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14 December 2021. Pranav Nadella has been awarded an undergraduate research grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research at UCF!! He will be investigating relationships between the gut microbiome and incidence of Chelonian herpesvirus (ChHV5) in green sea turtles. Pranav just finished up his first semester and so has hit the ground running with his research. We are excited to have you part of the team, Pranav!
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13 December 2021. Today marks a day that we have been waiting for – the delivery and installation of new cabinets to house the UCF Ornithology and Mammalogy collections! The old cabinets were in rough shape but because of COVID there were delays on getting them replaced. To celebrate, the Forsman Lab stepped into full gear, spending two full days carefully transferring specimens from the old cabinet into their new homes. Thank you for all your help, friends – it would not have happened without you!
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06 December 2021. The Florida scrub jay season has officially begun!
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08 October 2021. Christine Sarkis has been awarded funding to attend a two-day genomics workshop at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA, by the g2p2pop Research Coordination Network! Great job, Christine!!
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26 March 2021. Excellent lab news today!! Our grant proposal “Molecular Identification of Sea Turtle Diet Items using Colon Swab DNA” has been recommended for funding by the Florida Sea Turtle License Plate Grant Program! This collaboration between Dr. Anna Forsman and Dr. Erin Seney will build on the amazing methods-development work of Christine Sarkis in the Wild Symbioses Lab.
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25 February 2021. We are super excited to unveil our official design for the UCF Purple Martin Project! This design was created by the talented Jacob Ewert. Jacob is a third year undergraduate student at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is majoring in Plant Sciences and minoring in Educational Studies. We first got to know Jacob when he was President of the UF GREBE chapter of the National Audubon Society.
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19 February 2021. It’s Purple Martin Time at the Space Coast Chapter of the National Audubon Society. Check out the recording HERE!
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14 February 2021. Dr. Forsman gives a talk a the monthly meeting of the Seminole County Audubon Society. We had a great time chatting about purple martins and looking over some of the very newest data on diet composition of martins sampled across North America.
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10 February 2021. Purple martins are back at UCF! Several birds spotted checking out the gourds at the field building houses.
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17 January 2021. The UCF Purple Martin Project’s first ever shipment of bands arrive from the National Bird Banding Laboratory! We are excited for our birds to arrive and for a productive first official field season!
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18 November 2020. New paper published in Environmental Pollution! This was a fun collaboration with Dr. Molly Shuman-Goodier and Dr. Catherine Propper, of Northern Arizona University, examining developmental effects of butachlor exposure in cane toad tadpoles. Dr. Forsman‘s contribution to this project was the RNAseq work, which allowed us to look at gene expression across pesticide treatment groups. Check out the paper HERE!
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27 October 2020. Purple Martin Time comes to Kissimmee Valley Audubon Society. Dr. Forsman updates this group of bird enthusiasts about our work at UCF. A recording of this seminar is available HERE.
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15 October 2020. Dr. Forsman gives a presentation about purple martins and the UCF Purple Martin Project at the virtual meeting of the Orange County Audubon Society. A recording of this seminar is available HERE.
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29 September 2020. The student interns at the UCF Arboretum have been growing purple martin gourds! The Wild Symbioses Lab has partnered with the Arboretum on this fun project to brighten these COVID-times. The students have done a fantastic job building a trellis structure for the gourd plants to grow on. We can’t wait until harvest time!
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26 August 2020. Congratulations to our very own Christine Sarkis! Christine was recently awarded a scholarship by the National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation for her awesome work on diet metabarcoding and her dedication to the conservation of sea turtles and their habitats. Way to go, Christine!!
Third Scholarship Recipient Chosen By National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation
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10 August 2020. This week, the Wild Symbioses Lab is participating in the North American Ornithological Conference (NAOC)! UCF undergraduates Julia Gneckow and Lauren Puleo are presenting their exciting research on Thursday in the virtual poster session. Lauren has been working on analyzing long-term monitoring data from a local bird banding station (in collaboration with Dr. Bob Fitak) to investigate changes in migratory phenology over time and in relation to climate. Julia is interested in how interactions between wild migratory birds and agricultural animals promote the maintenance and dispersal of Salmonella serovars. Although we are disappointed to not be in Puerto Rico this week, we are excited for the opportunity to “meet” and connect with researchers from all over the world (~3,000 participants!). Check out Julia’s and Lauren’s presentations HERE.
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9 June 2020. The Wild Symbioses Lab stands in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter. Our disciplines and the larger context of academia must critically evaluate our own racial biases and contributions to white systems and structures that have historically excluded and harmed Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). One immediate action step that the Wild Symbioses Lab is taking is participation in #ShutDownSTEM on Wednesday June 10. We will be using the resources provided on their website (https://www.shutdownstem.com/) to develop a long term action plan to address systemic inequality and leverage our position to create change. We invite all of our STEM leaders to join us in this work.
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2 June 2020. Lab member Julia Gneckow has started a blog called “Adventures of a Clumsy Birder”. Julia has also recently joined Twitter (@Juliabirdnerd)! Hooray for academic social media, especially during difficult times like the present. We support our fellow humans of color around the globe!
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2 May 2020. Today is UCF’s graduation, which is a little bit different this year because of COVID-19. But despite the lack of an in-person graduation ceremony, there is much to be celebrated! The Forsman Lab is super proud of our own graduates: Victoria, Brian, and Brianna! We will miss their friendly faces and enthusiasm, but wish them lots of luck and happiness in their next adventures. CONGRATULATIONS!!
