Summer 2012 • Volume 8 • No. 1 Nature’s Mysteries...Photo: courtesy of Michelle Fehler Right: SOLS graduate Rick Overson poses with a three-toed sloth that was brought down from

Nature’s Mysteries

Summer 2012 • Volume 8 • No. 1

Reflections

On the cover: Digitally stylized image of above photograph depicting a formidable group in the 1950s participating in one of the last rabbit drives in Arizona. Photo: courtesy of Casa Grande Valley Historical Society

Reflecting ASU’s ranking as 21st in the world in the biological sciences, School of Life Sciences has forged impactful and far-reaching programs of research, education and outreach.

We slip into the laboratory of ASU Professor Bert Jacobs to understand how AIDS-HIV vaccines are developed, then shift to Tanzania to see how science training can change treatment and prevention of disease in rural Africa.

We drop in on SOLS alumni Rick Overson, Max Nickerson, Damien Salamone and Christian Lawrence. With Overson, we trek to the Panamanian tropical forest, along with biology doctoral student Clint Penick. Together with budding designers and architects with ASU’s Design School’s traveling studio and the Smithsonian, they develop new eyes for nature and bio-inspired innovation. We trace 40 years of hellbender studies in the Ozarks, which mark the career of Max Nickerson, whose path started with his establishment of the first reptile exhibit in The Phoenix Zoo; and cast our eyes toward Children’s Hospital in Boston and Christian Lawrence, whose research has changed how genetics studies can be done – with zebrafish.

But don’t think that our ASU faculty and students aren’t change-makers in our own neighborhoods! Come to South Phoenix and visit the home of Associate Professor Juliet Stromberg and Research Faculty member Matthew Chew, who together have transformed a dilapidated rural sanitarium into a vibrant garden home that argues the concept of native versus invasive species. We also peek in on local hummingbirds, Chiricahua leopard frogs and jackrabbits, with new understanding about the role of behavior, disease and human activity in shaping the environment around us.

Finally, it’s time for me to also announce my own change, as I move from School of Life Sciences to become the Director of Academic Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU. I have loved every moment that I’ve had with School of Life Sciences undergrads, grads, post-docs, faculty, staff and alumni. The new managing editor, Sandy Leander, brings experience and excitement about our diverse research and student body, education and outreach programs and collaborations, and will expand the tools for our graduate student writers to become better storytellers, community leaders and science educators.

Listen in, Read more or View at: sols.asu.edu/publications/mag_vol8_01.php

Design Studio: Panama, 02Grab a Biologist, 06

Fish for a Cure, 08The Variable Vaccine for HIV, 10

Belonging, 13On Foot and On Wing, 17

The Last of the Hellbenders, 20Disappearing Rabbits, 22

Frog Tale, 25Awards and Honors, 26

sols publication staffmanaging editor: margaret coulombeassistant editor: karla moellerart direction and design: jacob sahertianeditorial board: charles kazilekcopy editor: sandy leander, patricia sahertianphotography: charles kazilek, jacob mayfield, jacob sahertian and tom storyfunding: school of life sciences, arizona state university

(additional credits noted in articles)

We are particularly interested in reconnecting with Alumni and Emeriti. If you have information to include in this magazine, please contact us. Manuscripts should be less than 1000 words, photos should be high resolution, and submissions should include all pertinent contact information. Send to Managing Editor, Sandy Leander • [email protected] SOLS Magazine, P.O. Box 874501 Tempe, Arizona, 85287-4501 sols.asu.edu/publications/magazines.php

To learn about the many ways you can contribute to School of Life Sciences and ASU please visit the ASU Foundation web site: secure.asufoundation.org/givingWe reserve the right to edit all submissions. © 2012 ASU School of Life Sciences.

School of Life Sciences is an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University.

sols.asu.edu

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By CLINT PENICk

Design Studio:Panama

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Photo: Elizabeth Cash

Boat rides to Barro Colorado Island in Panama start just after sunrise. On this day, 14 Arizona State University students are slouched inside the bow of the Jacana trying to get an extra 15 minutes of sleep before they dock. Their guide, Wendy, is donned in tall rubber boots and navy blue jungle pants tucked into her socks. Two iridescent parrot feathers dangle from each of her ears. The group is part of a unique learning experiment and this boat ride – weaving in and out of oil tankers and cargo ships in the Panama Canal – offers more than tropical vistas: it is a vehicle to new avenues of creative thinking.

These graduate students are pursuing degrees in design, architecture, and biology, and taking part in an unusual classroom collaboration between ASU’s School of Life Sciences and ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. For example, their first day of classes started with an unusual checklist – bug repellent, binoculars, knee-high rubber boots, a roll of duct tape – none of the standard supplies for a design studio (except maybe the duct tape). Armed with these new tools, the students would take their first steps on a two-week tropical biology sojourn in Panama under the guidance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). Their aim? To produce a final product in design or architecture with one common goal: to look at the forms, functions, and systems of the natural world to find a biologically inspired innovation.

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The process of taking ideas from nature and applying them to human design is known as biomimicry. At ASU, scientists already have been applying concepts of biomimicry to improve photovoltaic cells using concepts from photosynthesis and also to investigate the chemical makeup of spider silk to create stronger, light-weight materials. Incorporating biomimicry into a university curriculum offers a challenging learning and social experience; one that both students and instructors discovered to be change-making.

Instructors for the 2011 “biomimicry traveling studio” were the class’ resident biologist Rick Overson, a School of Life Sciences alumnus; Philip White, an associate professor of industrial design at ASU’s Design School; and Adelheid Fischer, the manager of ASU’s InnovationSpace program. It was Fischer who first considered incorporating biology students into the InnovationSpace design program at the university. With grants from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance and ASU’s Pathways to Entrepreneurship program, InnovationSpace launched an initiative to incorporate biomimicry as a fundamental part of its sustainable innovation curriculum. Funds supported a public lecture by Janine Benyus, author of “Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by nature,” as well as the hiring of then-doctoral student in biology Nate Morehouse (now an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh). The collaboration was so fruitful that Fischer next recruited life sciences doctoral student Adrian Smith to replace Morehouse after he graduated, and it was Smith who ultimately led Fischer to Overson.

Overson had traveled to Panama the previous year with Smith as part of an ASU-Smithsonian partnership forged by Robert Page, Vice Provost and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Known in Arizona for his

The bat-inspired umbrella mimics the geometry of bat wings to strengthen the umbrella against strong winds. While traditional umbrellas often invert during windstorms, the curved tines of the bat-inspired umbrella are designed to offset the forces of strong gusts so that the umbrella stays functional. Design: Clint Penick

Left: Design and architecture students get an aerial view of the rainforest from a canopy tower outside of Gamboa, Panama. Photo: courtesy of Michelle Fehler Right: SOLS graduate Rick Overson poses with a three-toed sloth that was brought down from the canopy by scientists at STRI who came to share about their research. Photo: Elizabeth Cash

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abilities as a naturalist, Overson had the blonde hair and the all-American features of a nature documentary television host. On the last night of their Panamanian tropical biology field course, Overson donned a headlamp and waded waist-deep into a pond to try to catch a wild caiman. Caiman are members of the alligator family and they can grow over a meter in length. Though Overson wasn’t able to catch a caiman that night, when Smith repeated the story to Fischer, she said, “That’s it. He’s our guy.”

Overson’s enthusiasm for nature rubbed off on all the students. Soon, it was not surprising to have everyone drop to their knees to get a closer look at the structure of a plant’s roots, a new type of fungi or a poison dart frog. Students followed his “hands-on” lead by picking up insects, reptiles, frogs and even a wild three-toed sloth (in the last case, under the guidance of resident sloth experts). Design students took pictures with giant lizards, handled snakes and watched a hill of big, black bullet ants, the sting of which is purported to be the most painful of any insect in the world.

At one point, Overson, an “Indiana Jones” of biodiversity, even pulled off his shirt and used it to catch a bat right out of the air. He stretched out its wings as the architects and designers crowded around to see its bone structure. A cacophony of ant-birds beckoned some students off the trail while a call of “army ants!” led others to scatter to see them raid. By the end of the trip, Overson and the students had picked up momentum as the subtle complexities of the rainforest became more apparent and what had once

appeared to be an impenetrable, green wall began to open up. Ultimately, it was Wendy who was ready for a snooze on the boat back to Gamboa’s shores.

