BEACON Researchers at Work: Peering into the Cooperative Brain

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Chelsea Weitekamp.

With my 2 month old son, the inspiration behind my sleep-deprived musings.

With my 2 month old son, the inspiration behind my sleep-deprived musings.

An unlucky vampire bat returning to roost at night with an empty belly can solicit help from a roost-mate to avoid starvation. A young Florida scrub-jay will forgo years of breeding opportunities to help rear their siblings and defend their parents’ territory. A subordinate lance-tailed manakin will perform an outrageous dance to help his dominant partner secure a female and will get nothing immediately obvious in return.

Decades of work have provided us with a solid understanding of how such cooperative behaviors evolved, but this doesn’t necessarily answer the question of what is going on in their in minds, in their brains. It can help, though. For example, in vampire bats, cooperative food sharing through regurgitation is more likely if the hungry bat had previously shared a meal of her own, and if there has been more allogrooming between the two. This implies the involvement of memory and individual recognition.

The arrow shows an ‘active’ dopamine neuron, a method I use in A. burtoni to investigate the role of the reward system in cooperative behavior.

The arrow shows an ‘active’ dopamine neuron, a method I use in A. burtoni to investigate the role of the reward system in cooperative behavior.

I am interested in what underlies decision-making in these examples of cooperative behavior. Going back to the bats, we can visit the extremes of anthropomorphism, and think, “how sweet, that vampire bat is compassionate, helping out her dearest friend,” or we can call on Descartes, and regard these behaviors as a means by which the machine-bat continues to survive, a reflex, perhaps, but certainly nothing conscious. Fortunately, modern techniques can help to shed some light on the issue. We can start by asking which brain regions are active during the cooperative behavior. So, if regions known to be involved in emotional processing are activated, do we have evidence of “higher cognitive processing”? It’s a step. What if we determine the reward system to be a crucial component in determining whether or not the female bat shares her meal? What if oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone” is released when she shares? Or not? Where does this get us? Closer.

The types of cooperative behavior in which I am interested involve evidence of a cognitive component. While cooperation can often be achieved through simple rules, there are many cases in which behaving cooperatively requires learning, memory, and individual recognition, as in the bats. An interesting question arises – is cooperation really a special phenomenon? Cooperation exists, of course, but it can be defined within very narrow or very wide terms, depending who you ask. So, does a circuit of sorts exist in the brain, common across different types of cooperative behavior and common across species? Is it realistic to expect a similar neural basis for behaviors that are so difficult just to define?

To address these questions, I study fish. Since diving into the world of fishes, I have been amazed by the behavioral complexity of which fish are capable. And they happen to be particularly great models for studying cooperation. For example, groupers sometimes hunt collaboratively with moray eels, using referential gestures to oust hidden prey. Pretty impressive for species considered by some to not even be wildlife.

Cleaning wrasse and their clients, though, may take the cake for impressive behaviors. Cleaner wrasse set up shop along the coral reef and ‘clients’ pay them visits to have ectoparasites and dead tissue removed. Cleaners actually prefer client mucus which is costly to cleaners, and hence, by suppressing their preference, cooperation arises out of conflict. Cleaners still try to get away with stealing mucus when they can. Redouan Bshary and others have showed that cleaners will cooperate more when being observed by by-stander clients. They also tend to be more cooperative with predatory clients, a good choice. We recently started a collaboration with Dr. Bshary to try to get at the neural basis of some of these nuanced behaviors.

A. burtoni males engaging in a border dispute.

A. burtoni males engaging in a border dispute.

Cichlids offer some competition, as far as impressive behaviors go. Of course there isn’t enough room here to discuss all the ways in which cichlids are smarter than some humans, but I’ll start. The Hofmann lab studies an African cichlid, Astatotilapia burtoni. Males of this species are highly perceptive of their social environment, and also respond differently depending who is watching. Neighboring territorial males will also cooperate by forming defense coalitions against invading wanna-be males trying to steal their space. I use these paradigms to try to get at what is going on in the brain when the males are processing these different stimuli and making decisions. I look at what brain regions are involved, and at what gene pathways within those brain regions may be regulating behavior.

