Achievements

Rachael Wade

Biological Sciences

Dr. Rachael Wade received a 2024 Norma J. Lang Fellowship award from the Phycological Society of America. The award supports genome sequencing of the red alga, C. berteroi. While algal species tend to assume restricted ranges, C. berteroi is widespread and can be found across nearshore environments in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Dr. Wade’s work will explore this cosmopolitanism, and data from the study will later be used to reconstruct the species’ ancestral range, and identify adaptive traits that have facilitated its distribution. Understanding drivers of cosmopolitanism can increase understanding of algal adaptation in the face of climate change.

Rachael Wade

Biological Sciences

Dr. Rachael Wade received a 2024 Norma J. Lang Fellowship award from the Phycological Society of America. The award supports genome sequencing of the red alga, C. berteroi. While algal species tend to assume restricted ranges, C. berteroi is widespread, and can be found across nearshore environments in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Dr. Wade’s work will explore this cosmopolitanism, and data from the study will later be used to reconstruct the species’ ancestral range, and identify adaptive traits that have facilitated its’ distribution. Understanding drivers of cosmopolitanism can increase understanding of algal adaptation in the face of climate change.

Oscar M. Vargas-Hernandez

Biological Sciences

Dr. Oscar Vargas and collaborators have published a new scientific article "Towards a Monophyletic Infrageneric Circumscription of Adesmia DC. (Dalbergieae, Leguminosae): a Taxonomic Revision in Adesmia series Adesmia" in the journal Phytotaxa. https://phytotaxa.mapress.com/pt/article/view/phytotaxa.639.1.1

Oscar M. Vargas-Hernandez

Biological Sciences

NSF has awarded a grant to Dr. Oscar Vargas to study the origin and genetics of rare plants in California. The grant includes funds for supporting a diverse students from participate in the project, and it aims to study four rare plants in the state. https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2334849

Pedro Peloso, Gisele Santana, Davi Pantoja, Geovania da Silva, Maiume da Silva, Gleomar Maschio (only Peloso is CSU faculty).

Biological Sciences

Professor Pedro Peloso was a co-author in the paper "Endemic amphibians of the Cerrado and Caatinga: species richness, geographic range and conservation" published in the Herpetological Journal. Their work highlights the distribution and conservation status of all species of amphibians that exist in two major ecoregions in Brazil (Cerrado and Caatinga). Based on geographic distribution data, they recorded 100 species that do not exist anywhere else in the world: 82 from the Cerrado and 18 from the Caatinga. They also discuss the role of formally protected areas in safeguarding threatened species in these ecoregions.

Rachael M. Wade

Biological Sciences

Rachael M. Wade, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences was awarded a grant for studying ecologically driven morphological plasticity in coralline algae. Her research focuses on the diversity of marine macroalgae and the evolutionary processes that determine and support their current distributions. Macroalgae are often poor dispersers, so understanding how they've diversified and have come to be globally distributed, in some cases. Her work often relies on the incorporation of historical specimens, with genetic resources derived from 19th-century collections, to better understand their diversity and taxonomy.

Silvia E Pavan and students

Biological Sciences

Silvia E Pavan, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences was awarded a grant for presenting research, with students, at the 2024 Meeting of the American Society of Mammologists. Sylvia is broadly interested in biodiversity, and she works with fieldwork exploration and collections-based research to discover and describe species and to understand species diversity and evolution. Her research has been focused on different groups of mammals, especially marsupials and rodents. 

Pedro Peloso, Brandice Guerra

Biological Sciences

Professors Pedro Peloso (Biological Sciences) and Brandice Guerra received a grant from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation (www.maxwell-hanrahan.org) to support an illustration internship at Cal Poly Humboldt. An international student will visit our community this spring to work in a project that aims to raise awareness about amphibian extinctions globally. You can read more about the internship here: https://now.humboldt.edu/news/new-scientific-illustration-internship-gi…

Alana Chin

Biological Sciences

Dr. Alana Chin received a grant to support research looking into factors impacting redwood tree fog-uptake. Redwood trees absorb water from fog, making it a key provider of water in the summer months. However, as the climate changes, so have fog characteristics, increasing the need to understand how redwoods are acclimating to changes in fog. The project will assess and monitor fog absorption capacity in redwoods, and is a critical next step in our ability to predict the impacts of climate change on redwoods and select nursery stock for restoration.

Funding comes from the Save the Redwoods League.

Silvia Pavan, Pedro Peloso

Biological Sciences

We just published a paper on diversity of non-volant small mammals (marsupials and rodents) from Parque Nacional del Río Abiseo (PNRA), a poorly known site located in the eastern Andean slopes in Peru. We report the highest ever recorded diversity for high Andes, and through DNA barcoding we reveal several putative new species of small mammals that are uniquely known form PNRA. The paper is a result of an expedition in 2018, funded by National Geographic, and had the collaboration of a diverse team of researchers including myself as first author and Cal Poly colleague Pedro Peloso as senior author.