Once back in Arizona, the students had a great deal to process. “When you watch the students start a project like this,” said Fischer, “there is that moment you hope for – a synapse.” Their projects began, ranging from thermal imaging hardware inspired by pit vipers, to collapsible buildings based on the spring mechanism of grasshopper legs, roofs that mimicked self-cleaning leaves, and more.

Such projects have high potential but also high risk. A sign of their future success, however, may have been presaged on their last night in Panama. Once again, Overson headed into the night to search for a caiman. After several hours of searching with Fischer and the students, his flashlight finally caught eye-shine at the edge of a small swamp. He crept around the shore with his flashlight held in his mouth. With the caiman within arm’s reach, Overson thrust his hands into the water and pulled up in one quick motion. When he stood up, he had it – a full-sized caiman dangling from his hand. Within minutes, he was passing the caiman around to the students who had followed him into the night.

Fostering enterprise and innovation means exploring new and risky territory – much like an urban traveler entering a rain forest. But now, armed with an investment in innovative learning, these students enter their studios equipped with new tools for collaboration, creativity and complex problem-solving – as well as new eyes for nature.

The Cuddle-Pack: The initial idea to create a backpack was inspired by the sloths unique lifestyle, mode of transportation, and ability to hold tight, leading to the original thought of, “what if a backpack could grab on just as effectively as a sloth?” Design: Kirsten Rutherford & Tyler Kuenzi

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Nature is a well for innovation – if you simply stop and listen.

In the 17th century, the Ojibwa Indians of the northern Great Lakes told Jesuit missionaries that their ancestors learned to weave nets for snagging fish from watching spiders construct webs for capturing insects. In recent years, nautilus shells and whale fins have inspired more aerodynamic blades for fans and wind turbines. A new look at the surface structure of lotus leaves has led to exterior paints that shed dirt with the rain. The clinging abilities of blue mussels and geckos have given rise to the creation of new adhesives.

The list of the products of biomimicry – an emerging discipline that looks to the forms, materials, and processes of nature for inspiration and solutions to human problems – is growing. In a review of the Worldwide Patent Database, Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, points out that between 1985 and 2005, the number of patents with descriptors such as “bioinspired,” “biomimicry,” and “biomimetics” soared by 93 percent. According to estimates from Bharat Bhushan, director of Ohio State University’s Nanoprobe Laboratory for Bio- and Nanotechnology & Biomimetics, between 2005 and 2008 alone, the top 100 biomimetic products netted $1.5 billion in profits.

Rifling the great database of life for biology-based inspiration now is globally recognized as a means of creating innovative and more

sustainable solutions to human problems. But there is a less-obvious case for turning to the natural world for inspiration and it is simply this: pondering the natural world creates the conditions conducive to innovation.

When our Arizona State University students arrived at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s schoolhouse in Panama after a long day of travel, we tossed our luggage and laptops aside and headed into the night to a nearby frog pond. There, with the jungle at our backs and stars overhead, we listened to the stereophonic chorusing of tree frogs, calls so shrill and dense that it was like swimming in sound. Stunned, we all fell silent. Then, one by one, we started to laugh at the crazy wonder of so much noise coming from these tiny, spatula-footed creatures.

Studies by Barbara Fredrickson, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina, and others have shown that positive emotions – joy, curiosity, amusement, inspiration and awe – “open our hearts and our minds, making us more receptive and more creative.” Frederickson sums up the evolutionary role of positive emotions in what she calls her “broaden-and-build theory.” “By opening our hearts and minds, positive emotions allow us to discover and build new skills, new ties, new knowledge, and new ways of being,” she observes. Companies such as Google appear to have caught on to this broaden-and-build wisdom. Its legendary workplace perks – encouraging ongoing learning through such incentives as

tuition reimbursement or creating opportunities for fun and relaxation with on-site swimming pools, ping-pong tables, massage chairs perched in front of aquariums, and playground slides that connect office floors instead of stairs – help prime the creativity pump of employees and consistently land Google at the top of Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For in America.”

Biomimicry serves similar ends, but in deeper and perhaps more profound ways. It appeals to one of our most primal identities – our biophilic selves; what biologist Edward O. Wilson calls our innate tendency to connect with living things. Making that connection, we feel more alive and more aware of the world around us.

So, here’s a bit of advice for helping to spur creativity and innovation. Listen to a clap of thunder that sets howler monkeys roaring in the trees over your head. Watch a casque-headed lizard suddenly become brittle and rigid as it plays dead in your hands. Follow a long line of leaf-cutter ants as they parade leaf fragments like flag-waving athletes at the opening of the Olympic Games. Or listen to more than 700 lime-green, foot-tall Red-lored Amazon parrots marked with a scarlet blaze roost in spreading crowns of jacaranda and suicide trees, as raucous as New Yorkers spilling out of Yankee Stadium after a World Series baseball game.

The joy, curiosity, amusement, inspiration, and awe that nature brings will get you in the mood for sustainable innovation. If you don’t believe me, just grab a biologist and go outside!

Grab A Biologistand Go Outside:

What human artifice has to gain from the exploration of biology

By ADELhEIDE FISChER

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Photo: Michelle Fehler

Many people have fish tanks in their homes and some of them hold zebrafish, which are attractive and easy to care for. However, for Christian Lawrence, a 2002 Arizona State University graduate and freshwater fish enthusiast, tending the half-million zebrafish that reside at Children’s Hospital in Boston requires a much higher order of devotion.

Zebrafish are widely used as model organisms for biomedical research and their use has skyrocketed in the last 15 years. A nationally important center for zebrafish studies, Children’s Hospital chose Lawrence to oversee the care, breeding, and maintenance of many rare strains of zebrafish with unusual genetic properties. His continuing research helps improve both the welfare of the animals and their utility for scientific research.

Lawrence observes their behavior, identifies patterns, and develops research projects that improve our understanding of zebrafish biology. He credits the professors and graduate teaching assistants at ASU with helping him develop the technical and critical thinking skills to excel in this position. As he says, “ASU faculty, especially professors like David Brown, Bob Ohmart, and the late W.L. Minckley had a profound influence on me. Not only are they and were they giants in the fields of natural history and ecology of the Southwest desert, but they also taught their students the value of paying close and critical attention to the world around them.”

Lawrence didn’t come to ASU with zebrafish or biomedical research in mind, but his interests emerged from his studies in wildlife conservation biology. He says he was particularly influenced by Brown’s field-based ecology course. Lawrence remembers spending time with Brown and his teaching assistants as they traveled through Arizona to study populations of bats, pronghorn and fish. These experiences taught him how to observe animals carefully and find patterns in their behavior, and how to ask and answer questions based on these patterns to understand the behaviors of the animals.

By EMILy RIChTER

Photos: courtesy of Christian Lawrence

Fish for a Cure

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When he graduated and left Arizona, Lawrence was hired to work in a zebrafish laboratory at Harvard. Near the beginning of the zebrafish revolution in biomedical research, many of his colleagues in molecular biology and neuroscience viewed the fish primarily as a model or a tool. Little was known about the optimal care of these animals in the laboratory environment. While zebrafish are hardy and can tolerate substandard treatment, Lawrence recognized early on that using fish in research required more critical, careful and standardized treatment, with attention to animal welfare as well as experimental reproducibility.

Through his careful study of zebrafish behavior in the laboratory and the wild, Lawrence has contributed to the understanding of many characteristics of these fish, including their optimal nutrition and reproductive biology. His work has helped to increase the well-being of the zebrafish in his care and raised the standard of care throughout the zebrafish community. Fish that are raised under consistent, species-appropriate conditions will have more normalized genetic expression, better reproductive success and can be used in reproducible experiments. His efforts have made it possible to expand their use in biomedical study, and he has written numerous books and journal articles to share what he has learned.

One of Lawrence’s questions relates to zebrafish reproductive biology and behavior. Much of the biomedical work on zebrafish utilizes zebrafish embryos. Traditionally, generating 10,000 zebrafish embryos, a reasonable number for a study, would require extensive resources. Forty to 50 small tanks of fish would be used, requiring a significant amount of space and care. Collecting the embryos would also take a good deal of time as biologists must wait for the fish to spawn and collect embryos as they are produced. The embryos that result from this process would generally be generated over a period of several hours, meaning that their development would not necessarily be well-synchronized. This would add an additional variable, developmental stage, to any study utilizing the embryos.

