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Prospective students:
Click here to
download a pdf presentation on the Biology
Department (3MB)
Click here to
download a pdf presentation on Field
Biology at Sweet Briar (4.5MB) |
Laurel Speilman Rodgers '03
is our Visiting Instructor in Biology for the spring semester. During
Spring Break, Laurel flew back to Tucson and defended her Ph.D. at
the University of Arizona.
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The Department of Biology
and the Central Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalist
Program are sponsoring our second Advanced
Training Rally for Virginia Master Naturalists on
8-10 May. The
organizer of the Rally is Sweet Briar Naturalist-in-Residence Mike
Hayslett (above). Linda
Fink, John Morrissey (below), Janet Steven and alumna Kim Leach Burge
'00 will be among the instructors at the Rally.
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Dr. Kabaye Berhanu '97, a hospitalist in Norfolk, VA,
met with pre-med students in November.
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More baby chameleons! Senior Kia
Bryan is conducting a learning experiment with eight veiled chameleons. |
Other news...
Mike Hayslett, Janet Steven and Linda Fink,
and the students in the Ecology class have constructed our first deer
exclosure at the college, in the forest at the base of Monument Hill. We
will be monitoring the vegetation within the exclosure and in an adjacent
unfenced area.
Professor
Janet Steven will be teaching a summer course entitled "The
Evolution of Plant Reproductive Strategies"
at Mountain Lake Biological Station.
For his efforts in preserving the overwintering home
of the monarch butterfly, Research Professor of Biology Lincoln
Brower has been awarded a Reconocimiento
a la Conservación de la Naturaleza 2008 from Mexico's
Comision Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP).
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Forest ecology: why would eight women spend
two weeks measuring more than 1600 trees? |
Cool science |
Molecular tools: proteins
and DNA help us understand plant evolution and insect behavior. |
Every 8-10 years we remeasure
the trees in three permanent forest plots. In May a crew
of five students, alumna Andrea Capano '99, and professors
Linda Fink and Janet Steven surveyed the largest of these
plots, the kilometer-long
COSIP transect.
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Lincoln Brower's freezer
contains monarch butterflies collected in Mexico between
1976 and 2006. He and Cara Cherry (SBC '06) selected
samples for lipid analysis to fill gaps in our
understanding of the fall migration.
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Helen Bradshaw and Janet Steven used isozymes
to study the evolution of sexual dimorphism in Thalictrum.
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Lauren Schwartz established understory
vegetation plots with Janet Steven.
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John Morrissey's freezer
contains chain catsharks collected as bycatch by fishermen. He
and Jessie Waitt used scanning electron microscopy
to investigate variation in scale morphology. Donna
McLaughlin and Lara Slough embarked on histological
work.
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Logan Fitzgerald, Linda Fink and Robin
Davies developed microsatellite DNA markers for a paternity
analysis of the walkingstick Diapheromera femorata.
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Recent
faculty and alumnae publications
Brower, L.P., L.S.
Fink and P. Walford. 2006. Fueling the fall
migration of the monarch butterfly. Integrative
and Comparative Biology 46 (6): 1123-1142.
Fink,
L.S. and
R.I. Vane-Wright. 2007. Lincoln Brower's European
tour. Antenna
31 (4):
203-207.
Harris, PR,
Wright, S, Serrano, C, Riera, F, Duarte, I, Torres, Javiera,
Pena, A, Rollan, A, Viviani, P, Guiraldes, E, Schmitz,
JM (SBC '03) , Lorenz
RG, Novak, L, Smythies, LE, Smith, PD.2008. Helicobacter
pylori gastritis in children is associated with a regulatory
T Cell response. Gastroenterology 134:
491 - 499.
Morrissey,
J.F. and J.L. Sumich. 2008. Introduction
to the Biology of Marine Life, 9th Edition. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. ISBN-13:
9780763753696
Morson,
J. and J.F. Morrissey.
2007. Variation in the morphology of the electric organ in the
little skate, Leucoraja erinacea, and its possible role in courtship. Environmental
Biology of Fishes 80 (2-3): 267-275.
Rodgers, L.S. (SBC
'03), S. Lalani, R.B. Runyan, and T.D. Camenisch. 2007. Differential
growth and multicellular villi direct proepicardial translocation
to the developing mouse heart. Developmental
Dynamics 237 (1): 145-152.
Robeva, R.S., J. R. Kirkwood, R.L. Davies,
L. Farhy, B.P. Kovatchev, M. Straume and M.L. Johnson. 2007.
An Invitation to Biomathematics. Academic
Press. ISBN 978-0120887712.
Schmitz, J.M.
(SBC '03), V.J. McCracken, R.A. Dimmitt and R.G. Lorenz. 2007.
Expression of CXCL15 (Lungkine) in murine gastrointestinal, urogenital,
and endocrine organs. Journal
of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry 55 (5): 515-524.
Slayback, D.A., L.P. Brower, M.I. Ramirez, and L.S.
Fink. 2007.
Establishing the presence and absence of overwintering colonies
of the monarch butterfly in Mexico by the use of small aircraft. American
Entomologist 53 (1): 28-40.
Slayback,
D.A. and L.P. Brower. 2007. Further aerial surveys confirm the
extreme localization of overwintering monarch butterfly colonies
in Mexico. American
Entomologist 53 (3): 146-149.
Steven, J.C.,
L.F. Delph, and E.D. Brodie III. 2007. Sexual dimorphism in the
quantitative-genetic architecture of floral, leaf, and allocation
traits in Silene latifolia. Evolution
61 (1): 42-57.
The biology alumnae
page reports on graduates' new jobs,
graduate programs, and careers. New information was added
in September 2008.
About the Biology
Department
We share a commitment to our students and the college, a
fascination with the natural world, and enthusiasm for teaching
and research.
- We provide
a comprehensive biology curriculum for students interested
in research, education, conservation and the health professions.
A strong program is never static, and we have recently added courses
in Marine Biology, Biomathematics, Insect Biology and Conservation
Biology. In addition to a Biology major, we offer a Biochemistry
and Molecular Biology major jointly with the Department
of Chemistry.
- Field
biology is an important component of our curriculum.
We take advantage of our 3200 acre campus in Field Natural History,
Plant Kingdom, Ecology, and Insect Biology.
- Faculty research
is supported through an institutional faculty grants program.
In addition, we have been successful in obtaining grants from
the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health,
the Jeffress Memorial Trust, LI-COR, the Virginia Academy of Sciences,
and the Virginia Commonwealth Health Research Board.
- Our state-of-the-art
equipment has been obtained through NSF-ILI, CCLI and
research grants, Jeffress Research Grants, and an endowment from
the Kresge Foundation.
- We
encourage and support student research.
Biology majors gain research experience in lab courses before
completing a semester or more of independent research. Research
is required for the B.S. degree and is optional for the B.A.
degree.
Research students participate in a colloquium and present
their research at a departmental symposium. We continually
increase our expectations for student research, and our students
continually rise to the challenge.
- We
enjoy collaboration with one another, as well as with
faculty in other departments.
Members of the Biology Department have conducted joint research
projects with members of the Chemistry Department and with an
Environmental Science colleague at a nearby institution; have
written a biomathematics textbook with members of the Mathematics
Department and colleagues at the University of Virginia School
of Medicine; and have taught interdisciplinary courses with colleagues
in Studio Art, Creative Writing, Math and Chemistry.
http://www.biology.sbc.edu
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