Of course, we’ll never really know what these fish are thinking. Thomas Nagel offers some insight on the matter, in considering what it is like to be a bat (yes, more bats): “Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited. It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing on one’s arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in one’s mouth; that one has very poor vision, and perceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the day hanging upside down by one’s feet in an attic. In so far as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat.”

 For more information about Chelsea’s work, you can contact her at chelseaweitekamp at gmail dot com.

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Listening to the hyenas

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Kenna Lehmann.

Have you ever seen a group of hyenas take down a zebra? Or fight off a pride of lions? Ok, probably not, so you’ll have to take my word for it: one of these activities is striking in its silence, while the other is a deafening cacophony. Why does the pride of lions require more vocalizations than an observer can keep track of, while the zebra requires none? To whom are these vocalizations directed? Are the hyenas vocalizing to ward off fear, coordinate their movements, scare off the lions, or all of the above? These are just a few of the questions we are trying to answer in the Holekamp Lab.

In collaboration with the Miikkulainen Lab at the University of Texas in Austin, we are trying to determine how emotions and communication interact, leading to complex cooperative behaviors, such as hyenas pushing lions off of a kill. I, myself, am attempting to tease apart the answers to our questions about the communication that takes place during these striking interactions. Right now, that mostly means being out in the field with a microphone pointed at hyenas and trying to catch good vocalizations during the right kinds of interactions. Once my field season is over, it will mean pouring over 27 years of behavioral observations to pull out and quantify our behaviors of interest. (If you’re curious about how difficult that is, take a look at this video or the video below!)

Then, we will be able to determine what influences hyenas to cooperate in these dangerous interactions. Who recruits allies and why? Who stays quiet in the hopes of sneaking a snack from a lazy lion? Do loud whoops, giggles, and lows always precede a concerted rush (i.e. a mob) at the lions? Who participates in and leads mobs? Is there a difference between altercations over food and those that take place near hyena dens?

Work done by Tracy Montgomery will determine the hormonal correlates of these complex behaviors. From this, we hope to learn something about hormones, affiliative behavior, and communication, the roles they play, and how they interact with one another.

The Miikkulainen Lab is tackling this question from a computational perspective. They are creating a computational model that will mirror the behaviors we see in hyenas in the field. Through manipulation of the environment and which cooperation challenges the digital hyenas face, they aim to understand what allows the production of these complex behaviors in a digital world.

Eventually, we hope to have a better understanding of what mechanisms govern these complex behaviors. The ultimate goal is to determine how these complex communicative and cooperative behaviors have evolved, in an attempt to more fully understand how our own ability to communicate via language may have arisen. This ultimate goal will require the collaboration of a huge number of scientists in the fields of communication, cooperation, and cognition. In an attempt to jumpstart this field, the Cooperative Predator Vocalization Consortium has organized a symposium at the International Ethological Congress (Behavior2015) in Cairns, Australia. “This symposium will draw together contemporary research findings on the links between communication and social behaviour (including cooperation) of large predators. The symposium will synthesise a new approach to the study of the cognitive-communicative-social complex, and its implications for future research into the evolution of cognition and language.”

If you want to help us push the field of communication, cooperation, and cognition forward, please join us at Behavior2015 or contact me (kdslehmann@gmail.com) and Arik (arik.kershenbaum@gmail.com) about collaborating with the CPVC!

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Evolution in Action Exhibit at MSU Museum

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU Museum Education Specialist Julie Fick.

Intro

IMG_1085Museums mean different things to different people. For me, the MSU Museum was a place where as a child I explored the halls with my family on Sunday afternoons. I remember winding through the Hall of Evolution, anxious to see the child mummy in her case, and climbing the marble staircase to stare in awe at the African elephant skeleton. Of course, the fact that my dad told us how he helped hold the bones while the curators directed the assembly of the behemoth was wildly impressive to an eight year old! These memories are clear and enduring, and it is this sort of wonderment and lasting impression that museum professionals aspire to develop in visitors of all ages.

