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Past Lab News

Please check out my "home page" for the most recent lab news. 

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2018

  • Stewart, A.B. and M.R. Dudash. 2018. Foraging strategies of generalist and specialist Old World bats in response to temporally variable floral resources. Biotropica 1: 98-105.

  • Zhou, J., M.R. Dudash, E. A. Zimmer, and C.B. Fenster. 2018. Comparison of population genetic structures of the plant Silene stellata and  its obligate pollinating seed predator moth Hadena ectypa . Annals of Botany. https://doi.org.10.1093/aob.mcy091

  • Zhou, J.,  E. A. Zimmer, C.B. Fenster, and M.R. Dudash. 2018. Characterization of the mating system of a native perennial tetraploid herb, Silene stellata. American Journal of Botany  105 (10): 1643-1652

  • Fenster, C. B.  J.D. Ballou, M.R. Dudash, M.B.D. Eldridge, R. Frankham, R.C. Lacy, K, Ralls, and P. Sunnucks.  2018. Conservation and Genetics. The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 91 (4): 49

  • Ralls, K, J.D. Ballou, M.R. Dudash, M.B.D. Eldrige, , R.C. Lacy. P. Sunnucks, R. Frankham. 2018. Call for a paradigm shift in the genetic management of fragmented populations. Conservation Letters. Open Access http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12412/epdf, 

  • Dr. Jason Berg successfully defended his PhD in Summer 2018.2.

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2017

  • 2017 Genetic Management of Fragmented Animal and Plant Populations. Oxford University Press, England. ISBN: 9780198783398.​

  • Dr. Juannan Zhou successfully defended his PhD in May 2017.2 Juannan is now a postdoc with David McCandlish, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

  • Juannan Zhou's research was highlighted at Society for the Study of Evolution annual meeting in Portland Oregon

  • https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hermaphrodite-wildflower-has-its-own-battle-sexes

  • Recent Published Articles:

  • ​Stewart, A.B.G & M.R. Dudash. 2017. Flower-visiting bat species contribute unequally towards agricultural pollination ecosystem services in southern Thailand. Biotropica 49:239–248.

  • Stewart, A.B.G and M.R. Dudash. 2017. Field evidence of strong differential pollen placement by Old World bat-pollinated plants. Annals of Botany, 119:73-79.

Fall 2016

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-Publications continue to flow from my graduate students' research under my active mentorship and collaboration!

Stewart, A.B. & M.R. Dudash. 2016. Field evidence of strong differential pollen placement by Old World bat-pollinated plants. Annals of Botany (In press).

-Stewart, A.B. & M.R. Dudash. 2016. Flower-visiting bat species contribute unequally towards agricultural pollination ecosystem services in southern Thailand. Biotropica (In press).

-Zhou, J., M.R. Dudash, C.B. Fenster and E.A. Zimmer. 2016. Development of Highly Variable Microsatellite Markers for the Tetraploid Silene stellata L. (Caryophyllaceae). Applications in Plant Sciences (In press).

Stewart, A.B. & M.R. Dudash. 2016. Differential pollen placement on an Old World nectar bat increases pollination efficiency. Annals of Botany 117:145-152.

-Rushing, C.S., P.P. Marra, M.R. Dudash. 2016. Winter habitat quality but not long-distance dispersal influence apparent reproductive success in a migratory bird. Ecology 97: 1218-1227.

-Zhou, J., M.R. Dudash, C.B. Fenster. 2016. Cannibalism during early larval development of Hadena ectypa Morrison (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae).  Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 118: 450-455.

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Spring 2016

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-Dr. Alyssa Stewart successfully defended her PhD research! Alyssa is now off to Thailand to start an academic post at Mahidol University in Bangkok!

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Papers from my lab group include:

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Barry, K.J. and M.R. Dudash. 2015. The importance of analyzing neighbor competitive response in the target-neighbor experimental design. Ecology and Evolution 5: 5265 - 5271.

Rushing, C.S., M. R. Dudash C. E. Studds, and P. P. Marra. 2015. Annual variation in long-distance dispersal driven by breeding and non-breeding season climatic conditions in a migratory bird. Ecography. DOI: 10.1111/ecog.01196.

-Fenster, C. B., R. J. Reynolds, C. W. Williams, R. Makowsky, and M. R. Dudash. 2015. Quantifying hummingbird preference for floral trait combinations: the role of selection on trait interactions in the evolution of pollination syndromes. Evolution DOI:10.1111/evo.12639. 

-Rushing, C.S., M. R. Dudash, and P. P. Marra. 2015. Habitat features and long-distance dispersal modify the use of social information by a long-distance migratory bird. Journal of Animal Ecology DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12395.

