||
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Karen Sullam, Ph.D. candidate under Dr. Susan Kilham and Dr. Jacob Russell, received Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research (GIAR) in the amount of $400. This grant will help cover her research project expenses, which focus on intestinal microbial communities of the Trinidadian Guppy (Poecilia reticulata). The Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program has a highly competitive application process and only approximately 20% of applicants receive any level of funding. | |