Author: Talia Ogliore

To figure out how to best support two endangered species — black-and-white ruffed lemurs and diademed sifakas — scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are joining up with researchers at the Saint Louis Zoo, Missouri Botanical Garden and Madagascar-based collaborators for an innovative research effort under the Living Earth Collaborative.

Tidestrom’s lupine is a delicate flowering plant that is part of a dune ecosystem along the west coast of the United States. Biologist Eleanor Pardini in Arts & Sciences has tracked Tidestrom’s lupine at the Point Reyes National Seashore in central California for more than 14 years.

More species are blooming at the same time than in the past. Matthew Austin, biodiversity postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative, is studying how changes in flower timing affect ecological and evolutionary dynamics of pollination systems.

Steven Frankel, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation for his project “Universal Circles Between Dynamics and Geometry.”

As professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, Barbara Kunkel has made significant contributions to understanding the strategies plant pathogens use to manipulate their plant hosts. In addition to her research, Kunkel is an exceptional educator, beloved by her students.

An Arts & Sciences research team will help build a rover-mounted drill sensor to quantify the 3D distribution of water at the moon’s south pole. The team includes local St. Louis company Impossible Sensing.

Katherine Freese, an influential scientist who is at the forefront of efforts to understand the universe as a whole, will present the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture. Her online lecture begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 25.

Sachiko Amari, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, received the H. C. Urey Award from the European Association of Geochemistry for outstanding contributions advancing geochemistry.

Scientists have long used information from sediments at the bottom of the ocean to reconstruct conditions in oceans of the past. But a new study from David Fike, professor of Earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, raises concerns about a common use of pyrite for this purpose.

Anthropologist T.R. Kidder in Arts & Sciences published new research that shows that aridification in the central plains of China during the early Bronze Age did not cause population collapse. The results highlight the importance of social resilience to climate change.