-Barry, K.J.G and M. R. Dudash*. 2015. The Importance of Analyzing Neighbor Competitive Response in the Target-Neighbor Experimental Design. Ecology and EvolutionDOI: 10.1002/ece3.1689.

-Stewart, A. R.G and M. R. Dudash. 2015. Differential pollen placement on an Old World nectar bat increases pollination efficiency. Annals of Botany DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcv163.

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Spring 2015

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-PhD Candidate Alyssa Stewart was awarded a UMD BISI "Graduate Student Merit Award" Go Alyssa!

-PhD Candidate Alyssa Stewart was awarded a UMD Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship for fall 2015!

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-Alumnus Dr. Clark Rushing had a paper accepted to Journal of Animal Ecology! This paper is from Clark's dissertation and is co-authored with myself and Pete Marra titled "Habitat features and long-distance dispersal modify the use of social information by a long-distance migratory bird".

 

-We had a paper accepted for publication in Evolution! "Quantifying hummingbird preference for floral trait combinations: the role of selection on trait interactions in the evolution of pollination syndromes." This was a NSF funded body of research and a collaboration among myself, Charlie Fenster, our former PhD student Richard Reynolds, a former Mountain Lake NSF REU student Chris Williams and collabortor Robert Makowsky.

 

-PhD Candidate Juannan Zhou's Doctoral Dissertation Improvement proposal was recommended for funding by NSF! "Examining sexually conflicting selection mediated by pollinating seed predator Hadena ectypa on floral design of hermaphroditic plant Silene stellata."

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Fall 2014

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-Alumnus Dr. Clark Rushing just had a paper accepted to Ecography! This paper is from Clark's dissertation and is co-authored with myself, Pete Marra and Colin Studs titled "Annual variation in long-distance dispersal driven by breeding and non-breeding season climatic conditions in a migratory bird". 

-Alumnus Dr. Scott Ruhren was awarded the “Professional Conservationist of the Year” award for southern Rhode Island, in part for his leadership in restoration and habitat preservation within New England. 

PhD candidate, Alyssa Stewart was an author on a recently published paper in Tropical Conservation Science: "Seed Rain in Abandoned Clearings in a Lowland Evergreen Rain Forest in Southern Thailand" in Vol.7 (3): 572-585 with authors Tuanjit Sritongchuay, George A. Gale, Thanate Kerdkaew and Sara Bumrungsri

-PhD candidate, Alyssa Stewart, gave an award winning presentation at the North American Society of Bat Research titled "Resource Partitioning & Pollinator Importance among Old World Fruit Bats" in Albany, NY. Alyssa was awarded the Bat Conservation International Award - Sponsored by Bat Conservation International for a platform paper on any aspect of the biology of bats." GO ALYSSA!

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Summer 2014

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-Our morning event was a post-tenure workshop with ~ 45 participants. 
Here is Joan Herbers' Post-Tenure presentation and the Post-Tenure Take Home messages. 

-Our lunchtime networking event was attended by ~ 300 participants. 
Here is Joan Herbers' Lunchtime presentation and the Lunchtime Take Home messages. 

-Resources to learn more About Women in Science can be found here.

-Thanks to all of our participants and our sponsoring societies (American Society of Naturalists, Society of Systematic Biologists and the Society for the Study of Evolution) and the organizers of Evol2014!

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- PhD candidate, Alyssa Stewart, gave a well received presentation at Evol2014! "Old World fruit bats (Pteripodidae) vary in pollinator importance and selection exserted on night-blooming plant species"


- Michele is again co-organizing with Jenny Boughman (Michigan State) the Tri-Society Women in Science event at Evolution 2014 in Raleigh, NC. Our guest speaker on the topic of Implicit Bias for both the post-tenure workshop and pre-tenure networking event is Joan Herbers (Ohio State). We hope to see you there! 

- PhD candidate Alyssa Stewart received a Devra Kleiman Scholarship to attend the Association of Tropical Biology Meetings this summer in Australia! ($1630)

- New paper accepted to the journal of Ecology and Evolution!
Kula, A.A.R., D.M. Castillo, M.R. Dudash and C.B. Fenster.2014. Interactions between a pollinating seed predator and its host plant: the role of environmental context within a population. Ecology and Evolution, In Press. doi: 10.1002/ece3.1134.

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Spring 2014

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- PhD candidate, Jason Berg, was awarded a Botanical Society of America Graduate Student Research Award. "A molecular assessment of the potentially invasive plant species, Mimulus guttatus DC: Estimating genetic divergence, migration rates, and selfing rates for naturalized and invasive populations in North America and Europe. "


- The newly minted, Dr. Clark Rushing, successfully defended his PhD and was awarded a James Smithson Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution! 