The obvious question is, how is that accomplished? Having devoted most of my adult life to the education profession and for the past four years, museum education in particular, I can tell you that this is the challenge: providing a setting and an experience that plants a seed, prompts a question, inspires an investigation, or sparks an idea, all in the hopes that visitors carry away a little piece of the content you have shared with them.

Evolution exhibits at MSU Museum

Prior to 2010, the MSU Museum’s (MSUM) only exhibit area that dealt with evolution was the Hall of Evolution. Filled with fossil specimens and colorful – although outdated – murals that depict ancient life, this hall is a journey through geologic time in a traditional, “old-school” manner. Still popular with many and an historical treasure in its own right, this hall provides only partial coverage of evolution through what can be gleaned from the fossil record.

Fortunately, in 2010 the creation of the BEACON Center for Evolution in Action at MSU provided the motive and the means to create a new evolution perspective in the Museum. An exhibit area was designated the “Evolution in Action Gallery,” and the journey began. The purpose of the gallery was (is):

  • To inform audiences about BEACON’s mission and presence as a world-class NSF center at MSU
  • To increase public understanding of evolution
  • To showcase current evolution research being conducted here at MSU

IMG_1083When I joined the staff in 2011, the first phase of exhibit creation was basically complete. A suite of exhibit panels had been created; three to describe the BEACON Center and three to highlight Dr. Kay Holekamp’s hyena research. A mounted hyena specimen and a hyena skull were displayed in cases, and a touchscreen offered four videos to view.  

Over the course of the next eight months, I worked with scientists, designers, exhibition staff, and graduate students to create and install the third component of the gallery, Dr. Richard Lenski’s 50,000 generations of E. coli research. Five more panels were added, plus a video tour of the Lenski lab and an articulated skeleton of Nariokotome Boy – depicting what our ancestors might have looked like, 50,000 generations ago.

IMG_1090

In those months and since, I have learned that there are many challenges inherent in creating a museum exhibit; we faced several of them.

  • Choosing content – what are the “big ideas”, the visitor take-aways? If you try to include too much, visitors are overwhelmed. As a team, we struggled with copious amounts of text on the panels, suspecting that we were biting off more than most visitors could chew.
  • Delivering content – how do you get your big ideas across? Our solution was to install “wall words”; simple stand alone phrases that captured some big ideas: “We observe evolution in nature, in the laboratory, and with computers” (on a stand alone wall); “Social behaviors in organisms evolve” (on the hyena mural); and “Mutations drive evolution” (on the Lenski lab mural).
  • Design – how will you invite the visitor in and make him/her want to explore what you are presenting? How will you physically move them through the experience? We reconfigured the preliminary exhibit layout to consider what we wanted visitors to see first, installed color strips to match gallery components, and created a curved panel that suggested a starting place and a path.
  • Engagement – what could visitors do in the exhibit besides read text? At first, the only engagement options were to watch videos on two touchscreens and play a digital game on a third.

IMG_1076Phase two of our evolution exhibit was complete and everything fit together in the gallery: carefully chosen text – pared down from the scientists’ original submissions, two great specimens, clever graphics, all professionally designed. How would visitors react? What did they think of our gallery?

We asked them. In multiple versions and across several age groups, we asked visitors about their understanding of evolution (pre/post) and we observed their actions in the gallery. Data revealed what some of us suspected: visitors were not reading the text, they only sometimes watched the videos (and often only partially), and they were not playing the game long enough or understanding the concepts behind the game. It was apparent that we needed more and better ways to engage visitors.

Revamping the text panels was not an option in this case. So, over the next three years, we looked for ways to make the exhibit more engaging. We added: Mutation Station – a hands-on activity using Legos to represent segments of genetic code; See for Yourself – sealed plates of E. coli from actual competitions in the Lenski lab between ancestral and evolved bacteria, viewed under a lit magnifier; and a more active and easier to understand digital game, “Hungry Birds” (a project of Dr. Rabindra Ratan).