From observations of wild zebrafish populations in India and Bangladesh, as well as in the laboratory, Lawrence noted that certain environmental conditions promoted spawning, for example, that the fish naturally spawn in shallow water. Lawrence and one of his colleagues in Boston designed an apparatus to simulate a flooded plain and replicate a key condition to achieve an ideal spawning environment in the lab. Now, using this apparatus, scientists can artificially trigger spawning to generate the needed 10,000 embryos

with a high degree of developmental synchronization amongst the embryos – all within 10 minutes.

These kinds of discoveries and technical advancements highlight the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration within the life sciences. Molecular biologists and neurobiologists who utilize zebrafish as models for their research focus on different problems than Lawrence might, but his focus on aquaculture and ecology bridges the gap between the fish as organisms and the fish as models. Animal experimentation is a crucial aspect of biomedical research, but scientists need to continue to consider the welfare of their animals as organisms as well as the consistency and quality of the organisms supplied to researchers as experimental models. Lawrence’s work also shows how skills gained at ASU and in organismal biology can be applied to interesting and meaningful work – often in ways that are entirely unexpected.

“Back when I was a university student,” says Lawrence, “it was always my aspiration to become a professional fish biologist, but I never would have dreamed that I could do this in the setting of a pediatric research hospital. But here I am all these years later doing just that, thanks in large part to my experiences at ASU.”

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By kARLA MOELLER

The Variable Vaccine for

HIVvolunteers visiting Tanzania assist in a community education day. Photo: courtesy of Bertram Jacobs

Bertram Jacobs. Photo: Karla Moeller

Over 33 million people worldwide are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and the race for a cure has, it seems, turned into a marathon. Though the road has been long, Bertram Jacobs, a virologist at Arizona State University, has achieved promising results in his efforts to develop an HIV vaccine. While Jacobs doesn’t deal in cures, his work has two main goals: the creation of a vaccine that can prevent infection or extend the life of HIV patients, and successful implementation of an educational curriculum for at-risk individuals that promotes safer sexual practices.

Jacobs moved to Phoenix 26 years ago, attracted by ASU’s potential for groundbreaking research. Now a part of the Biodesign Institute at ASU, Jacobs touts the establishment for its research facilities and collaborative atmosphere, which has been vital to ASU’s prominent role in the development of vaccine technology. “That is what’s special about Biodesign and School of Life Sciences,” Jacobs explains. “My lab uses pox viruses, Roy Curtiss’ lab uses salmonella, Charles Arntzen’s lab is using plants for vaccine vectors, and Jorge Reyes del Valle’s lab uses the measles virus as a vector. Here at ASU, we have the potential for using all of these different systems to find out what vector works best for any individual virus.” Recent findings from Jacobs’ collaborations hold promise for a variable approach to vaccines for HIV and other viruses.

In the current vaccination method, both initial immunization and booster doses of a vaccine are delivered the same way, usually by injecting less virulent (attenuated) virus proteins, inactivated virus proteins, or the virus’ genetic material into a subject. All three generally elicit a mediocre immune response. An alternative method, which has been productive for Jacobs, is called heterologous prime boost vaccinations. The approach is two-pronged. An initial immunization is delivered in a genetically engineered Vaccinia pox virus, which then produces HIV proteins within the body. The use of live viral material

improves the immune response over that attained from inactivated viral material. The second prong is a booster which contains proteins purified from mammalian cells engineered to produce HIV proteins. Such a dual delivery system improves immunogenicity – the ability for the vaccination to elicit an immune response and to stimulate specific immunity within an organism.

Over the last seven years, Jacobs and his collaborators, including those at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, have worked to employ heterologous prime boost methodology in the design of a live, attenuated-vector HIV vaccine. Called NYVAC-C-KC, this vaccine provides an immunization of four HIV genes within the viral vector Vaccinia, followed by a boost with purified HIV proteins. Vaccinia, the largest mammalian virus, was used to make the first vaccine over 200 years ago, enabling the eradication of smallpox. The size of the virus facilitates the insertion of genetic material from other viruses such as HIV, and may prove invaluable for the cost-effectiveness of vaccines for countries that are struggling financially. “Rather than trying to develop two vaccines, for example, for two strains of HIV,” Jacobs explains, “we can make a single vaccine that can protect against both. For the developing world, this potential for multivalent vaccines is a truly remarkable implication.”

Though vaccines hold tremendous promise, they are not the final

step in the fight against HIV. “A vaccine that earns a role in the war against HIV may only have 70 percent efficacy,” Jacobs warns. Thus, even if a successful vaccine is created, behavioral change is still the most important preventive measure against infection. For the last eight years, members of Jacobs’ lab have taken part in HIV prevention campaigns with Support for International Change. This organization is devoted to preventing the spread of HIV and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in underserved areas of Tanzania and providing humanitarian opportunities for undergraduate students across the globe. Jacobs teaches student volunteers about the psychology of behavioral change, as well as enough HIV biology to help promote safer sexual practices.

Ironically, a successful vaccine may make people less likely to alter their behavior. “It’s certainly possible that the impetus for behavioral change will go down if we get a vaccine,” Jacobs agrees. Preliminary trials suggest instead that the vaccine may work in concert with proper counseling and education. “Data from previous trials where subjects go in for a vaccine (or placebo) and receive counseling show that the number of sex partners patients have decreases and the amount of sex they have per week goes down. This is evidence that the counseling that goes on during the trials has a positive effect,” Jacobs said.

Students teaching for Support for International Change visit a classroom in Tanzania. Photo: courtesy of Bertram Jacobs

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The success of the programs in Tanzania inspired Damien Salamone, a recent graduate from Jacobs’ lab, to establish another education program in Tanzania called HEAL (Health. Empowerment. Aid. Light.) International. While established programs focused on HIV and AIDS education, there was a lack of health services for people living with the virus. Educational programs focusing on other health issues were also largely unavailable until Salamone started HEAL International in 2005 to fill this void. His organization provides general health education focusing on HIV, AIDS, malaria, sanitation, nutrition and hygiene. The group also funds emergency medical support and provides financial aid for local women to start businesses that offer health services. Such health programs support the idea that education is imperative as a more immediate response to viruses than vaccine development, which often takes years of research and testing before a vaccine is released for public use.

Funding for vaccines is surprisingly problematic, especially when trying to market live, attenuated virus vaccines. “Our vaccines will not be as safe as non-replicating vaccines, but we really

spiderVampire

At twilight, vampires stalk their

victims. This is even true for one

of the tiniest vampires of all: a

jumping vampire spider found in

Kenya that craves human blood.

But don’t cancel your travel plans

– the vampire spider’s preferred

prey are female mosquitoes. Lisa

Taylor, an ASU doctoral student in

biology, studies these spiders to

understand why and how female

spiders select certain males, those

whose blood red coloring makes

them as enticing as a succulent

blood meal. These tiny vampires

may even, in a roundabout way,

take a bite out of malaria.

need a cost-benefit analysis. If one person dies from attenuated Vaccinia and you save 100,000 lives, from a public health point of view it is still worth the risk. For a pharmaceutical company, it’s not worth the investment, because they will be sued. We need to think on a societal level, rather than just an individual level,” Jacobs believes. Fortunately for Jacobs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invests in such societal thinking, and the foundation has granted Jacobs and his colleagues a three-year, $600,000 supplementary grant to pursue clinical trials.

With the success of NYVAC-C-KC non-human primate trials early in 2011 and human trials set to begin in 2012, a key mile-marker in the marathon fight against HIV may be fast approaching. Jacobs revels in this fact, believing now, more than ever, that he has the “best job in the world.” Sitting in his office, where he peers out at his colleagues over a desk covered with mountains of scattered articles, Jacobs’ devotion to gaining

ground against HIV has eclipsed his concerns for his own future. Leaning back in his chair, tucked into his paper fortress, he grins and says, “I hope I put myself out of a job.”

Editor’s Note:Selected for a Fulbright Specialist project in the Republic of South Africa, Bert Jacobs spent time this summer lecturing on the prospects for an HIV vaccine and on HIV prevention education. Jacobs is one of over 400 U.S. faculty and professionals traveling abroad this year through the Fulbright Specialists Program. Created in 2000 to complement the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, the Specialists program provides short-term academic opportunities of two to six weeks to prominent U.S. faculty to support curricular and faculty development at post secondary, academic institutions around the world.

