Today I stripped the bark off a Pitch Pine and saw 4 small cavities with paralyzed, bright green leaf-hoppers. It was the stash of a female wasp--she was filling her nest with food for her babies. There is a good chance that the species of wasp and the species of leaf-hopper has never been studied by anyone. 200 feet from Route 91 in North Haven, ( Read more... )

I've been admitted to CCSU for a masters program; working towards a teachers certification. I also have the chance to do work with a prominant ant ecologist, and I'm taking the oppurtunity.  Hopefully I can work towards getting a paper published, reapplying to graduate programs while also applying to teaching jobs.  So by this time next year, at ( Read more... )

I'm crossing my fingers.  A new professor at CCSU is starting an ambitious research program on invasion biology.  He uses Solenopsis invitica (The invasive red imported fire ant, terrorizing the southern U.S.) as a model system for how disturbance effects community structure.

I may have full funding to do research as early as December, and it will ( Read more... )

 "The force of kin selection combined with a bottleneck event creates a gene pool conducive to social phenotypes.

This is a hypothesis worthy of testing.

The model system for this would have to be an organism (probably an animal) with closely aged siblings, parental care, and resource needs that require a division of labor.  The model system must ( Read more... )

My closest friend asked me today, if I had to start teaching public school or start graduate research on Monday, which would I choose?

I would be more comfortable going into research, I think.  However, I know I would be happier teaching youth.  I can't run from it anymore, I love teaching and I really am demoralized by research.  I once said that ( Read more... )

I feel like this is a story I have told myself a hundred times.  I've told it to myself though; a voice in my head narrates.

The theme of this essay is inspiration.  If it makes you feel guilty, that is the first step.

About 10 months ago I traveled across the world to a tiny island.


( Read more... )

The amount of social parasites in the Attini tribe infecting a population  has not been shown at the colony level.  I propose to use morphological character states to identify larvae that are not the same species in the colony itself.  I can do this by digging into the mound and collecting samples while on my trip to Trinidad ( Read more... )

Evolutionary Biology Survey.  This is for all you science geeks out there.  If you have anything you wish, go ahead and repost or reply.

[1] If I could be any extinct mammal, I'd be:
Repenomamus, the only fossil mammal with dinosaurs found in its belly.

[2] If I could be any extinct bird, I'd be:
Microrapter!  Ehh. Okay, technically its not Aves, ( Read more... )

This is for all the naysayers out there who might think, for even a second, that plant systematics is 'easy'. Here is an entry I'm "translating" from one of the early papers describing a new member of the genus I'm studying. This is only the taxonomy of the flower itself.

"Flowers with the calyx penamerous, 1-1.4 cm in diameter at the anthesis, ( Read more... )

Here is an example of the kind of emails I send to my professors. Dr. Tessier was the first biology professor I had in my intro to ecology class and has been a great mentor to me.Dr. Tessier ( Read more... )