- PhD student Callie Stanley was awarded a 2-year Canadian NSERC fellowship for her doctoral research! 

- Jason Berg passed his preliminary exam and is now a PhD Candidate in the BEES/BISI program!

- New paper is out in International Journal of Plant Sciences 2014 175: 80-91. Castillo, D.M.,A.A.R. Kula , M.R. Dudash and C.B. Fenster. 2014. “Invasive Silene latifolia may benefit from a native pollinating seed predator, Hadena ectypa, in NorthAmerica. 

- New 2014 correspondence on our Biological Conservation 2102 paper on the proper species definitions for use in conservation. Frankham, R., R.C. Lacy,  J.D. Ballou, M.R. Dudash, M.D.B. Eldridge, C.B. Fenster, J.R.  Mendelson III, I. J. Porton, K. Ralls and O. A. Ryder. 2014. Letter to the Editor: Species concepts for conservation-Reply to Russello and Amato. Biological Conservation Online:   http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.12.039

- PhD candidate Alyssa Stewart's 1st chapter of her dissertation was just accepted! 
Stewart, A. R. , R. Makowski and M. R. Dudash. 2014. Differences in foraging times between two feeding guilds within Old World fruit bats (Pteropodidae) in southern Thailand. Journal of Tropical Ecology 30:249-257 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0266467414000042

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Fall 2013

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- Michele is currently at the National Science Foundation as a Program Officer in the Evolutionary Processes Cluster of DEB/BIO. 


- PhD student Callie Stanley attended an Animal Migration course in Lund Sweden with the help of a Travel Grant from the Department of Biology at Maryland! 


- Michele just finished an exciting 4 day book writing session over Labor Day weekend with Dick Frankham (Macquarie U Australia) , Kathy Ralls and Jon Ballou (Smithsonian), and Charlie Fenster (UMD). We are writing two books on the Genetic Management of Fragmented Populations - stay tuned! 

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Summer 2013

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- PhD candidate, Clark Rushing, was awarded the BEST Student Paper Presentation by the Cooper Ornithological Society at the annual meeting of the AOU/COS held in Chicago in August 2013. This award provided a $300 honorarium and an annual membership to the society. Clark's talk was entitled: "Climate drives long-distance dispersal in a migratory bird."
- Mitch Cruzan (Portland State), Charlie Fenster (chair of the committee and also from UMD) and I co-organized a very successful Evol2013 meeting at Snowbird, Utah with over 1400 attendees!
- At Evol2013 Jenny Boughman (Michigan State) and I organized a very successful Women in Science event that attracted over 200 attendees!

 

-Here is the Official Evol2013 Women in Science Summary with the suggestions complied from our attendees.
This is a review of our event with some of the Take Home Messages: 

http://thescienceofmotherhood.com/Home/Home/Entries/2013/6/26_Women_in_Science_Luncheon.html

-This is a review of our session titled, Choosing Tasks Wisely from Carolyn Beans, a PhD candidate at UVA: http://www.underthemicroscope.com/choosing-tasks-wisely-tips-from-the-2nd-annual-women-in-science-panel-at-evolution-2013/ 

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Spring 2013

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- We (Michele Dudash, Charlie Fenster and Abby Kula) just had another paper accepted to International Journal of Plant Sciences on our Silene- Hadena system with former undergraduate REU student and lead author, Dean Castillo, now a PhD candidate at Indiana University! “Invasive Silene latifolia may benefit from a native pollinating seed predator, Hadena ectypa, in North America"


- I had an amazing research trip to southern Thailand to oversee my PhD student, Alyssa Stewart, dissertation research. During this research trip I also presented a seminar at the Faculty of Science, Prince of Songla University, Hat Yai, Thailand.


- We just received an ADVANCE grant from UMD to support the development of molecular markers for our Silene system to enable us to estimate male paternity! The development of these molecular markers will also allow us to assess the plant population genetic structure and selection through male reproductive success in a number of native Silene species that we have been studying primarily through female reproductive success for the last two decades. My collaborators for this initiative are Jian-Jian Ren (UMD), Liz Zimmer, (Smithsonian) and my long term collaborator on this great system, Charlie Fenster (UMD).


- Dr. Kevin Barry has officially graduated with his PhD from the Department of Biology, University of Maryland!

 
- PhD candidate, Clark Rushing, was awarded an Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship for Fall 2013 to finish writing up his dissertation! 


- PhD candidate, Juannan Zhou was awarded a $1000 Walton Fellowship Award from Mtn Lake Biological Station, U of VA for his dissertation research! 


- PhD candidate, Alyssa Stewart is now in Thailand conducting her dissertation research!