Another issue that we realized along the way was that nowhere in the exhibit – for that matter in the Museum – is there an actual explanation or description of what evolution is or the mechanisms by which it occurs. We were showing examples of outstanding research, but we lacked the primer to lay the evolution foundation for the visitor.

Evolution in Action Exhibit 2.0

The next phase, or EiA 2.0 as I call it, will address the above content concern as well as some of our earlier findings on the visitor experience. We will:

  1. Replace “Hyenas Rule” in the EiA Gallery with Drs. Ashlee Rowe and Matt Rowe’s work on venom evolution, featuring grasshopper mice and scorpions. We will use less text, more graphics, visuals and manipulatives.
  2. Create and install an evolution hub in the EiA Gallery that will create a solid foundation for visitor understanding of basic evolution processes and concepts. Variation, inheritance, selection, and time will be presented through simple examples and interactives.
  3. Create a visitor interactive station at the entrance to the science floor that connects the EiA Gallery with other natural sci

    ence galleries in the Museum and provides the basis for interest and inquiry in evolution. Two large horizontal touch screens will offer state of the art, interactive technology that has been created for and tested in museums: Harvard’s FloTree, and either Karl Gude’s Tree of Life or Harvard’s Deep Tree. This station will invite visitors to explore evolution concepts such as common ancestry and tree-thinking when they first reach the science exhibits floor, prior to entering the EiA Gallery.

IMG_1091In addition to the newly featured research and the evolution hub, the EiA Gallery will contain a venue to “talk” to BEACON scientists and at least two new interactive games; Terry Soule’s Ladybug game (variation/selection), and Laura Crothers’ and Ammon Thompson’s Tree-thinking game (kid-friendly, build-a-tree). The 5E Learning model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) will guide the creative process.

We will also approach evaluation a little differently. This time we will do “front end” evaluation regarding how material is presented and understood by creating a hub prototype and testing it with visitors. This, plus an array of summative evaluation measures with larger sample sizes will assess achievement of visitor learning goals as well as provide feedback regarding how visitors learn science in museum settings. 

As curator and project manager of the Evolution in Action Gallery, my goal is for EiA 2.0 to provide the venue for a deeper visitor understanding of evolution and a conduit for the connections that exist between our science galleries but have not been made obvious to our visitors. I am looking forward to this next chapter, to applying what I’ve learned, and to setting the stage for research in visitor learning in informal science settings.

For more information about Julie’s work, you can contact her at jfick at msu dot edu.

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Soft robots

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Thassyo Pinto. 

A nice sunny day for deploying a robotic fish in Wintergreen Lake at Kellogg Biological Station (KBS).

A nice sunny day for deploying a robotic fish in Wintergreen Lake at Kellogg Biological Station (KBS).

During my childhood, my favorite toys were the ones that I could create using scrap parts. When that was not fun enough, I used to teardown old devices at home just to see the type of mechanisms that were part of their functionality. There is no doubt that by exploiting my creativity and curiosity at early age I was delineating my future career as an engineer. Later on, when I was applying for college, robotics was my first choice without any hesitation. But how did I become part of BEACON?

In 2013, I was studying abroad in United States and I had the opportunity to work in the summer as an undergraduate research assistant at The Adami Lab. During that time, I have started investigating the application of evolutionary computational tools for evolving and transferring artificial brains to real world robots. By using Markov Brains, which are encoded networks composed of multiple probabilistic logic gates (more information in here: http://adamilab.msu.edu/markov-network-brains/), I was able to evolve controllers for line following robots in order to make them adaptive to changes in their work environment. The results of these experiments can be found in this page: http://alproductions.us/blog/2013/10/12/markov-brain-controllers-in-robots/.

The robotic fish GRACE sampling water columns for temperature and harmful algal blooms autonomously.

The robotic fish GRACE sampling water columns for temperature and harmful algal blooms autonomously.

Motivated to continue this previous work as well as due to collaborations between the College of Engineering at Michigan State University and the BEACON Center, I came back in 2014 to MSU to start a graduate program in Electrical Engineering. Now I am also part of the Smart Microsystems Lab (SML), which is focused on the design and control of novel materials and underwater robots. One of the projects in this lab, is a gliding robotic fish (GRACE), which is used for collecting and transmitting data from underwater environments, particularly, for sampling harmful algal blooms. Some field tests have already been performed at the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) in the past few years (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ybtkn1cdHs).

