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Student Research, Past and Present
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| Many students are involved in research at I.U.P. The Biology Department has a Master's program for graduate students and several programs to encourage undergraduate research (e.g. F.U.B.R., the Fund for Undergraduate Biological Research). The research of several past and present students working in my lab is described here. Further below are some pictures of the Ecology class chasing fish. | ||
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| Aaron Doverspike has finished his lab work on olfactory search images in mice and is now writing his thesis. While there has been a lot of work on visual search images very little attention has been paid to the possibility of search "images" in other sensory modes. |
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| Kevin Madden completed his graduate studies in Spring 1999. He worked on sexual selection in guppies. Specifically, he showed that female mate choice is affected by evidence of parasitism in males. Kevin is now working towards is doctorate at the University of Maryland. He is studying bower birds in Australia with Dr. Borgia. |
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Lauren Dunn received a grant from the Fund for Undergraduate Biological
Research to study territorial behavior in pumpkinseed sunfish. She looked
at the interaction between residence time and body size in determining the
winner of territorial disputes. She graduated in 1998.
On October 3, 1999 Lauren and two companions were killed while changing a flat tire along a freeway in Long Beach, CA. She is greatly missed by everyone who knew her. Her brother wrote a poem in honor of her 23rd birthday. |
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| Branden Weber studied the shoaling behavior of fish. This independent study project developed out of a paper that he wrote for an Ecology class assignment. He found that factors such as hunger and water depth affected the cohesion of minnow shoals. This work was supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Aquarium. |
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| Wendi Harshyne's independent study project developed from a paper she wrote for Animal Behavior. She found that warning sounds (like the buzzing of a bee) can be as effective as warning coloration in discouraging predators from attacking. For this work she received the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award from the IUP Chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. The bobwhite quail she is holding is one of her test subjects. |
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Send comments to:
Robert P. Gendron Biology Department Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705 rgendron@iup.edu copyright © 1997-2003, Robert P. Gendron, Revised - 20 May 2003. |