Department of Biology Highlight:

• The Department would like to extend its congratulations and appreciation to the following students and faculty who were honored for their achievements at the School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics Honors Banquet on April 22, 2008.

Outstanding Biology Senior Award: Rebecca Pike
CPUB Outstanding Student: Rebecca Pike
Outstanding Medical Technology Junior: Brittany Little
Beta Beta Beta Senior Service Award: Rebecca Pike
Rhoda Evans Taylor Endowed Scholarship: Teresa Guth
Thomas W. Gaither Scholarship: Cassandra Keller
Biology Honors Scholarship: Grace Baschnagel
William R. Sigmund PJAS Award: Susan VanGavree
Genevieve M. Tvrdik Scholarship: Phillip Williamson
John P. Phillips Memorial Scholarship: Phillip Williamson
Beta Beta Beta Alumni Scholarship: Timothy Hahn
A. P. Vincent Scholarship: Susan VanGavree
Frank A. Pugliese "Rock" Scholarship: Jessica Rack
Sophomore Biology Honors Scholarship: Cory Smith
Sophomore Biology Honors Scholarship: Carley Parsons

Also holding biology scholarships for the 2007-2008 academic year were Dana Charlton (James Steel Scholarship), Sarah Robich (Frank A. Pugliese Rock Scholarship), Rebecca Pike (John N. Anderson Scholarship), Theresa McClain (Beta Beta Beta Alumni Scholarship), Nadya Mamoozadeh (A P Vincent Scholarship), Rebecca Pike (William Ralston Scholarship), Bridgette Jewell (Thomas W. Gaither Scholarship), Nadya Mamoozadeh (Genevieve M. Tvrdik Scholarship), Melissa Tawney (Thomas John Scholarship), Rebecca Pike (William R. Sigmund PJAS Award), Madeline Spigler (John P. Phillips Memorial Scholarship) 

• Tri Beta, the biology honorary, held its spring initiation and banquet on March 30, 2007. Students promoted to full membership included Kusuma Anand, Nicole Heverly, Christine Leszczynski, Theresa McClain, and Rachel Rable. Associate membership inductees were Alan Arbogast, Jeremy Josephs, Eric Kerstetter, and Lisa Smith. The fall initiation and banquet were held on November 3rd. Students promoted to full membership were Ashley Carbonare, Nadya Mamoozadeh, Sarah Mullendore, Amelia Ruefthaler, and Sarah Robich. Associate membership inductees were Tyler Bintrim, Brittany Black, Michael Brown, Michelle Caughey, Dana Charlton, Alan DiGiandomenico, Sara Elling, Julie Griswold, Molly Hall, Robert Herman, Philip Karavlan, Matthew Laubham, Amanda McKenna, Justine Morrison, Kelly Paroda, Carley Parsons, Kaoni Rhodes, Cory Smith, Melissa Spangler, Susan VanGavree, and Nicole Yale. The new officers for 2007-2008 are Rebecca Pike (president), Theresa McClain (vice president), Laura Bate (secretary), Sarah Robich (treasurer), and Molly Hall (historian). Christine Leszczynski and Sarah Robich were also duly elected as Associate members of the Slippery Rock Chapter of Sigma Xi.

Regular Departmental Achievements:

Individual Achievements (Student):

• Alexa Harding, 2006 biology graduate presented a poster entitled "Freeze tolerance in caterpillars of Pyrrharctia isabella and Ecpantheria scribonia" at the 27th Annual Undergraduate Biology Symposium for Western Pennsylvania. Alexa is currently a MS candidate in ecology at the State University of New York - Environmental Sciences and Forestry School in Syracuse, NY.
• Sarah Weinschenk, 2001 biology graduate, received her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from Ohio University, spring 2006.
• Evan Legenzoff, 2003 biology graduate, received his Pharm.D. degree form Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, spring 2006.
• Judd Walker Dawson, 1997 biology graduate received his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, spring 2006.

