GCC Undergraduate Research Grant Awardees Present at Dennis Dean Research Conference

Now entering his senior year at Virginia Tech, Omar first joined the Brown lab as a freshman in 2018 as a Biology and Nanomedicine double major. Research conducted in the Brown lab broadly focuses on community ecology in aquatic systems by conducting experimental tests of ecological theory, most notably through field experimentation. Initially contributing to many of the lab’s ongoing projects, Omar developed his independent research project almost two years ago. The research focused on the cleaning symbiosis between crayfish and worms known as ecosymbiotic annelids. Knowing that worms inhabiting the crayfish play a hygienic role for the crayfish that is mutualistic at low and intermediary levels, Omar wanted to investigate whether changes in pH affect the overall health of a crayfish by shifting the worms to high, or parasitic, levels. The results of the study revealed that relatively basic pH of 8 in combination with an intermediary worm count of 6 led to the greatest survivability of the crayfish and the overall fitness. Omar is currently participating in a summer REU program with the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in the lab of Dr. Sandra Loesgen. There, he will conduct assays on microorganisms from jellyfish and bacterial strains from Antarctica. As for Omar’s long-term goals, he plans to enter a graduate program upon completion of his degree next year. “Better keep a close eye on me. Because I’m going to change the world someday.” 

The Mims Lab investigates how biological and environmental factors influence the vulnerability of species to climate change. They use data from diverse sources, from population genetics to publicly collected natural history data. Joining the lab in 2019 as a Biological Sciences major with a minor in National Security & Foreign Affairs, Tess excelled in the lab environment, both as an integral team member and later as an independent researcher. “Tess approached her research with curiosity and initiative much like a graduate student,” says Meryl. Working closely with IGC fellow Chloe Moore, Tess sought to determine whether occurrence data (or a record of a species’ exact location in space and time) used in combination with environmental data to develop species distribution models (SDMs) can be used to predict where a species likely occurs without inherent bias. She used R programming to compare occurrence points of two frog and one toad species in the United States from two publicly sourced databases to examine the quality and potential biases of these data. When asked why this research was significant, she said, “It is crucial because these species play a major role in food webs, consequently impacting humans.” Her results suggested that occurrences derived from these databases are biased towards human collection efforts in areas such as parks and population centers, and SDMs using these data need to account for these biases to better predict distribution of biodiversity. “Being able to evaluate the reliability of large-scale, opportunistically collected species data will allow us to examine questions related to data over- and under-representation across space, the extent and spread of invasive species, and changes in species distributions over time,” says Meryl. The next steps of the project will include exploring other species and occurrence databases and correcting for the biases Tess discovered. And while Tess has graduated this year, she plans to continue using her analytical skills in the public sector, not too far from her hometown of McLean, Virginia. 

“I am really grateful to the GCC for supporting undergraduate research and for supporting Ash’s project in particular,” Chloé remarks. “Ash’s project focuses on an invasive mosquito species for which no control method currently exists.” The invasive species Aedes j. japonicus is a potential vector of West Nile virus, a disease with no approved treatment or vaccine that impacts millions worldwide, and is competent for several other viruses including dengue. “With warming climates,” Ash said, “the active range for mosquitoes is growing, and we hypothesize that drier climates will encourage more mosquito activity.”  Using the GCC grant funds, she has been able to address this problem by creating and testing novel attractive toxic sugar baits (ATSBs) for mosquito control. To test this, boric acid, which is lethal to mosquitoes, was mixed with various solutions of sucrose and various fruit sugars to use in feeding assays. Ash found that survivability was much lower in mosquitoes fed solutions containing boric acid compared to those who weren’t, proving the efficiency of ATSBs in this invasive species. The next steps for this project will be to couple the ATSBs with a suitable trap and test its efficiency in the field during warmer months. Graduating this year with a publication in the works and the Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research Symposium Policy Award in tow, Ash intends to enter VT’s Master’s in Biochemistry program. Ash reflects back on one of her most important influences, “I wouldn’t have had any opportunity to do any of this without my dad. It was his funds received through the Post-9/11 GI-Bill that allowed me to go to college, and he has supported me in more ways than I can count over the past three years.”