Photo

s: Lisa Taylor

By kELLy DOLEzAL

In the quiet moments amongst the chatter of birds, the sound of water bubbling over rocks drifts through the woodland. In this multi-layered canopy, cottonwoods and palms tower above chinaberry trees, velvet mesquite and tree-tobacco. Arizona grapes and milkweed vines drape from the branches of the smaller trees to the ground, where salt-bushes, hackberries, and jimson weeds create dense undergrowth that is a perfect habitat for small animals.

Although this woodland could easily be mistaken for a “real” riverbed, it is actually miles from the Salt River and just minutes from the bustling streets of Phoenix. This is the home of Juliet Stromberg and her husband Matthew Chew, faculty members of Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences. Like most Southwestern riparian areas, the plants here are a mixture of “native” and “non-native” species. Stromberg and Chew, however, caution that these terms do not represent meaningful categories.

“‘Native’ and ‘alien’ very quickly get used to label things as good or bad, and that is too simplified,” says Chew, an ecologist-historian whose research on the categorization of species has led him to coin the phrase “anekeitaxonomy,” or taxonomy based solely on the geographical belonging of a species.

“We’re just looking at it from a functional perspective. What roles are these species playing in the ecosystem?” says Stromberg, a conservation ecologist and co-author of the book “Ecology and Conservation of the San Pedro River.” To practice their philosophy, they have converted their home into a place to observe how new species interact in a blossoming ecosystem.

non-native belongingNative living and

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When they first saw the Phoenix property in 1998, it was surrounded by a dying citrus orchard near South Mountain Park and featured an historic but derelict private sanitarium from the mid-1920s. The couple was looking for a challenging project, one in which they could funnel their combined expertise in conservation ecology, so they bought it.

They carved out a new drainage pattern for the old orchard irrigation system and planted trees likely to survive in this rich, wet landscape, such as mesquite, palo verde, acacia and hackberry. Soon after, other plants were brought in by the irrigation water and the more than 135 bird species that visit. Some of the plants are actually leftovers from experiments on riparian soil seed banks by Stromberg’s students. “I just took the extra soil and distributed it around,” says Stromberg. “I love the regional plants, but I also think it’s cool that plants come in from other places. What are we going to see now? It’s species exploration in our own four acres.” After years of work and the evolution of the land into a novel ecosystem, the four-acre property now features their renovated home and a lush, eclectic plant community – a small fruit and nut orchard, cacti, grasses, and as diverse a riparian area as you might find along the Salt River.

The diversity and density of plants makes the property a residential “wildlife preserve” for animals as well. Stromberg brings her conservation biology and ecology class to the garden each fall to study the many pollinators that visit the blooming plants. If they are lucky, they might also see copulating king snakes and more desert spiny lizards than the property can handle (which also helps repopulate the species in surrounding areas). Quail and red-tailed hawks have also called the garden their home, as have cotton rats, packrats, and pocket gophers. “Some things that most people probably wouldn’t tolerate,” says Chew. They have found a home because of the eclectic plant population nurtured by Stromberg and Chew.

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“It is a garden, though a pretty bizarre one,” says Chew. “We do make decisions about what stays and what goes.” What might be surprising, even in ecology circles, is Chew and Stromberg’s acceptance of “non-native” or even “invasive” species. Their garden includes a grove of chinaberry trees, which were introduced to North America from Asia as ornamental plants and are now considered an invasive species by some ecologists. However, the fragrant flowers and nutritious berries help make the garden a haven for birds, butterflies, and bees. In a sunny spot on the other side of the property, a thicket of buffelgrass has sprung up. Huge campaigns have been mounted across the Southwest to destroy this plant, which has been labeled an invasive weed. In this ecosystem, however, it serves as a habitat for quail, lizards and small rodents, not to mention as a romping ground for Chew and Stromberg’s four dogs.

“We’re weeding the world, but what criteria are we using?”

Instead of managing their garden by geographic origin, Chew and Stromberg focus on the function of these species in the ecosystem. “We just saw a bunch of honey bees, which aren’t native to North America. But there they are, pollinating that native plant back there. We also have native bees that are in here pollinating imported plants, like lantana. These relationships are not obvious to the participants,” says Chew. “They don’t care. The plant doesn’t care, the bees don’t care. This is working for them.”

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The truth is that returning ecosystems to the way they were before humans arrived may not be practical or feasible. “Some of these global changes, like increased carbon dioxide and nitrogen deposition rates, are very difficult to deal with. Certain plant species – the ones we call the weedy species – are more enhanced by the added nutrients than the species they’re replacing. So it ends up being kind of a losing battle to keep things the way they are,” says Stromberg. “The traditional management is still that we want the plants and animals to reflect the conditions that existed 200 years ago, even though the abiotic physical infrastructure has undergone substantial change during that time.”

Stromberg and Chew do not suggest a bleak acceptance of decreased biodiversity, but rather have a grounded and practical view of ecosystem evolution. “Some of these species that have been called invasive are evolving very, very rapidly as a result of landing in a new habitat. Some are going to get selected out and, eventually, you’ll have something very different from the population it came from. So, we’re actually watching new species being created in this process,” says Chew.

Not all ecologists agree with Chew and Stromberg. The couple, along with 15 other experienced conservationists, recently published an article titled “Don’t judge species on their origins” in the journal Nature. The article received varied objections from invasion biologists, many of whom have been dedicated to eradicating invasive species from their new habitats. Chew, Stromberg, and the other authors are not against preventing introductions of new species or even management of new species when it is feasible.

Rather, they simply want people to consider whether the labels given to species are meaningful. For example, a field guide has labeled a species of toad as “non-native” to Arizona because it spread from adjacent New Mexico. “What do toads know about Arizona or New Mexico?” says Chew. “These sometimes misleading labels are often the sole determinant for ‘non-native’ species management, possibly to the detriment of an ecosystem that has incorporated the new species.”

“Restoration ecology is grounded in ecological principles, but in practice the managers of many projects aren’t ecologists and base their actions on this historical storytelling of ‘native is good and exotic is bad.’ So they cut the palm tree down and call that restoration,” says Stromberg. “Populations are dynamic. Evolution is ongoing. Nothing is static. This changing world is the ecosystem we’re living in now, where we’re the dominant players and where we can control what we want weeded out. Extend that to the public lands and ask, ‘Who decides what gets weeded out of there? What criteria are they using?’ Exotic is not really a good functional criterion. I don’t know if I want to fund people to use herbicide to remove a plant just because it came from somewhere else. We’re weeding the world, but what criteria are we using?”

For Stromberg and Chew, the question of belonging to an ecosystem is not one of nomenclature or categorization. In their garden, a species belongs by extending a leafy branch to give shade below, by returning nutrients to the soil or by providing a home for other species. It makes no difference where the species came from, just that it has arrived.

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By kIRSTEN TRAyNOR

Three sleepy individuals bundled up in woolen hats and winter coats

trudged through the darkness loaded down with twine, two round

collapsible disks of cloth, camping chairs and a plastic box crammed full

of odds and ends. As the night waned into the soft, dim blue-grey of

early morning, they quietly dismantled four bronze hummingbird feeders,

stringing a line between the porch columns where they had hung.

Halfway between the pillars, ASU School of Life Sciences doctoral student

Melissa Meadows strung up one of the round disks of cloth, a self-sewn

circular contraption of lightweight tulle fabric and pulleys. As her husband

Chris Rader held up the sides, she suspended one of the hummingbird

feeders inside. She attached a long fishing line, wound tightly around an

old, square school ID-card. Pulling the line taut, the tulle fabric sides stayed

aloft, permitting free access to the feeder. However, as she released her hold

on the ID-card, the sides swooped down quickly, jostling the feeder slightly

and sloshing sugar syrup onto the cement below. “That should work,” she

exclaimed and set about hanging up the second net.

Most birds can be trapped by stringing almost invisible net traps across

their flight paths. That approach doesn’t work, however, for nimble

hummingbirds. Hummingbirds, which can beat their wings up to 80 times

per second, see the net at the last instant and veer away sharply to avoid

capture. The only way to snare a hummingbird is when it’s feeding. And the

early risers would start feeding soon, even before the sun peeked around

the nearby San Tan Mountains.