Individual Achievements (Faculty):

• More than 80 botanists working intensively for five years have completed a three-volume publication describing all 2,413 species of the Sunflower family growing in North America north of Mexico. The three volumes were released this spring. Jerry G. Chmielewski, Department of Biology, Slippery Rock University, coauthored the treatment of Doellingeria with John Semple for Volume 20 of this important publication series. The volumes are part of the Flora of North America series, ultimately composed of 30 volumes. Some 900 botanists, continent-wide, are contributing their knowledge of North American plants to this landmark publication. Continent-scale floras have long been available for Europe, China, and the Former Soviet Union, but not for North America. Flora of North America north of Mexico is published by Oxford University Press and information from it is available online at www.fna.org. The Flora of North America Association, a collaboration of botanists and botanical institutions, has been working since 1984 to fill the need for scientifically reliable information on the 20,000+ species plants of North America, information necessary for effective conservation of biodiversity and for future uses of plants for food, medicine, and horticulture. Twelve volumes have been published to date, out of 30. Flora of North America north of Mexico is an essential reference for biologists, conservationists, resource managers, and pharmaceutical companies and plant breeders. The project aims to produce three volumes per year, with a completion date target of 2011. The Asteraceae is the largest family of plants in North America north of Mexico, with 2,413 species. Of these, 60% are found only in North America north of Mexico, 260 are introduced, and 426-almost 20% of the native species-are rare or endangered. Plants are easily recognized as being in this family by having a "head" of many individual flowers. Botanists from the U.S., Canada, and other countries, worked with editors Ted Barkley, Botanical Research Institute of Texas (who died before the project was completed), Luc Brouillet, Universite de Montreal, and John Strother, University of California, Berkeley, to pull together the information on classification, features, and distributions of the Asteraceae. Doellingeria is one of the genera of North American asters that sometimes has been treated as separate from Aster in a broad sense. There are Asteraceae species growing in virtually every environmental condition, dry deserts to salt marshes, and rainforests to high mountains. Many species have been used for food and medicine for millennia-some familiar ones are artichokes, sunflowers, and lettuce for food and chamomile and coneflowers for medicine. Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are among the few food crops that are native to North America. Their seeds are familiar as snack food, but some 25 million tons of oil are produced from sunflower seeds, as well. This family also contains many of the worst weeds, too, for example dandelions, ragweeds, and thistles. Daisies and dahlias, chrysanthemums and coneflowers, asters and zinnias, are examples of Sunflower Family plants used in ornamental horticulture.
  
• Jack R. Layne Jr. was renewed as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology at Miami University for the 2006-2007 academic year.
• Dean DeNicola was elected to a two-year term as an associate editor of the Journal of the North American Benthological Society.

Published books, articles, monographs, proceedings:

• Chmielewski, J.G. 2006. Chromosome numbers for western and arctic North American species of Antennaria Gaertner (Asteraceaea: Gnaphalieae). SIDA 22: 561-563.
• Dean Denicola had his paper entitled "Periphyton response to nutrient addition in 3 lakes of different benthic productivity" accepted for publication by the Journal of the North American Benthological Society. This is the third publication resulting from his sabbatical at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
• Chmielewski, J.G. and S.R. Strain. 2006. Achene aerodynamics in species of Doellingeria, Eurybia, Oclemena, and Symphyotrichum. Journal of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences 1: www.scientificjournals.org/articles.1001.htm.
• Semple, J.C. and J.G. Chmielewski. 2006. Doellingeria Nees. In Flora of North America, Magnoliophyta: Asteridae: Asteraceae, part 2. Oxford University Press. Vol. 22: 43-46.
• Chmielewski, J.G. 2005. Comparison of achene weight, allocation patterns, germination, and seedling survival of the apomict Antennaria howellii (Asteraceae) from eastern North America. International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences 31: 343-351.
• Chmielewski, J.G. 2005. The effects of achene weight, orientation, and storage on germination in Eclipta prostrata (L.) L. (Asteraceae). Current Topics in Plant Biology 6: 37-40.

Presentations at regional, state, national, international meetings:

• Jack R. Layne and biology major Sarah R. Robich presented the paper "Supercooliong points of Eurosta solidaginis larvae: value distribution profile and effect of subzero temperature treatments" at the 2007 meeting of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Univeristy Biologists. Sarah received a first place award for her presentation at the meeting.

Student/faculty research:

• Layne, J.R. Jr. and B.J. Peffer. 2006. The influence of freeze duration on postfreeze recovery by caterpillars of Pyrrharctia isabella (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae): when is survival enough to qualify as recovery? Journal of Experimental Zoology 305: 370-375.

Service to community and profession:

• Dean DeNicola and Jack Layne participated in the SciTech Spectacular at the Carnegie Science Center. Both faculty gave hands on demonstrations of their research (DeNicola - acid mine drainage and bioremediation; Layne - freeze tolerance in animals). The October SciTech event was attended by several thousand middle school/high school students. This is the thrid year in the past four years that Drs. DeNicola and Layne  have participated in SciTech.
• Jack R. Layne Jr. served as a manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Insect Physiology, Journal of Comparative Physiology, Journal of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, and  Journal of Cryobiology.