Finite element analysis of a soft joint and pneumatic actuated manipulator.

Finite element analysis of a soft joint and pneumatic actuated manipulator.

Autonomous machines like the robotic fish can have several limitations on their locomotion and sensory systems due to design constraints imposed by the type of materials used for their construction. Hard components are responsible for generating additional loads to a robotic structure as well as complexity in the assembling processes. Deploying a machine in a unstructured underwater environment, not only requires it to have precise sensing devices for detecting external features but also enhanced motorized mechanisms that facilitates its mobility. Constant design improvements are important since it allows the development of fitter autonomous systems.

A bidirectional soft actuator fabricated by 3D printing process.

A bidirectional soft actuator fabricated by 3D printing process.

When we look at nature, we can see that most organisms are composed of soft mechanisms such as tissues, muscles and organs. Due to this fact, most of the body dynamics and control are outsourced to the morphology and material properties of the organism such as the density, stiffness and compliance. We can then imagine a similar case for robots with an artificial version of these mechanisms. If we employ soft materials in robotics, would we be able to create autonomous machines that are compliant and capable to withstand damage, wear and large stress? Soft actuators and flexible sensors can be achieved through various methods such as soft lithography, photopatterning and 3D printing. In recent work, I have investigated the use of silicone-based and rubber-like materials for the fabrication of soft pneumatic bending actuators. These actuators are composed of a very flexible and stretchable hollow layer attached to a thin inextensible layer. By injecting any type of fluid in the chambers of the soft actuator, it will generate the desired bending motion. As part of my research, several prototypes have been simulated using finite element software as well as fabricated for physical experiments.

In a sense, the continuous deformation of soft materials allows the system to have infinite degrees of freedom. This material behavior enables a soft robot to achieve more complex motions and actions, similarly to the ones performed by some marine animals. The application of biological inspiration in the design of robotic systems is very important for the engineering field, since it promotes the advancement of new technologies in order to mimic the traits or behaviors found in different animal species. The investigation of novel materials and fabrication processes is necessary for designing state-of-the-art sensors and actuators for bio-inspired machines. For instance, by using a 3D printing process, I was able to fabricate a miniaturized stingray-like soft robot, which has a tethered pneumatic actuation system. However, if we want to build an entirely compliant autonomous system, the control unit and all additional components must also be capable to undergo large deformations while still being functional. These requirements and constraints bring a lot of opportunities for the discovery of innovative technologies, providing more impulsion to my current work.

A 3D-printed stingray-like soft robot for tethered actuation in underwater environments.

A 3D-printed stingray-like soft robot for tethered actuation in underwater environments.

Other challenges also include the exploitation of techniques for defining models or controlling algorithms for these elastomer based actuators. Since developing control methods for these soft bodies are non-trivial because of their high nonlinear dynamics, an evolutionary robotics methodology is another tool that might play a role for the design of robust controllers in conformable machi

nes. This multidisciplinary research approach stimulates my creativity and problem solving skills, and it is very exciting to work in a community where different scientific fields benefit from each other.

For more information about Thassyo’s work, you can contact him at thassyo dot pinto at gmail dot com.

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BEACON Researchers at Work: The Original Social Gaming

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Texas at Austin postdoc Tessa Solomon-Lane.

Me SCUBA diving in the kelp forests offshore of Catalina Island, CA to collect bluebanded gobies. The last dive of my dissertation warranted wearing a lab coat. Photo credit: Megan Williams & Jenny Hofmeister (2014)

Me SCUBA diving in the kelp forests offshore of Catalina Island, CA to collect bluebanded gobies. The last dive of my dissertation warranted wearing a lab coat. Photo credit: Megan Williams & Jenny Hofmeister (2014)

I can trace the beginning of my fascination with social behavior to the summer I was ten. That summer, I started volunteering as a teacher’s aide at an arts-based school for kids with learning and developmental differences. As I gained experience at the camp, the scientist in me started to recognize patterns and ask questions. One observation intrigued me most: seemingly independent of a wide variety of special needs, kids who could interact socially with other campers and adults seemed to have a particular advantage. There was an ease with which these campers moved through their day that we, as educators, struggled to instill in campers who didn’t already have that ability. In the long run, one teacher told me, these socially savvy kids would be fine. Although ‘fine’ is overly simple, and some social skills can be coached, I think there was an important kernel in my early observations that still drives my research today: members of highly social species who can play the social game well are likely to have an advantage.