Field studies:

On Foot and On Wing

Male Anna’s hummingbird with bicolored leg tag feeding. These tags enable researchers to

identify birds as they interact in their natural habitat. Photo: Melissa Meadows

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“Hummingbirds are always a small sip away from death,” Meadows said. With a heart racing at up to 1,200 beats per second, hummingbirds burn an enormous amount of energy and will die if they don’t find nourishment every two hours when they are active. Birds spend every day searching endlessly for carbohydrate rich nectar and they eat 12 to 14 times their own body weight per day. Only at night, when the hummingbird goes into a form of hibernation called torpor, does its metabolism slow down. On a cold, winter morning like this one, the birds would wake up desperate to find food.

Meadows, Rader, and undergraduate assistant Connor Murphy set up their camping chairs 50 feet from the net traps and snuggled down in their chairs with thermoses of hot cocoa. Meadows weighed out small scraps of pliable cotton cut into miniature diapers with a small slit – soft cloths to hold hummingbirds as they were captured. She kept one fishing line taut, pinning the ID-card with her foot.

The trio fell silent as the first hummingbird made his approach. He hovered briefly in front of the feeder, evaluating its new position, and then dashed forward to sip a sugary reward. As he settled down to drink, Melissa released the card held by her foot. The sides of the net swooshed down. Rader darted up from his seat and jogged over to the trap. Inside the trap, the Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna) circled around, trying to find a way out. Rader slowly inserted his hand through a slit and grasped hold of the tiny bird. With the bird’s head cushioned between his index and middle finger, he walked back to the cluster of chairs.

Meadows had already retrieved the fishing line, pulling it taught so that the trap was primed again. She handed him one of the scraps of cloth. Careful not to snag the beak, Rader threaded the male’s iridescent head through the small slit, wrapped the sides of the cloth over the bird’s back to keep his wings still and pinned the fabric with a large safety pin.

Just as Rader was about to place the diapered bird into a box filled with empty toilet paper rolls, pillowed on the bottom with bubble wrap, Murphy released his fishing line. A second bird had been trapped. Rader settled the first bird into his new accommodations, while Meadows retrieved the newest catch: another male, a juvenile this time, still developing his colorful gorget and crown of iridescent feathers.

Each of these iridescent, scale-like feathers consists of numerous, tiny sub-feathers, called barbs, which are made of even smaller barbules, woven together by tiny hooks. Because of this unique structure, the feathers act like thousands of miniature prisms, refracting light so the bird shimmers like a jewel.

The eye-catching males, though striking, would not be used in Meadows’ current experiment. She needed only Anna’s females. While the females are not as gaudy as their male counterparts, they do have a small patch of iridescent feathers on their neck. She wants to find out if females evaluate a rival female based on the brilliance and size of this coloration.

ASU School of Life Sciences doctoral student Melissa Meadows traps and releases Anna’s hummingbirds (Calypte annna) as part of a behavioral study of the birds. 1) Female Anna’s hummingbirds (Calypte annna) feeding at a flower. Photo: Melissa Meadows 2) A hummingbird trap. Photo: Melissa Meadows 3) Melissa Meadows holds Anna’s hummingbirds, 4) The hummingbirds receive frequent feedings, 5) A female hummingbird is measured during the study. Photos: Chris Rader

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Last year Meadows examined if aggression increased with the size and brilliance of male ornamentation in Anna’s hummingbirds. In many species, the gaudier a male, the better his chances are of impressing and attracting a mate. Visually striking males tend to dominate their less colorful male counterparts, winning all the females for themselves.

But not in Anna’s hummingbirds; the less ornate males act more aggressively toward their flashy competitor. A showy male would probably draw all the females in the area, Meadows mused. To have any chance of mating, the less ornate birds need to drive away their extravagant rivals. So to make up for their lack of ornamentation, they respond forcefully toward more brilliantly colored males.

For some unknown reason, female Anna’s were scarce this year. Meadows had spent the last five days trapping without catching a single female. Some mornings went by very slowly, with few birds approaching the feeders inside the traps. But today she was trapping in my backyard in Queen Creek, Arizona, a town 45 minutes outside of Phoenix in the foothills of the undeveloped San Tan Mountains, where large agricultural fields still sprawl along the roads.

Within the first 15 minutes of trapping, Meadows and her team caught three birds. By 10 a.m., they had netted 18, three of which were females, including one Costas hummingbird, which had a gorget that shimmered in an amethyst triangle. Melissa rarely captures Costas as these birds shun developed areas. Her research has focused on Anna’s hummingbirds, which flourish in city suburbs, dining on the shrubs, flowers and trees planted throughout Phoenix gardens.

Excited to have captured two Anna’s females she could use in her behavioral experiment, Meadows decided to head back to the main ASU campus, where she houses the birds for two to three weeks before releasing them back in the wild. One by one, the males were unpinned from their cloth jackets and set free.

I had the chance to release one male, holding the small, airy body in my hand. Against my warm flesh, the tiny bird vibrated continuously, its heart pumping almost 20 times as fast as mine. As I opened my hand, I felt the brush of feathers push against my palm, the tiny claws grazing my skin. The bird lifted up and sped away, flying over the neighbor’s roof.

Meadows released the Costas female on her lap. Instead of soaring off, it nuzzled down into the woolen hat she had placed beneath the bird to keep it warm as she fed it sugar syrup from a plastic syringe. The bird showed no desire to leave this cozy spot, fluffing out her feathers and settling down as if she’d found a new nest. Meadows held her hat out and eventually the grey bird with gold streaks on her head and a triangular amethyst choker took to the air, leaving us behind.

Meadows returned several more times to the author’s backyard to trap for birds. Traynor says, “On one occasion as we sat chatting in the morning sun, a male Anna’s hummingbird flew straight up into the air above us. He folded his wings in tight against his body and then hurtled himself toward us in what appeared to be a free fall. Just before he crashed into us he diverted quickly, making a loud chirping sound.” Scientists long thought the bird produced this noise vocally, but Chris Clarke, the brother of SOLS graduate student Rebecca Clarke, found that the sound is caused by wind vibrating through the bird’s thin, outside tail feathers, much like a clarinetist blowing on his reed instrument.

At the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum’s hummingbird aviary in Tucson, researchers were puzzled that although the females mated with the males, they had trouble building nests. After much head scratching they realized the birds were missing a crucial material. You will rarely catch glimpse of a hummingbird nest, but they are tiny little constructions of moss and plant fibers woven together with silk females gather from spider webs. When spiders were added into the aviary, the female hummingbirds immediately started raising young.

Photo: Pierre Deviche

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With a name that might better fit a Hells Angels Motorcycle Club member, a hellbender is a salamander, and one that renowned herpetologist Max Nickerson favors. Found in the clear, cool reaches of the North Fork of Missouri’s White River in the Ozarks, this magnificent amphibian – the Ozark hellbender Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi – grows to lengths of more than two feet long. Like many of its amphibian relatives, the Ozark hellbender is threatened with extinction. Population declines have been accelerated by a number of factors, including decreased habitat, plummeting water quality, legal and illegal harvesting, rising microbial loads in rivers and emerging disease.

Nickerson, an affiliate professor at the University of Florida (UF) at Gainesville and Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History, is also a rarity. His projects, such as the preservation of hellbenders and other endangered species, have propelled him to international prominence since he graduated with a doctorate from Arizona State University’s Department of Zoology in 1968. He has led scientific expeditions in the Amazon, radio-tracked pit-vipers and surveyed

herpetofauna in Peru and Costa Rica. He has also served as president of national and international herpetological societies and led in the development and management of major museums, zoos and public programs both east and west of the Missouri River.

Nickerson’s first job working with reptiles was in 1960, when he was the manager of the ASU herpetology collection. While a graduate student, he collected and preserved specimens, extracted and tested venoms in the now-defunct Poisonous Animals Research Laboratory (PARL) and chased down reptiles from Bloody Basin, Arizona, to Southern Sonora, Mexico. Nickerson also managed two of the field camps of the legendary Southwestern ecologist W.L. Minckley – one on the White Water Apache Reservation near Cibeque in the Sonoran Desert and the other in the Cuatro Cienegas basin in Coahuila, Mexico. Nickerson also did his share of teaching and captivating the minds of his students, whether it was in the human anatomy and physiology, comparative anatomy and general zoology classrooms, or in his office, where he sometimes housed cobras, sea snakes and mambas.

