Book Review: The Iowa Lakeside Laboratory: A Century of Discovering the Nature of Nature. Michael J. Lannoo.

Iowa Lakeside Laboratory (a.k.a. Lakeside Lab) is one of several biological field stations that were established in the early 1900s and that have active educational and research programs today. Michael Lannoo’s account of the history of Lakeside Lab was initiated at the centennial celebration of the lab in 2009. Lannoo’s own connection with Iowa Lakeside Laboratory began as a student at Iowa State University and continues today as a member of the Lakeside Lab summer faculty and as Associate Director of Academics and Research. In his book, Lannoo describes field stations, and Lakeside Lab in particular, as educational institutions that will produce students and knowledge that will be influential in solving the environmental problems that have been caused by humans. This is a bold suggestion, but one that Lannoo convincingly addresses. The book contains 13 chapters and four appendices. Most chapters are 2–6 pages in length, but two are longer 18-page chapters. It is nicely illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs. In the first and last chapters, Lannoo presents his argument and philosophical perspective on the importance of natural history and biological field stations for addressing the decline in biodiversity. The book begins with a contextual description of the nature of biology in the 1900s, with information about naturalists such as Aldo Leopold, Paul Errington, Edward Ricketts, and Adolph and Olaus Murie. Most of these naturalists had roots in or connections to the Midwest; several of the biological field stations that began at that time still persist today, including Lake Itasca (University of Minnesota), Douglas Lake (University of Michigan), and Iowa Lakeside Lab (state universities of Iowa). A brief history of biological field stations sets Lakeside Lab in perspective with similar field stations throughout the world. For this section, Lannoo draws on several articles that have appeared in BioScience, especially those written by Wyman et al. (2009), Hodder (2009) and Janovy and Major (2009), as well as earlier accounts of Lakeside Lab’s history by Zieglowsky (1985) and by Richard Bovbjerg and colleagues in two unpublished reports in 1974 and 1988

Integrating paleoecology and genetics of bird populations in two sky island archipelagos

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Genetic tests of paleoecological hypotheses have been rare, partly because recent genetic divergence is difficult to detect and time. According to fossil plant data, continuous woodland in the southwestern USA and northern Mexico became fragmented during the last 10,000 years, as warming caused cool-adapted species to retreat to high elevations. Most genetic studies of resulting 'sky islands' have either failed to detect recent divergence or have found discordant evidence for ancient divergence. We test this paleoecological hypothesis for the region with intraspecific mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite data from sky-island populations of a sedentary bird, the Mexican jay (<it>Aphelocoma ultramarina</it>). We predicted that populations on different sky islands would share common, ancestral alleles that existed during the last glaciation, but that populations on each sky island, owing to their isolation, would contain unique variants of postglacial origin. We also predicted that divergence times estimated from corrected genetic distance and a coalescence model would post-date the last glacial maximum.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results provide multiple independent lines of support for postglacial divergence, with the predicted pattern of shared and unique mitochondrial DNA haplotypes appearing in two independent sky-island archipelagos, and most estimates of divergence time based on corrected genetic distance post-dating the last glacial maximum. Likewise, an isolation model based on multilocus gene coalescence indicated postglacial divergence of five pairs of sky islands. In contrast to their similar recent histories, the two archipelagos had dissimilar historical patterns in that sky islands in Arizona showed evidence for older divergence, suggesting different responses to the last glaciation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study is one of the first to provide explicit support from genetic data for a postglacial divergence scenario predicted by one of the best paleoecological records in the world. Our results demonstrate that sky islands act as generators of genetic diversity at both recent and historical timescales and underscore the importance of thorough sampling and the use of loci with fast mutation rates to studies that test hypotheses concerning recent genetic divergence.</p

Ecological Genetics for the 21st Century

In the spring of 1991, the University of North Carolina hosted a series of seminars on the topic of ecological genetics. Five distinguished researchers, Montgomery Slatkin, Sara Via, Michael Lynch, Janis Antonovics, and Joseph Travis, were each invited to present two talks: one a general overview of a research area in contemporary ecological genetics, and a second on a specific research topic. The ten chapters of Ecological Genetics are based on those presentations

Book Review: The Iowa Lakeside Laboratory: A Century of Discovering the Nature of Nature. Michael J. Lannoo.

Iowa Lakeside Laboratory (a.k.a. Lakeside Lab) is one of several biological field stations that were established in the early 1900s and that have active educational and research programs today. Michael Lannoo’s account of the history of Lakeside Lab was initiated at the centennial celebration of the lab in 2009. Lannoo’s own connection with Iowa Lakeside Laboratory began as a student at Iowa State University and continues today as a member of the Lakeside Lab summer faculty and as Associate Director of Academics and Research. In his book, Lannoo describes field stations, and Lakeside Lab in particular, as educational institutions that will produce students and knowledge that will be influential in solving the environmental problems that have been caused by humans. This is a bold suggestion, but one that Lannoo convincingly addresses. The book contains 13 chapters and four appendices. Most chapters are 2–6 pages in length, but two are longer 18-page chapters. It is nicely illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs. In the first and last chapters, Lannoo presents his argument and philosophical perspective on the importance of natural history and biological field stations for addressing the decline in biodiversity. The book begins with a contextual description of the nature of biology in the 1900s, with information about naturalists such as Aldo Leopold, Paul Errington, Edward Ricketts, and Adolph and Olaus Murie. Most of these naturalists had roots in or connections to the Midwest; several of the biological field stations that began at that time still persist today, including Lake Itasca (University of Minnesota), Douglas Lake (University of Michigan), and Iowa Lakeside Lab (state universities of Iowa). A brief history of biological field stations sets Lakeside Lab in perspective with similar field stations throughout the world. For this section, Lannoo draws on several articles that have appeared in BioScience, especially those written by Wyman et al. (2009), Hodder (2009) and Janovy and Major (2009), as well as earlier accounts of Lakeside Lab’s history by Zieglowsky (1985) and by Richard Bovbjerg and colleagues in two unpublished reports in 1974 and 1988

Book Review: The Iowa Lakeside Laboratory: A Century of Discovering the Nature of Nature. Michael J. Lannoo.