Field biology beyond the playground. Fast forward to a college semester abroad in Australia when, for the first time, it clicked for me that scientific research was the way to ask and answer my persistent questions about social behavior and why individuals behave the way that they do. What led to this realization? I learned there were fish that changed sex depending on their social environment.

Most of the animals we encounter in our everyday lives —humans, dogs, cats, birds, and even zoo animals—are genetically either male or female. Males typically remain males for their entire lives, and females typically remain female. For many species of fish, however, sex is much more flexible. Females that produce eggs can transform into fully functioning males in just days or weeks (protogynous, sequential hermaphrodite). In species like grouper and clownfish, males can sex change into females (protandrous, sequential hermaphrodite), and there are even species that can change from female to male and back again (bidirectional, sequential hermaphrodite). This transformation can dramatically increase lifetime fitness and involves coordinated changes at multiple biological levels. The first changes occur in the brain and behavior of the sex changer. External morphology, such as coloration and genitalia shape, can also shift. Steroid hormones, particularly androgens and estrogens, are central to the reorganization of the reproductive system. And in the gonad itself, an ovary becomes a testis (or vice versa) through a combination of cell birth and cell death.

Remarkably, this whole transition is socially regulated. In a protogynous species, for example, female to male sex change occurs when a female establishes dominance in a social group. In nature, this might happen if the previous dominant male dies or if an all-female group forms. Within minutes of the social environment becoming permissive to sex change, the behavior of the dominant female changes. She may even take on the male role so rapidly that she performs male reproductive behaviors before she has sperm to release.

Why did sex changing fish set off a light bulb for me? Without a doubt, social behavior is critically important for all of the diverse social species found throughout the animal kingdom, including humans. But here were animals that, over the course of a single lifetime, must generate social behaviors appropriate for a low ranking female, a middle ranking female, a high ranking female, and even a dominant male! How do the fish accomplish this behavioral range and context specificity?

My field crew of undergraduate research assistants from Agnes Scott College: (left to right, back) Cierra Lockhart (2014), Megan Williams (2012-2014), Alma Thomas (2013-2014), and Alyssa Millikin (2014), with me in front. Taken at the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island, CA.

My field crew of undergraduate research assistants from Agnes Scott College: (left to right, back) Cierra Lockhart (2014), Megan Williams (2012-2014), Alma Thomas (2013-2014), and Alyssa Millikin (2014), with me in front. Taken at the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island, CA.

In my doctoral research, I addressed this overarching question by studying the bluebanded goby (Lythrypnus dalli), a bidirectional sex changer. I was fortunate to work in the field on Catalina Island, CA and in the laboratory at Georgia State University with a number of excellent undergraduate researchers, including two field teams I led from Agnes Scott College. Over the course of my dissertation, I formed many different kinds of social groups and watched hours upon hours of social interactions with the goal of understanding which factors affected social behavior and how. I formed social groups of different sizes and sex ratios, with adults and juveniles. Sometimes I selected females that were gravid and ready to lay eggs, gave individuals controlled social experiences, or chose fish with specific levels of aggression. In other experiments, I first implanted steroid hormones or injected neuromodulators, such as corticotropin-releasing factor and arginine vasotocin, into the brain. And like any good behavioral biologist, highly accurate reenactments of the behaviors I observed occasionally make their way into conference presentations and K-12 science outreach activities.

A male, juvenile, and female bluebanded goby (left to right).

A male, juvenile, and female bluebanded goby (left to right).