Max Nickerson: from the origins of the Phoenix Zoo to the last of the Hellbenders

Listen in (see inside covers)

Ozark hellbender Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi. Photos: courtesy of Phil Colclough and Kirsten Hecht-Kardasz, Florida Museum of Natural History, Herpetology section, University of Florida

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Promoting public education and building public science resources has been a central focus in Nickerson’s life. In addition to his ASU activities, he played a unique role in the planning and founding of the Phoenix Zoo, when he wrestled three, well-fed, 10-foot alligators from Jack Adams’ Alligator Farm in Mesa, Arizona, to become the zoo’s first residents. Nickerson went on to serve as an advisor for the British Broadcasting Corporation, FOX TV and National Geographic. He also helped develop a variety of shows including a television series, “Desert Denizens” for Channel Eight (KAET-TV) that was aired for students in the Phoenix metropolitan area schools; “Zoo World,” a series for the general public that was initially aired in 1966 by the University of Missouri – Columbia with NBC affiliate KOMU-TV; and a biological educational series for ABC affiliate KAIT-TV in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

While Nickerson has advanced scientific research and literature in the herpetological sciences for more than 50 years and has orchestrated the development and management of zoos and museums in Arizona, Missouri, Wisconsin and Florida, his most important impacts may be those he has made

as a mentor for young scientists seeking careers in herpetology, biology, conservation and related fields. Many students started as interns with Nickerson at Max Allen’s Zoological Gardens in Eldon, Missouri, a small zoo accredited by the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums. His skills as a mentor and educator transferred well to raising his daughter, Cheryl, who was born while Nickerson was at ASU. Cheryl Nickerson is now a professor with ASU’s School of Life Sciences, and researcher with ASU’s Biodesign Institute. A microbiologist whose scientific studies have used the microgravity environment of spaceflight and flight analogue systems to advance understanding of host-pathogen interactions, her research has led to new insights into the interactions between host, microbes and the environment, which offer new avenues for the treatment of infection and disease.

Hellbenders have recently entered the junior Nickerson’s scientific life, too. She and her father

have embarked on a series of scientific studies that combine her expertise in microbial pathogenesis with her father’s more than 40 years of hellbender studies. The dynamic Nickerson duo works with ASU students and a collaborative team led by Mark Ott at the NASA Johnson Space Center and Jeff Briggler with the Missouri Department of Conservation. Together, this team hopes to understand the effect of microbes on the impaired ability of hellbenders to heal or ward off infection. Their findings, thus far, suggest that opportunistic pathogens, many of which form biofilms, play a direct role in the declining health of the species. The Nickersons’ first co-authored publication, “Evaluation of Microorganisms Cultured From Injured and Repressed Tissue Regeneration Sites in Endangered Giant Aquatic Ozark Hellbender Salamanders,” was recently accepted for publication in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) journal, PLoS ONE.

“I am as proud of this paper as any I have ever had, as it has long been a dream of mine to be an author on a joint publication with my father,” says Cheryl, who recently received NASA’s 2011 Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal – the administration’s most prestigious commendation for outstanding contributions to science. “I hope that this will be the first of many of our publications together!”

Is there any doubt there will be? Come hellbender or high water, both Nickerson and his daughter have made impacts in their fields that are sure to continue.

Max Nickerson, herpetologist, with daughter Cheryl Nickerson, professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences

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Everyone loves a mystery. This is especially true if the protagonists reportedly occur in nature. Grainy photos of chupacabras, onzas and sasquatches are sure to make headlines. Species extinctions are also a frequent source of wonderment. What really killed off the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker and the plentiful, nearly five-billion strong, passenger pigeon? Such subjects have generated a plethora of articles, books, and radio and television specials.

Mass killings create particular intrigue. The discovery of 5,000 dead blackbirds near Beebe, Arkansas, for example, triggered a rash of national speculation on New Year’s Day, 2011. So did a later discovery of 80,000 dead fish in the same state. Scientists determined the causes of death as blunt force trauma and cold temperatures, but were less certain of the scenarios involved. The explanation that fireworks had flushed the birds from their roosts, causing them to fly blindly into buildings only raised more questions. Why were no wounded birds found? Why would birds known to migrate at night suddenly find darkness so hostile? Uncertain answers and elusive explanations fuel such natural history mysteries.

The fascinating book, “Locust: the devastating rise and mysterious disappearance of the insect that shaped the American frontier,” by Jeffrey A. Lockwood delves into the history of the Rocky Mountain locust, Melanoplus spretus – reputedly once the most abundant animal in North America. Headquartered in mountain meadows and prairies along the Continental Divide, these locusts occurred in numbers that dwarfed those of the passenger pigeon and the neighboring bison. Now the locusts are gone; not even one has been seen since the last two specimens were collected in Manitoba, Canada, in 1902. Now, the only Rocky Mountain locusts found today are either in museum collections or embedded in the dwindling glaciers of the Rocky Mountains.

As in all good natural history mysteries, Lockwood’s well-reasoned discussion of the demise of the locusts leaves the definitive answer open to question. If homesteading farmers and their livestock caused the extinction of the insects, as he claims, why did the locust fail to persist in the intermountain grasslands of Yellowstone National Park and other enclaves never subject to plow and cow? Until such time as someone can explain the failure of these locusts to survive in environments that have never been farmed, one of nature’s biggest mysteries remains unsolved.

Natural history’s mysteries:

The case of the disappearing rabbits By DAvID E. BROWN

Results of a jackrabbit drive in southern Arizona, ca. 1940s. The animals were then donated to the Salvation Army. Photo: courtesy of Arizona Historical Society Photo AHS #B29259

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Like Lockwood’s unresolved locust riddle, Arizona is at the center of its own natural history mystery – revolving around rabbits. Rabbit numbers in Arizona were once much higher, as reported by both ethnologists and naturalists. Jackrabbits in particular greatly outnumbered big game animals in the diet of Native Americans from Snaketown to the Moqui pueblos. So popular was this long-legged game that elaborate rabbit “drives” were undertaken, where animals were driven by the hundreds into nets woven for the purpose.

Such drives were also not the sole purview of Arizona’s native peoples. When large scale agriculture invaded California in the 1870s, jackrabbits were a force to be reckoned with. Between 1882 and 1895, jackrabbit drives were seen as a way to reduce pests and protect the crops. Some of the biggest drives netted thousands of black-tailed or California jackrabbits. With the passing years, these increases in numbers of the population, called irruptions, spread to the Great Plains. Entire communities turned out for gala trapping events from 1894 through to the 1930s.

Meanwhile, Arizona had developed its own rabbit irruptions. A serious depredation problem was reported in the Territory of Arizona’s alfalfa fields in 1897 and organized drives took place in 1904, 1905 and 1908, with the county offering a five-cent bounty for each pair of rabbit ears turned in. One drive in the Glendale area in 1905 resulted in 715 rabbits being bagged and bountied. Another irruption, this one in a non-agricultural area, was reported near Canyon Diablo in 1909 after which 38,331 jacks and cottontails were shipped to markets in Los Angeles, California.

The five-cent bounty carried over to statehood in 1912 and periodic irruptions and “rabbit round-ups” continued through the 1920s, 1930s and even into the 1940s – despite state and federal agricultural departments discouraging drives as ineffective and dangerous. Finally, in the 1950s, the drives ceased, but rabbit irruptions continued. In response, on December 19, 1950, the Arizona Game and Fish Commission declared rabbits in the Queen Creek-Chandler area to be a nuisance and not subject to normal hunting regulations. On September 10, 1954, the commission then issued a license for the commercial processing and canning of jackrabbits in Cochise County.

However, the bunny tide soon turned. Since the 1960s, rabbit populations have decreased. What changed and what caused the irruptions in the first place? Examination of old weather records and reports show that most irruptions took place during dry years preceded by one or more wet ones. Wet years could produce an abundance of green feed, thus the means to boost lagamorph populations to prodigious numbers. The problem with this scenario is that not all wet years resulted in high rabbit numbers and not all dry years caused serious rabbit depredations.

The most likely explanation, offered by the astute naturalist George Bird Grinnell more than 100 years ago, is that lagamorph irruptions stemmed from predator control programs. Programs to reduce coyotes, bobcat, eagle

and fox populations through poisoning, trapping and other means preceded every irruption. It was only logical that destroying the rabbit’s predators resulted in a superabundance of prey species. Mystery solved? Well, not entirely. Though perhaps the cause of increases in the rabbit populations, this answer merely leads us to another question.

