Welcome to the School of Biological Sciences

Wolfgang Stein joins the ISU faculty as an assistant professor of biological sciences. Stein earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the same institution and is a German citizen. In addition, he holds a postdoctoral lecturer qualification from the Institute of Neurobiology at Ulm University, Germany.

Understanding the integration and processing of sensory information is one of his many research interests, as well as the selection of motor patterns in a model system for motor pattern generation. He uses intra- and extracellular electrophysiology as well as optical imaging for his studies. Over the years, Stein has enjoyed teaching because of the classroom and one-on-one experiences that provide an outlet to thoroughly study, review and absorb ideas.

Graduate Students Win Thesis Awards

Three graduate students from the College of Arts and Sciences—Jenna Carlson (Sociology and Anthropology), Joseph Fader (Biological Sciences), and Anjanette Riley (English) have been selected as College winners in the 2011-2012 James L. Fisher Outstanding Thesis Competition. Each student represents one of the College’s divisions—the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences and mathematics. The competition is designed to promote recognition of graduate theses of the highest quality. Winners of the thesis competition are recognized at the College level, and one recipient from Colleges across the University is selected to represent the University at the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) regional competition. Nominations are put forward by academic departments/schools and judged in the Colleges before the University competition.

Carlson was also selected as this year’s University Runner-up. Her thesis is titled Culinary Creolization: Subsistence and Cultural Interaction at Fort Michilimackinac, 1730-1761. It examines the animal remains from several French households at the fur-trading post of Michilimackinac, which was established in the early eighteenth century, to see if there is evidence of Native American influence on the foods that French colonists consumed. She found that transculturation and creolization were part of everyday life for the French colonists at the fort.“We are very proud of Jenna. She did an excellent job in our master’s program and is completing her Ph.D. at William and Mary, one of the premier schools for historical archaeology in the country,” said Dr. Fred Smith, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

Joseph Fader’s thesis is titled Spatial Distributions and Larval Competition Among Container Mosquitoes: Does Aggregation Contribute to Coexistence Between Aedes Albopictus and Aedes Aegypti? Anjanette Riley’s thesis is titled Merging Genre Theory and Dynamic Criteria Mapping to Improve the Validity of Assessment in the Composition Classroom.

The award ceremony will be held on Monday, Nov. 28, at noon in the Old Main Room in the Bone Student Center. All College Winners receive $200 awards, and the University runner-up receives an additional $100 award. The University winner receives an additional $200 award, and his thesis will be Illinois State University submission to the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools regional competition. This year’s University winner and MAGS Submission is Chad E. Wys, representing the College of Fine Arts, School of Art.

Welcome to the School of Biological Sciences

Seminar Series

( BEES | GM | CPD | Alumni )

Friday, January 27th, Science Lab Building Room 121 at 2:00pm

Application of synthetic receptors for detection of natural toxins

Dr. Michael Appell
USDA-ARS, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research
Bacterial Foodborne Pathogen and Mycology Research Unit
1815 N. University St. Peoria, IL 61604

Mycotoxins are small organic toxins produced by certain fungi that occasionally contaminate agricultural commodities. These toxins pose risks to consumers and reduce commodity values. Selective methods to detect mycotoxins in agricultural commodities involve the use of materials capable of molecular recognition. Synthetic receptors were investigated as molecular recognition tools to enable robust methods to detect Fusarium and Penicillium mycotoxins. This presentation will cover the basis for molecular recognition, and the development and evaluation of molecularly imprinted polymers and carbohydrate based sponge materials for mycotoxin detection.

Thursday, February 16th, Schroeder Room 244 at 4:00pm

Special Seminar

Thursday, February 9th, Schroeder Room 244 at 4:00pm

Special Seminar

Thursday, January 26, Schroeder Room 244, 4:00pm

“Evolution in a community context: How complicated can it be?”

Dr. Tom Miller
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL

The water-filled leaves of purple pitcher plants provide a habitat for a small community, including bacteria, protozoa, rotifers, mites, and at least 3 dipterans, which all depend on the prey captured by the carnivorous host plant. My lab has been using microcosm community to address a number of concepts in community ecology, including top-down vs. bottom up control,community invasibility, succession, extinction debt, dispersal, and metacommunity dynamics.

Most recently, we have been using pitcher plants microcosms as a model system to understand evolution in natural multispecies, communities. A common heuristic for the evolution of competitors in communities is niche partitioning with character displacement (think Darwin’s finches), but more recent theory has suggested a variety of other options, including niche convergence, evolution through indirect effects, and even that diversity may inhibit rates of evolution. However, there is very little direct experimental evidence of evolution in multispecies natural communities. I will discuss some recent models and experimental results on the evolution of protozoan competitors in pitcher plant leaves. Ultimately, evolution in a community context may not be all that complicated, but it may be quite surprising.

Thursday, February 2nd, Schroeder Room 244 at 4:00pm

“Biparental care as a test system for simple forms of cooperation”

Dr. Douglas Mock
George Lynn Cross Research Professor
Department of Zoology
University of Oklahoma

Although both parents share the tasks of raising the young in most bird species, the ecological and behavioral forces shaping how the labor is divided are seldom clear. Since 1994, we have been analyzing some of the dynamics that stabilize biparental care with a color-banded population of house sparrows in central Oklahoma, using a combination of observational and experimental field studies in tandem with simple game theory models. Most of these studies have focused on brood-rearing strategies during the post-hatching period but we have switched our attention most recently to the incubation phase, where each parent is better able to monitor partner contributions. In our latest work, we consider how inequality in performance quality (where one mate is simply more effective at a given task) is likely to influence the optimal balance of who does what.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Ebony Murrell of the Department of Biological Sciences at Illinois State University will present “As Time Goes By: Mechanisms of Succession in Artificial Container Communities” in Moulton Hall 214 at 4:00 pm. Pre-seminar coffee will be served in the SLB 4th floor atrium from 3:30 pm to 3:50 pm. This seminar is hosted by the Juliano Lab of the Illinois State University School of Biological Sciences.