- PhD student, Jason Berg was awarded a $1550 grant from the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC for his dissertation research! 


- PhD candidate, Clark Rushing presented a talk on his dissertation at a Symposium on "Causes and Consequences of Organismal Dispersal" in Lund, Sweden: http://canmove.lu.se/CCODispersal


- We have a new paper accepted with former NSF REU Dean Castillo (PhD candidate Indiana University) to Ecological Entomology on our Silene-Hadena system: Specialist pollinating seed predator exhibits oviposition strategy consistent with optimal oviposition theory. DOI: 10.1111/een.12003


- We have a new paper accepted with our former PhD student Abby Kula to American Journal of Botany: Choices and consequences of oviposition by a pollinating seed predator, Hadena ectypa (Noctuidae), on its specialized host plant, Silene stellata (Caryophyllaceae)

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Fall 2012

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- Alyssa Stewart passed her preliminary exam and is now a PhD Candidate in the BEES/BISI program! 


- Juannan Zhou passed his preliminary exam and is now a PhD candidate in the BEES/BISI program!


- PhD candidate Kevin Barry has started a tenure track position at West Virginia State University!

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Spring 2012

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- PhD student, Alyssa Stewart was awarded a Rosemary Grant Research Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution 


- PhD student, Alyssa Stewart was awarded a 3 year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! 


- PhD candidate, Clark Rushing was awarded a Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship!


- PhD candidate, Clark Rushing received a $3000 grant from the Washington Field Biologist's Club


- PhD student Juannan Zhou received a grant from Mtn Lake Biological Station for this summer to support his dissertation research ($2000)


- PhD candidate, Abby Kula successfully defended dissertation reasearch and will graduate in May 2012

 
- PhD candidate, Kevin Barry sucessfully defended his dissertation research.


- PhD student, Alyssa Stewart received a $3600 grant from the Explorer's Club of Washington and will also be presenting her research on Old World nectar and fruit bats: A comparison of obligate and facultative pollinators to examine fitness implications for both plants and pollinators at the mid-Atlantic Ecological Society of America meeting in Blacksburg, VA in April 2012 


- New paper published in Oecologia (2012) details the relationship a between a specialized pollinating seed predator, Hadena ectypa on its host plant, Silene stellata,reproductive success across populations and years given the variable presence of equally effective nocturnal moth pollinators, providing new insights on the context-dependency of whether this interaction is a parasitism or a mutualism.


- New paper published in Annals of Botany (2012) demonstrates the complex interaction between inbreeding depression and plasticity in population establishment in native and novel habitats. This work demonstrates a decrease in inbreeding depression as predicted and a role for opportunistic plasticity contributing to population persistence in some novel habitats. We utilze this new term, opportunistic plasticity, first introduced by Dudash et al. (2005) because populations outside of their native range are not initially adapted to these new habitats, thus adaptive phenotypic plasticity is not an ideal term.

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Fall 2011

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Michele Dudash and Nat Holland ( U. of Houston) were awarded a NSF sponsored National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) Catalysis meeting grant on "Transitions between Mutualism and Parasitism: Integrating Theory and Empiricism"

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Spring 2011

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- PhD candidate Abby Kula received a Wylie Dissertation Fellowship for Fall 2011 to finish writing up her dissertation 


- PhD candidate Clark Rushing received grants from Cosmos Club ($1000) & the Baltimore Bird Club’s, Dorothy Blake Martin Fund ($3000) to support his dissertation research


- PhD student Juannan Zhou received a grant from Mtn Lake Biological Station for this summer to support his dissertation research ($1500)


- PhD student Alyssa Stewart is off to Thailand this summer to begin her dissertation research


- Alumnus Richard Reynolds, received a NIH Career Grant to study Novel genetic and environmental risk factors of rheumatoid arthritis in African Americans

ABOUT ME

WELCOME! I am a Professor and Head of the Department of Natural Resource Management at South Dakota State University.

I am also Professor Emeritus at University of Maryland College Park in the Department of Biology. 

This is an Unofficial Website, which does not represent official views or opinions of any University that I have been affiliated with during my academic career.

Link to Google Scholar Profile

I am a population biologist by training, thus my lab focuses on both the ecological and genetic factors responsible for a population’s persistence or demise. In this context the major theme in my lab is on the ecology and evolution of reproductive systems in nature. Topics we investigate include plant mating system evolution, plant-pollinator interactions including both pollinators and herbivores, demography of populations, and the role inbreeding and phenotypic plasticity play in the evolution of plant populations.  Research conducted in my lab also directly relates to the need for baseline data that may be utilized to help form successful conservation and restoration management plans for threatened taxa. 

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