Achievement

Trainees’ Research Projects * Zach Culumber is studying the genetic consequences of stream contamination to biodiversity in Mexico. He is using swordtail fish as a model, and is investigating the interaction between the swordtail mating system and the genetics of hybridization that have resulted from break down of the swordtail’s ability to recognize other individuals of their own species. * Katie Roach is carrying out comparative research on food web ecology in temperate and tropical rivers in central Texas and the Western Amazon. She will quantify patterns of nutrient cycling and stable isotopes and relate these to the structure and function of fish communities. * Chris Schalk is completing his first four months of field work in the Bolivian Chaco. Chris is competition and predation in a frog community and asking how these local mechanisms scale up to the landscape level to influence the regional pattern of frog diversity.