Chester’s Way — a children’s book
An animal lover named Suzie befriended a squirrel named Chester. Sometimes, she would leave nuts from the balcony for him. Chester became so comfortable with this arrangement that he would…
Projects
Determining the drivers of collective behavior in Veromessor harvester ants at the UC Sedgwick natural reserve
Awardee: Sean O'Fallon, Ph.D. student in the Pinter-Wollman lab at UCLA. Sean's research focuses on the collective behavior of ant colonies, focusing on the factors that determine behavioral variation within populations and the relationship between ant nest architecture and collective behavior.
Effects of artificial lighting at night on bats in Los Angeles County
Awardee: Lily Rivas, undergraduate student at UCLA under the IoES program pursuing an Environmental Science B.S. and a minor in Conservation Biology.
Effects of interspecific competition on Stephens’ kangaroo rat habitat selection
Awardee: Janine Fischer, Ph.D. candidate co-advised by Dr. Grether and Dr. Shier at UCLA, who is interested in how aggressive interference between species influences their coexistence and habitat use.
Hydraulic function and carbon metabolism of three southern California oak species
Awardee: Anna Ongjoco, Ph.D student co-advised by Dr. Elsa Ordway at UCLA and Dr. Leander Anderegg at UCSB.
Hyperspectral Imaging for California Plant Ecology
Awardee: Nikita Burger, undergraduate student pursuing a B.S. in Computational and Systems Biology at UCLA.
Integrating Environmental DNA and Epigenetics as a Novel Approach for Age Classification of Zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a Model Organism.
Awardee: Madeleine Pacheco, first year PhD student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department under the supervision of Dr. Paul Barber at UCLA.
Investigating blue carbon alternatives as possible offsets at the Aquarium of the Pacific
As one of the largest aquariums in the United States, the Aquarium of the Pacific wants to raise industry sustainability standards by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Since decarbonization…
Is Prey Availability a Factor in the Decline of a Bat Species in Southern California that is Synanthropic in the Rest of its Range?
Awardee: Jill Carpenter, Ph.D. candidate interested in the roosting and foraging ecology of bats, especially with regard to how various species navigate and utilize the human-altered landscapes of Southern California as well as what traits allow some species to persist while others decline.
Assessing invasive plant species eradication efforts on Santa Cruz Island
In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, our team will be researching the efficacy of eradication efforts for highly invasive plant species on Santa Cruz Island. Situated off the coast of…
Assessing the determinants of collective behavior of seed dispersing ants at the UC Sedgwick natural reserve
Awardee: Sean O'Fallon, Ph.D. student in the Pinter-Wollman lab. His research focuses on the collective behavior of ant colonies.
Characterizing the Evolutionary History of Southern California UC Reserves with an Integrated Computational Approach
Awardee: Maya Chari, senior Computational Biology student, interested in mathematical and computational applications to Ecology. Maya has worked both field and computational jobs and enjoys collecting data and processing it.