Coyote bounties, poison baits, cyanide “getters” and steel traps are no longer decreasing coyote populations,

leaving coyote numbers at historic highs. The same story can be seen among foxes and other small predators. Though high numbers of predators have driven Arizona’s two jackrabbit species to all-time low numbers, we don’t understand what caused this boom among their primary predators. Construction of wildlife water developments and a proliferation of human-supplied foods – from garbage to bird feeders – may be part of the answer, but no one yet knows for sure.

Whether an upsurge in deaths or births, these mysteries of population numbers reveal the complexities of animal ecology. Humans may create new resources or implement hunting or trapping programs that affect numbers of various species, but our understanding of the effects of these changes or the causes of patterns in nature is less extensive than we’d like to believe. Alas, such is the nature of nature’s mysteries. If we learn anything from these mysteries, from bird to rabbit and coyotes in Arizona, it’s that in matters of science, there’s still lots of learning to do.

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SOLS Books

Move over Kermit, there’s a native frog rising in the West With a big green puppet in hand, Elizabeth Davidson, a microbiologist at ASU, has young children imagining the life cycles and life challenges of a threatened frog species in Arizona – and cheering for the “underfrog.”

“Cheery: The true adventures of a Chiricahua Leopard Frog,” is a picture book written by Davidson and brought to life by graphic artist Michael Hagelberg. Published by Five Star Publications, Inc., the book was developed with support from the Heritage Fund, funded by Arizona Game and Fish Department, and was officially designated an Arizona Centennial Legacy Project by the Arizona Historical Commission.

In the tale, a Chiricahua (Cheer-a-cow-ah) pollywog, Cheery, grows up with a very uncertain future. “Round and fat and pale green with brown spots” makes tadpoles good eating for voracious introduced, non-native species in waterways and ponds. Crayfish, bait fish and bullfrogs, used as bait and discarded by fishermen, native snakes and birds are all predators of native pollywogs and young frogs.

Who knew that growing to an adult frog is so full of challenges in the Southwest? If that weren’t enough, amphibians are threatened by microscopic predators. In this case, an infectious disease is decimating frog populations in Arizona and worldwide. More than one-third of amphibian species (frogs, toads and salamanders) are now extinct or threatened with extinction. This is the real-life science that Davidson studies and teaches in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, in addition to her work with infectious insect diseases and mentoring of high school and undergraduate life sciences students.

“Children need a way to relate to things that are important in the environment, because they are important in ways that no one could even guess,” says Davidson. “This book helps them learn a bit about biology, about predator-prey relationships, about lifecycles, about ecology and about overcoming obstacles. Not to mention, frogs are just appealing. Look at Kermit!”

ASU alumnus Mike Sredl, now a biologist with Arizona Game and Fish, is very active in a breeding and reintroduction program like the one described by Cheery. The Phoenix Zoo supports tanks and a program to breed disease-free leopard frogs. Ponds are then renovated, pools deepened, and non-native predators are removed, before tadpoles and froglets (young frogs) are reintroduced to their former homes in the wild.

Davidson adds, “Hopefully our children and grandchildren pay attention and we continue to support organizations like Arizona Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, The Phoenix Zoo and other groups that build practical solutions to our environmental challenges. It’s important.”

Learn more about Arizona’s real-life Chiricahua reintroduction program:

View (see inside covers)

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The German National Academy

of Sciences Leopoldina honored

Foundation Professor Bert

Hölldobler with the Cothenius

Medal for lifetime achievement as

part of the Leopoldina’s Annual

Assembly in Germany. Hölldobler

has revolutionized understanding

about social organization in

insects, chemical communication

and orientation behavior in

animals, and the evolution of

animal communities...

Professor Cheryl Nickerson, who

is also a researcher with ASU’s

Biodesign Institute, received the

Exceptional Scientific Achievement

Medal – NASA’s most prestigious

commendation for outstanding

contributions to science. Nickerson

has pioneered work with infectious

disease and host-pathogen

interactions during spaceflight.

She was also selected as one

of four finalists for the Arizona

Bioindustry Association’s Award for

Research Excellence...

Awards and Honors – fall 2011

Bert hölldoblerCheryl Nickerson

Sudhir kumarJianguo (Jingle) Wu Manfred Laubichler

Jennifer FewellCharles Arntzen

David PearsonWayne Frasch

Andrew Smith

Sharon Crook

Roy Curtiss III

Page Baluch

Professor Sudhir Kumar, who is

also the director of the Center

for Evolutionary Medicine and

Informatics at ASU’s Biodesign

Institute, was selected as a

2011 finalist for the Governor’s

Celebration of Innovation Award

in Academia. Kumar and his

team were recognized for their

development of high-impact

computer software to aid in the

large-scale analysis of DNA,

including tools to help identify the

genetic roots of pathogens...

Professor Jianguo Wu received

the 2011 Outstanding Scientific

Achievements Award from the

International Association for

Landscape Ecology at the 8th

World Congress on Landscape

Ecology, held in Beijing, China.

Professor Manfred Laubichler,

who is also a senior sustainability

scientist in ASU’s Global Institute of

Sustainability, was named a 2011

President’s Professor during the

2012 Faculty Excellence Awards

ceremony hosted by President

Michael Crow and Executive

Vice President and Provost

Elizabeth D. Capaldi.

Professor Jennifer Fewell,

who is also associate dean of

the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers

College, was named a 2012

President’s Professor during the

2012 Faculty Excellence Awards

ceremony hosted by President

Michael Crow and Executive

Vice President and Provost

Elizabeth D. Capaldi.

Regents’ Professor Charles

Arntzen, who is also a

researcher in ASU’s Biodesign

Institute, was invited to give

the Frazier Lecture at

the American Society for

Horticultural Science’s annual

conference in Hawaii. He was

also invited to speak at the

annual meeting of the Korean

Society of Plant Biotechnology

held at Chungnam National

University, Daejeon, Republic

of Korea in 2011.

Honors

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Michael AngillettaJanet Franklin

Research Professor David

Pearson has been funded by

the Smithsonian Institution in

Washington, D.C. to develop

a collaborative classroom with

K-12 teachers and students in

Panama and Arizona, with partners

in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts

and Sciences, Reforming Science

Education for Teachers and

Students (ReSETS) program, Ask

A Biologist and Audubon Arizona.

Pearson was also invited to be

the keynote opening and closing

speaker for the third Bolivian

Congress of Entomology held in

Santa Cruz, Bolivia in 2011.

Professor Wayne Frasch, who

is a member of the ASU Center

for the Study of Early Events in

Photosynthesis, received the

Faculty Achievement Research

Award during the ASU Alumni

Association’s 2012 Founders’ Day

awards dinner held in February.

Frasch’s research into biosensing

stretches into medicine and anti-

terrorism activities, as the tools he

has developed have the potential

to detect contaminants in the

human body or the environment

at a level far more sensitive than

existing techniques.

Professor Andrew Smith, who is

also a President’s Professor and

Parents Association Professor, was

honored for his work chairing the

Lagomorph Socialist Group. In

February 2012, the International

Union for Conservation of Nature

(IUCN) presented Smith with an

Award of Excellence during the

IUCN Species Survival Commission

Chairs’ meeting in Abu Dhabi.

Professor Roy Curtiss III was

appointed a member of the

National Research Council (NRC)

Standing Committee for the Review

of Food Safety and Defense Risk

Assessments, Analyses and Data;

the Scientific Advisory Board,

Northeast Biodefense Center

(NBC); the Review Committee, The

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Center for Bio-Security Science;

the International Scientific Advisory

Committee, International Congress

of Mucosal Immunology; and

the American Association of

Immunology. He also spoke at a

series of workshops and meetings

in 2011, including a Department

of Defense Microbial Data

Integration Workshop in Berkeley,

California; the International Union

of Microbiological Societies

2011 Congress, Sapporo, Japan;

the International Symposiums

in Veterinary Public Health,

Chengdu and Beijing, China;

the Immunotherapeutics and

Vaccine Summit in Cambridge,

Massachusetts; and also gave the

Maurice Ogur Memorial Lecture at

the University of Illinois.