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30 April 2020. The UCF Purple Martin Project is making headlines again! This time our team is featured in the Spring 2020 issue of The Purple Martin Update, which is published by the Purple Martin Conservation Association (PMCA). The PMCA was instrumental in the planning of our project and the purchase of housing structures and gourds. Our good friend Joe Siegrist, who is the President of the PMCA, has become a great supporter and collaborator. Check out this amazing video documenting his recent research excursion to Brazil to check out wintering martins: PUMA Film
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25 April 2020. The four nestlings in our first brood are growing quickly. Today we did a complete nest check of all 144 gourds. We have seven gourds with eggs in them, one gourd with chicks, and loads of lined nests that we hope will see some action. Lots of birds around. There is only one site on campus where we have yet to see any birds or activity in the gourds. Check out more pictures here: UCF PUMA’s
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22 April 2020. We have super exciting news, just in time for Earth Day! Our first brood of purple martins has hatched!! Four pink nestlings greeted us during today’s nest check. Because of COVID-19, we are unable to check nests on a daily basis, but we estimate that these chicks are about 2 days old. Check out more pictures here: UCF PUMA’s
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2 April 2020. Now well into the Great Hunkering of 2020, thanks to COVID-19. UCF classes are now fully online and campus is very, very quiet. Except for around the field building! The purple martins are keeping busy at House #1. We have our first clutch of eggs in Gourd M. Eight martins were seen flying overhead and checking out the cavities. In other news, Dr. Forsman is featured on the back cover of UCF’s Pegasus Magazine! Check out more pictures here: UCF PUMA’s
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26 March 2020. Lots of activity happening over at House #1, by the field building. Four birds seen patrolling and several gourds now have lined nests. Net-building activity is only evident in those gourds where we placed pine straw at installation. Check out more pictures here: UCF PUMA’s
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15 March 2020. Early morning house checks reveal more martin activity. Three birds seen checking out Houses 7,8, and 9. Lot’s of chattering, cavity inspections, and swooping over the ponds. Congrats to all of the PUMA students!! Check out more pictures here: UCF PUMA’s
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14 March 2020. After returning from an overseas trip over Spring Break, we were delighted to discover martin activity at one of our houses. In fact, House #1, located by the UCF Field Building. The status of monitoring activities is currently uncertain due to concerns over COVID-19. Stay safe everyone!
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3 March 2020. UCF College of Sciences publishes a story on our Purple Martin Project! COS photographers joined us on February 20 to document our first day of house installation. We are so excited to spread the news of our work to the rest of the campus community.
See the full story here: COS PUMA News!
This project would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support of the Purple Martin Conservation Association.
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28 February 2020. Today we finished setting up the remaining purple martin houses – we are now at a grand total of 144 housing gourds. What a fantastic group of students! Excellent team work and excellent weather! Check out all of our pictures here: PUMA
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20 February 2020. First day of housing installation for the UCF Purple Martin is now in the books. Thanks to Forsman Symbionts Brian, Julia, Lauren, Victoria, and Zach, and several enthusiastic students from Anna’s Genomics course, we installed 8 houses for a total of 96 gourds! Next week will put up the remaining houses and rig the speakers to help us start attracting residents.
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13 February 2020. Lab work success! Exciting results following a few months of RNA work and library preparation for RNAseq. In an exciting collaboration with Rachael DiSciullo, Dr. Charles Thompson, Dr. Scott Sakaluk, of Illinois State University, and Dr. Bob Fitak (UCF), we are developing a SNP chip for house wrens! The first step, making transcriptomes. The ISU team provided samples, Anna conducted the lab work, and Bob will be team leader for the bioinformatics. What a team!
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7 February 2020. All house sites have been flagged for the UCF Purple Martin Project! Twelve houses in total with a total of 144 gourds. Tomorrow, ground stakes will be secured into the ground with concrete. Next week, Team PUMA will be busy stuffing gourds with pine straw, figuring out how to use the winch systems, and trying to attract our new feathered friends to UCF with decoys and playback. Wish us luck!!
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2 February 2020. A little late making this post, but excited to announce our newest addition to the Wild Symbioses Lab! Victoria Allanson began working on a microbiome project at the tail-end of 2019 and has now jumped in full force during her final semester at UCF. Victoria is using 16S metabarcoding to determine whether the gut microbiome of mealworms change when they are fed a diet of polystyrene foam as compared to control-fed mealworms. Check out our people page to learn more about Victoria and her research!
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21 Jan 2020. Today is a big day for the Wild Symbioses Lab as it marks the official start of the UCF Purple Martin Project! This morning, 144 nesting gourds and materials to erect 12 Purple Martin houses across the UCF campus were delivered. During the next few weeks, we will be making final site selections and installing these houses with the hope that we can attract some winged tenants for the 2020 field season!
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14 Jan 2020. Congratulations to Brian Cammarano, Julia Gneckow, and Lauren Puleo for all receiving Student Membership Awards from the American Ornithological Society (AOS) for 2020!
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10 Jan 2020. Congratulations to Julia Gneckow and the UCF Knighthawks for receiving a $10K grant from the National Audubon Society and the Coleman and Susan Burke Center for Native Plants! This funding will allow the Knighthawks to partner with the UCF Arboretum to create bird-friendly gardens on the UCF campus, including interpretive markers that encourage visitors to interact with campus natural areas. More updates to come later this semester as the program is implemented!
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6 December 2019. Undergraduate Lauren Puleo shares her experiences as a 2019 Conservation Leadership Initiative Member with the National Audubon community. Check it out!
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11 November 2019. Undergraduate Julia Gneckow shares her experiences at a Audubon Assembly workshop about treatment wetlands and their benefits to birdlife. Julia’s article was published in the November 2019 issue of OASis, the monthly newsletter of the Orange County Audubon Society.
Check it out!
Screen shot from OASis, Vol.54, Issue 3, pg.8
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