School of Biology and Ecology

Murray Hall has some new residents! Please welcome our new bee colony by helping us name the queen. The queen can be identified because she is considerably larger than any of her subjects and she has a white dot painted on her. However, she is rather shy and may hide between the panels of the […]

Interviews for the Terrestrial Paleoecology faculty position will be taking place in the next few weeks. The position is a joint appointment between the School of Biology and Ecology and the Climate Change Institute. The first interview will be on October 10th, with a teaching seminar at 10:00AM in Murray room 304, and a research […]

New Ecology Journal Club to meet biweekly at the Bear Brew Pub for relaxed scientific banter and good humor. The club is interested in discussing science, understanding how to effectively critique articles, and how to take the best lessons away from articles. The club offers a place for PhD students to run ideas by other […]

Insect Ecologist Frank Drummond has received $3.3 million as part of a larger $6.6 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to further his study of native bees in fruit and berry pollination. Native bees are critical for pollination in the Northeast and have been declining due to parasites, pesticides and lack of wildflower habitat. […]

University of Maine recently donated more than 107,000 insects to the Maine State Museum in Augusta. The large and rare collection was being stored in an attic for about 10 years due to lack of money for proper storage and curation. Without proper curation the collection would soon become damaged and become useless for research. […]

SBE Doctoral candidate, Adrienne Leppold, has just been awarded a prestigious Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation Fellowship!  The Switzer Foundation, a national program, “drives positive environmental change by recognizing and fostering a diverse network of environmental leaders, and mobilizing them through the Switzer Fellowship Network”.  Leppold works with Dr. Rebecca Holberton’s team conducting research on […]

High achieving undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Biology and Ecology were honored with a reception and awards ceremony on April 25th. Family and friends of the awardees gathered with faculty members to celebrate a variety of accomplishments. 2011-2012 SBE Undergraduate Award Winners SBE Academic Acheivement Award Margaret Varney SBE Academic Senior Awards […]

Mary (Henderson) Major, 84, died April 22, 2012, of complications after a stroke at her home in North Yarmouth. She was born Aug. 25, 1927, at the family home in Brooks, Ga., to Hugh Henderson and Lillian Jewel (Tarpley) Henderson. She graduated from Fayetteville High School after three years, serving as the class salutatorian. She […]

Michael Kinnison has received the College of Natural Sciences Forestry and Agriculture Outstanding Research Award. He has developed an extraordinarily successful research program in two general areas: the causes and consequences of rapid evolution, and the conservation of freshwater fishes. He is internationally recognized for his contributions to the discipline of evolutionary biology through his […]

Ecology and Environmental Science graduate student Tawny Virgilio was the Second Prize winner in the Gerald N. Lanier Graduate Student Forum Oral Presentation Competition. Her presentation was titled, “Maximizing the Efficiency of Monitoring for the Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) in Maine by Understanding the Behavior of Cerceris fumipennis and its Application in Biosurveillance.” She […]

The University of Maine will host on Thursday, April 12 the annual meeting of the Northeast Regional Migration Monitoring Network, a group of researchers including SBE professor Rebecca Holberton, who study the Gulf of Maine’s migrating birds, many of whom face threats from climate change, on- and off-shore wind energy projects and habitat loss. Holberton […]

SBE professor Benildo de los Reyes has been selected as a mentor to a Monsanto-Beachell-Borlaug Scholar from India to work in his lab for six months on a research project that will explore allelic variation for grain phospholipase-c in wild rices. The program will provide de los Reyes with funds to support the visiting fellow […]

SBE’s Mike Kinnison, an associate professor of evolutionary applications, was interviewed for a segment of the web series “Down to Earth” in a YouTube video about the new movie, “Salmon Fishing in Yemen.” Kinnison said the idea of salmon fishing in Yemen is far-fetched because Yemen has no year-round flowing rivers. Kinnison also discussed efforts […]

The School of Biology and Ecology would like to extend a warm welcome to our new Assistant Director for Administration, Dr. Ann Dieffenbacher-Krall.  Ann comes to us from the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, where she has directed the Paleoecology Research Laboratory for the past six years.  She brings experience in research […]

University of Maine Cooperative Extension fruit and pest management specialists, including Drummond, have discovered a particularly destructive non-native fruit fly at five locations in Maine. They are now hurriedly working with counterparts across the country to collect and collaborate on the latest research on the tiny, spotted-wing Asian fruit fly in an effort to protect […]

Congratulations to SBE Grad Adrienne Leppold on her recent publication in of her book chapter, “The Boreal Landbird Component of Migrant Bird Communities in Eastern North America”, co-authored with Robert Mulvihill. The chapter, Chapter 6, appears in “Boreal Birds of North American: A Hemispheric View of Their Conservation Links and Significance“, edited by J.V. Wells, […]