Course Schedule 2008-2009

Faculty Research 2008/2009

• Mutagenesis for the identification of genes involved in maize leaf development.
• STR and Alu DNA analysis to study human population genetics.

•        Community ecology

•        Conservation of Species Diversity

•        Evolutionary Ecology of Plant-Animal Interactions

•        Plant Reproductive Ecology

•        Reproductive Biology of Lepidoptera

•        Paleoentomology

Restoration of alpine vegetation damaged by recreational use. With students I am studying the best ways to restore the vegetation on closed social trails on Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks. Colorado Fourteeners Initiative is constructing trails to summits of these peaks, and we are studying how to restore the vegetation on the numerous trails closed after these new trails are built. Details of restoration techniques. 

Recovery of anthropogenically disturbed arctic vegetation: a circumpolar comparison. Two European coauthors and I recently published a paper summarizing similarities and differences in recovery around the globe. I contributed data and perspective from my work on recovery of Alaskan arctic vegetation.

Synchrony of mast year seed production of Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) at four landscape scales. I have 9 years of data examining at what geographic scales mast years (years of very high seed production) are synchronous and what controls patterns of high and low years of seed production.

Long-term recovery of alpine vegetation, Colorado. A forth-coming paper evaluates recovery at sites disturbed 13 and 30 years previously.

• Histology and histological procedures including histochemistry
• Reproductive physiology of trematodes and cestodes (parasitic flatworms)
• Scanning and transmission electron microscopy

•  Embryonic development of the nematode C. elegans

•  Translational regulation of maternally provided mRNAs

•  RNA inhibition (RNAi)

• Plant Systematics and Taxonomy
• Evoloution
• Biology of the Primrose family
• Geology and Ecology
• Biogeography of the arctic/alpine flora
• Conservation of rare plants

 I use the nematode worm C. elegans to study developmental processes such as...

•   sex-determination

•   programmed cell death/apoptosis

•   germline development/gonadogenesis

Brian Linkhart: Avian Ecology

• Habitat relationships
• Population dynamics
• Evolution of life histories
• Conservation

I want to know how bacterial cells sense and respond to the environment.  Unlike cells living in animals, which live in a constant, controlled environment, bacteria change gene expression in response to environmental cues in order to exploit or survive constantly changing environments.  My interest in this topic ranges from the very molecular (how does one particular signal transduction protein, HilA, work) through the physiological (what signaling circuits are activated in particular environments) to the metagenomic (how do genes involved with signaling vary across populations of related bacteria?).
My main research program is to study the transcription factor HilA, a Salmonella protein that turns virulence genes on.  In this case, the particular virulence genes are ones that help Salmonella exploit the environment of the host small intestine.  The virulence genes that HilA turns on provoke a strong anti-Salmonella immune response, so Salmonella are careful to turn these genes on ONLY when they are most needed. Therefore, figuring out how HilA “knows” when to turn genes on is of critical importance.  It is possible that interfering with HilA would even be a good anti-Salmonella treatment.
Recent student projects in my lab have included mutagenesis and screening of hilA alleles and attempts at purifying HilA protein to use it for in vitro studies.  This summer, students will continue these projects and also start a new one investigating the role of HilA during Salmonella infection of a model invertebrate, the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.  Other recent students have worked on a different organism, Vibrio fischeri, studying various aspects of its physiology related to biofilm formation, which appears to be triggered by different environmental signals in different V. fischeri strains.556

• Evolutionary Ecology
• Animal-Plant Interactions
• Population Ecology
• Chemical Ecology

•  Molecular systematics/phylogenetics of Neotropical orchids 

•  Host-pathogen interactions 

•  Genotypic/phenotypic variability among plant-associated bacteria  

•  Biological control of bacterial disease of plants 

•  Nutritional ecology of leaf-associated bacteria