Iowa Lakeside Laboratory (a.k.a. Lakeside Lab) is one of several biological field stations that were established in the early 1900s and that have active educational and research programs today. Michael Lannoo’s account of the history of Lakeside Lab was initiated at the centennial celebration of the lab in 2009. Lannoo’s own connection with Iowa Lakeside Laboratory began as a student at Iowa State University and continues today as a member of the Lakeside Lab summer faculty and as Associate Director of Academics and Research. In his book, Lannoo describes field stations, and Lakeside Lab in particular, as educational institutions that will produce students and knowledge that will be influential in solving the environmental problems that have been caused by humans. This is a bold suggestion, but one that Lannoo convincingly addresses. The book contains 13 chapters and four appendices. Most chapters are 2–6 pages in length, but two are longer 18-page chapters. It is nicely illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs. In the first and last chapters, Lannoo presents his argument and philosophical perspective on the importance of natural history and biological field stations for addressing the decline in biodiversity. The book begins with a contextual description of the nature of biology in the 1900s, with information about naturalists such as Aldo Leopold, Paul Errington, Edward Ricketts, and Adolph and Olaus Murie. Most of these naturalists had roots in or connections to the Midwest; several of the biological field stations that began at that time still persist today, including Lake Itasca (University of Minnesota), Douglas Lake (University of Michigan), and Iowa Lakeside Lab (state universities of Iowa). A brief history of biological field stations sets Lakeside Lab in perspective with similar field stations throughout the world. For this section, Lannoo draws on several articles that have appeared in BioScience, especially those written by Wyman et al. (2009), Hodder (2009) and Janovy and Major (2009), as well as earlier accounts of Lakeside Lab’s history by Zieglowsky (1985) and by Richard Bovbjerg and colleagues in two unpublished reports in 1974 and 1988

Integrating paleoecology and genetics of bird populations in two sky island archipelagos

Abstract Background Genetic tests of paleoecological hypotheses have been rare, partly because recent genetic divergence is difficult to detect and time. According to fossil plant data, continuous woodland in the southwestern USA and northern Mexico became fragmented during the last 10,000 years, as warming caused cool-adapted species to retreat to high elevations. Most genetic studies of resulting 'sky islands' have either failed to detect recent divergence or have found discordant evidence for ancient divergence. We test this paleoecological hypothesis for the region with intraspecific mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite data from sky-island populations of a sedentary bird, the Mexican jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina). We predicted that populations on different sky islands would share common, ancestral alleles that existed during the last glaciation, but that populations on each sky island, owing to their isolation, would contain unique variants of postglacial origin. We also predicted that divergence times estimated from corrected genetic distance and a coalescence model would post-date the last glacial maximum. Results Our results provide multiple independent lines of support for postglacial divergence, with the predicted pattern of shared and unique mitochondrial DNA haplotypes appearing in two independent sky-island archipelagos, and most estimates of divergence time based on corrected genetic distance post-dating the last glacial maximum. Likewise, an isolation model based on multilocus gene coalescence indicated postglacial divergence of five pairs of sky islands. In contrast to their similar recent histories, the two archipelagos had dissimilar historical patterns in that sky islands in Arizona showed evidence for older divergence, suggesting different responses to the last glaciation. Conclusion This study is one of the first to provide explicit support from genetic data for a postglacial divergence scenario predicted by one of the best paleoecological records in the world. Our results demonstrate that sky islands act as generators of genetic diversity at both recent and historical timescales and underscore the importance of thorough sampling and the use of loci with fast mutation rates to studies that test hypotheses concerning recent genetic divergence.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112692/1/12915_2008_Article_181.pd

Health Care Access and Utilization among Women Who Have Sex with Women: Sexual Behavior and Identity

Past research has shown that women who either have sex with women or who identify as lesbian access less preventive health care than other women. However, previous studies have generally relied on convenience samples and have not examined the multiple associations of sexual identity, behavior and health care access/utilization. Unlike other studies, we used a multi-lingual population-based survey in New York City to examine the use of Pap tests and mammograms, as well as health care coverage and the use of primary care providers, among women who have sex with women and by sexual identity status. We found that women who had sex with women (WSW) were less likely to have had a Pap test in the past 3 years (66 vs. 80%, p<0.0001) or a mammogram in the past 2 years (53 vs. 73%, p=0.0009) than other women. After adjusting for health insurance coverage and other factors, WSW were ten times [adjusted odds ratio (AOR), 9.8, 95% confidence interval (CI), 4.2, 22.9] and four times (AOR, 4.0, 95% CI 1.3, 12.0) more likely than non-WSW to not have received a timely Pap test or mammogram, respectively. Women whose behavior and identity were concordant were more likely to access Pap tests and mammograms than those whose behavior and identity were discordant. For example, WSW who identified as lesbians were more likely to have received timely Pap tests (97 vs. 48%, p<0.0001) and mammograms (86 vs. 42%, p=0.0007) than those who identified as heterosexual. Given the current screening recommendations for Pap tests and mammograms, provider counseling and public health messages should be inclusive of women who have sex with women, including those who have sex with women but identify as heterosexual