Author: Ian Wang

Ian Wang has been named a 2016 Hellman Fellow by the Hellman Family Faculty Fund. The award, established in 1995 to “support substantially the research of promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their research,” includes a grant of $60,000 for this lab’s project on “Genomic Responses to a Century of Climate Change in California.”

Amy, Emani, and Skye officially became the first lab graduates today. Amy received her degree from the College of Letters and Sciences, and Skye and Emani graduated from the College of Natural Resources.  It’s sad to see our undergrads leave, but they’re all moving on to wonderful things!

Guin Wogan has received a $9,000 grant from the American Genetics Association for her work on toads from southeast Asia.  This is an understudied region, and Guin has consistently uncovered new and exciting ways to study important components of this biodiversity hot spot that further our understanding of amphibian biology in general.

Emani Harris and Skye Glenn displayed research posters at the SPUR Undegrad Poster Session on Cal Day. Emani’s project is on the phylogeography of the Pacific treefrog (Pseudacris regilla), and Skye’s project is on landscape genetics in the California newt (Taricha torosa). Both of these are senior projects for which they received grants from the SPUR program.

Amy Tsai won the award for best poster at the Spring Honors Poster Session out of all Molecular and Cell Biology majors with a concentration in Neurobiology!  Amy’s honor’s thesis is on population genetic responses to climate change in the Shasta salamander (Hydromantes shastae), an endangered salamander with a restricted range in Northern California.  The award is the result of a lot of hard work and many late nights in the lab.

Guin Wogan’s paper on natural history collections as windows into evolutionary processes has just been published in Molecular Ecology.

M.W. Holmes, T. T. Hammond, G. O. U. Wogan, R. E. Walsh, K. LaBarbera, E. A. Wommack, J. C. Crawford, F. M. Martins, K. L. Mack, L. M. Bloch, and M.W. Nachman. 2016. Natural history collections as windows on evolutionary processes. Molecular Ecology v. 25: 864–881. DOI: 10.1111/mec.13529

Emani Harris has received grant from UC Berkeley’s Sponsored Projects for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) for her senior project on the Pacific treefrog (Pseudacris regilla)

Guin Wogan’s work on genetic structure and ecological divergence in the Asia common toad (Duttaphrynus melanostictus) is now out in Biology Letters!

G. O. U. Wogan, B. L. Stuart, D. T. Iskandar, and J. A. McGuire. 2016. Deep genetic structure and ecological divergence in a widespread human commensal toad. Biology Letters v. 12 (1) 20150807. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0807

Skye Glenn has received grant from UC Berkeley’s Sponsored Projects for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) for her honors thesis project on California newts (Taricha torosa)!

Ian’s review with co-authors Jonathan Richardson, Steven Brady, and Steven Spear on the promises and pitfalls of landscape genetics has been published in Molecular Ecology.

Richardson J.L., Brady S.P., Wang I.J., Spear S.F. (2016) Navigating the pitfalls and promise of landscape genetics. Molecular Ecology, 25: 849-863.