Sharon Crook is an associate

professor in SOLS with a joint

appointment in the School of

Mathematical and Statistical

Sciences. In fall 2011, she was a

Scottish Informatics and Computer

Science Alliance Distinguished

Visiting Fellow with the School

of Informatics in the University

of Edinburgh. Crook presented

a series of Masterclass talks

and conducted a workshop on

“Creating, Documenting and

Sharing Network Models.”

Page Baluch, manager of the W. M.

Keck Bioimaging Facility, has been

named president of the Arizona

Imaging and Microanalysis Society

for 2012 (azmicroscopy.org).

Faculty Awards

National Science Foundation

(NSF) funding in SOLS includes

three projects through a new

NSF program that promotes

collaborative research; these

projects constitute nearly one

quarter of the all grants of this type

that were awarded nationally.

Associate Professor Michael

Angilletta will work with partners

in the University of North Carolina

and University of Texas-Austin

on the project: “Incorporating

Physiological Variation in

Mechanistic Range Models for

Ecological Forecasting.” The team

was awarded $930,000. The project

summary states that: “Computer

models will be used to study the

effects of climate change on the

distribution of a widespread lizard.

The models will link attributes

of individual lizards to see how

whole populations of lizards

adapt to specific environmental

conditions. For example, the

models consider how temperature

and rainfall limit lizard activity,

such as feeding. Feeding is then

related in the models to survival

and reproduction. By monitoring

the behavior and measuring activity

of lizards across the entire United

States, these scientists will be

able to determine how climate in

different regions affects lizards.”

Professor Janet Franklin will work

with partners from Conservation

International, University of Nevada-

Reno, Conservation Biology Institute,

UC-Santa Barbara, UC-Riverside,

UC-Berkeley and UC-Los Angeles. The

team was awarded $3,563,000 and

will study whether microenvironments

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govern macroecology. This project’s summary states that: “Environmental conditions vary locally in mountainous regions of the Western United States, and rapid climate change may determine the survival and migration rates of trees. It involves an interdisciplinary team of climate scientists, ecologists, hydrologists and plant geographers. Field studies of local climate, tree establishment and tree growth will be combined with regional climate modeling and models that depict plant population and fire dynamics across the landscape.”

Associate Professor Sharon Hall will work with a team composed of partners from ASU, the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, USDA Forest Service, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Florida International University, Marine Biological Laboratory, UC-Irvine, Clark University and Indiana University. The group received $2.9 million to examine the “Ecological homogenization of urban America.” The project summary states that: “Urban, suburban and ex-urban environments are important ecosystems, which are increasing across the United States. The conversion of wild to urban ecosystems is resulting in homogenization across cities, where neighborhoods in very different parts of the country have similar patterns of roads, residential lots, commercial areas, and wet areas. This project will test the idea that homogenization alters the storage of carbon and nitrogen, which has continental-scale implications. It will generate datasets ranging from household surveys to regional-scale remote sensing across six metropolitan areas that cover the major climatic regions of the United States: Phoenix; Miami; Baltimore; Boston; St. Paul; and Los Angeles.”

Professor Janet Franklin, who is also an adjunct professor with ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, was awarded two additional collaborative NSF research awards. The first is a $1 million project with ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change researchers entitled “Developing and testing an

integrated paleoscape model for the early Middle and Late Pleistocene of the south coast of South Africa.” A second, $410,000, five-year study with the University of Florida will examine “Long-term dynamics and resilience of terrestrial plant and animal communities in the Bahamas.”

Associate Professor and ASU Curator Nico Franz was awarded a $639,747 NSF CAREER grant to examine the “Systematics of eustyline and geonemine weevils: Connecting and contrasting Caribbean and Neotropical mainland radiations.”

Funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) included awards to Professor Roy Curtiss III, who is also the director of the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at the Biodesign Institute. Curtiss received $5.4 million to develop Salmonella-vectored vaccines to prevent gastroenteritis, enteric fever, typhoid fever, plague, dysentery and influenza and perform pre-clinical evaluations to supportPhase I clinical trials. In addition, he was granted $1,488,744 from the USDA to investigate extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC), a leading source of serious blood infections and other ailments.

Professor Charles Perrings, Professor Ann Kinzig and Assistant Professor Eli Fenichel and their partners were awarded a four-year, $1.6 million grant from NIH to model the anthropogenic effects in the spread of infectious disease. Their partners include scientists with ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC), Princeton, the ecoHealth Alliance, Michigan State University, UC-San Diego, UC-Davis, University of Washington and UC-Santa Cruz.

Associate Professor Carsten Duch received two NIH awards. A five-year, $1.1 million grant to study the mechanisms and functions of Drosophila motoneuron dendritic shape development, and a $500,000 award to equip School of Life Sciences W. M. Keck Bioimaging Facility with a Leica TCS SP5 Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope.

Faculty Awards (continued)

Associate Professor Sharon Crook was awarded a three-year, $276,521 NIH grant to continue development of the “NeuroML database for multiscale models in neuroscience.” She also received a Norway Research Council Travel Grant through Norwegian University of Life Sciences to fund a three month visit last summer.

Assistant Professor Kiona Ogle has received a three-year, $1.04 million Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research grant titled “Data-model synthesis of grassland carbon metabolism: Quantifying direct, indirect and interactive effects of warming and elevated carbon dioxide.” This is a collaborative project with partners with the University of Wyoming, Colorado State University and the USDA-ARS in Fort Collins, Colorado.

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Student AchievementsMarie Fujitani, a graduate student in Eli Fenichel’s lab, was awarded the American Fisheries Society Equal Opportunities Section Travel Award. In addition, undergraduate researcher Andrea Sylvia was awarded a SOLS undergraduate research program travel grant and a Barrett Honors College travel grant for the American Fisheries Society’s 2011 national meeting.

Takahiro Maruki, a graduate student with Yuseob Kim and Jesse Taylor in ASU’s School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, received three travel awards from the ASU’s Graduate College, School of Life Sciences and the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in 2011.

James Waters, a doctoral candidate in Jon Harrison’s lab, received a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDIG). The award will also support undergraduate training and a program with the Estrella Mountain Regional Park in Maricopa County, Arizona, designed to educate and engage the public regarding insect biodiversity.

Joanna Malukiewicz, a doctoral candidate in Anne Stone’s lab (SHESC), was awarded a SOLS Travel Award, GPSA Research Grant and was a panelist on primate hybridization roundtable discussion at the XIV Brazilian Primatology Conference in 2011.

Caitlin Otto, a graduate student in Shelley Haydel’s lab, received travel awards from ASU’s Graduate College, GPSA and SOLS Graduate Programs to present her research at the IV International Conference on Environmental, Industrial and Applied Microbiology (BioMicroWorld 2011) in Malaga-Torremolinos, Spain.

Eric Moody, a doctoral student in John Sabo’s lab, received a grant from the Arizona Water Association.

Mimi Kessler, a doctoral candidate in Andrews Smith’s lab, was awarded the Arizona Association of Environmental Professionals “Future Environmental Professional” Scholarship; a Lisa Dent Memorial Fellowship; a GPSA grant; and funds from the Melikian Center Research Support Fund.

Sarah Kuzmiak, a doctoral student in Wayne T. Willis’ lab, received the Norman James Research Award for her presentation at the Southwest College of Sports Medicine Conference in October 2011.

Kevin McCluney, a postdoctoral fellow in John Sabo’s lab, reports that a paper generated by the 2009 Frontiers in Life Sciences conference “Dynamic Deserts” was published in the journal Biological Reviews (2011), titled “Shifting species interactions in terrestrial dryland ecosystems under altered water availability and climate change.”

Sarah kuzmiak

Listen in, Read more or View at: sols.asu.edu/publications/mag_vol8_01.php

NIGHT OF THEOPEN DOORSaturday, March 2, 2013

The Night of the Open Door is a signature event of the Arizona SciTech Festival and offers a window into the creative energy that powers a world-class university. Hundreds of ASU student volunteers, faculty and staff come out to host more than 135 interactive and exciting exhibits and events. Teenagers, children, parents, neighbors, alumni and entrepreneurs can visit laboratories, living collections, museums; meet ASU students and experts; and share in artistic performances, culture, languages, lectures, and hands-on activities.

You and your family are invited to join us on March 2, 2013 for our second annual ASU Night of the Open Door. Step out, explore and celebrate Arizona’s and ASU’s leadership in science, technology, innovation and creative enterprise!

opendoor.asu.edu