Male bluebanded goby caring for his eggs laid on the inside of the shell. The black dots are developing eyespots.

Male bluebanded goby caring for his eggs laid on the inside of the shell. The black dots are developing eyespots.

The good, the bad, and the adaptive. There is often an impulse to anthropomorphize animal social behavior and label behaviors as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on their connotations for humans. But gobies are not tiny, underwater humans. Subjective classifications can impede our understanding of behavioral evolution because ‘good’ behaviors may or may not actually increase fitness. Furthermore, the fitness consequences of some behaviors, such as aggression, dif

fer depending on the context and the species. Even the individual expressing the behavior can influence the outcome. In my research, I identified adaptive behaviors and successful individuals by directly measuring a component of fitness: reproductive success. For females, I counted the number of eggs she laid in the male’s nest, which ranged from 55 to 2,200 eggs per clutch. For males, I counted the total number of eggs (from multiple females) that hatched from his nest. The most productive male hatched 4,995 eggs in just 2 weeks! By identifying the strong connections between social behavior and reproductive success in bluebanded goby social groups, my research can provide insight into how these important behaviors evolved.

As a new postdoctoral fellow in the Hofmann Lab (cichlid.biosci.utexas.edu), my goal now is to go into the brain. Although I am no longer studying a sex changer, the African cichlid Astatotilapia burtoni is highly social and expresses fascinating and flexible social behaviors. I am excited to begin investigating how a highly conserved network of brain regions regulates the expression of adaptive, context-specific social behavior.

For more information about Tessa’s work, you can contact her at tksolomonlane at utexas dot edu.

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Same behavior, same genes?

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Texas at Austin research associate Rebecca Young. 

Me as a teenager in 1996 (Austin, TX).

Me as a teenager in 1996 (Austin, TX).

From an early age I spent my time outside – chasing lizards, riding horses, and begging to go to a zoo. As this fascination matured I found it was the diversity of life, as Darwin so eloquently describes the “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful”, which intrigued me most. Where does this variation come from? How are these differences generated during development?

Ironically, while my curiosity and decision to pursue a career in biology arose from a fascination with animal diversity, my study of biology is largely centered on what is shared among organisms. It is now known that the tremendous diversity of animal species on earth develop from remarkably conserved ‘toolkits’ of gene regulatory networks redeployed in context- and species-specific ways. In hindsight, some may argue this is not surprising. The foreleg of a horse and wing of a bat look and function differently, but at their core they are quite similar. Both are appendages, out growths from a remarkably similar bilaterally symmetrical bodyplan; their differences (e.g., their length, width, and arrangement of bones) can be achieved by changes in growth and adjustments in apoptosis during development. However, the underlying developmental and genetic similarities among organisms go beyond homologous traits like limbs – characters that occur in multiple species derived from the same ancestral trait. Developmental genetic similarities appear in non-homologous traits as well. For example, in cases of parallel evolution, where similar features evolve independently in multiple lineages, similar developmental mechanisms can be found (e.g., the electric organ in electric fishes). In some cases traits that have seemingly no similarities evolutionarily or functionally (e.g., human diseases and yeast phenotypes) can share gene regulatory networks (read about ‘phenologs’ here: http://www.phenologs.org/). That traits such as these, having no business being developmentally similar, are in fact “deeply homologous” – i.e., share gene regulatory mechanisms – is a principal discovery resulting from evodevo thinking in biology.

Paired monogamous and non-monogamous species used in our research.

Paired monogamous and non-monogamous species used in our research.

For the majority of its history, the field of evolutionary developmental biology has focused on morphological and physiological characters. However, other types of traits, such as behaviors, should likewise share gene regulatory mechanisms. My work as a research associate in the Hofmann Lab at the University of Texas at Austin (http://cichlid.biosci.utexas.edu/) asks whether similar behaviors, in this case monogamy, that have evolved independently in multiple taxa result from deployment of the same ‘deeply homologous’ gene regulatory mechanism. To answer this question we are taking a comparative transcriptomic approach. Specifically, we quantify expression of genes in the brains of reproductive males in paired, closely-related monogamous and non-monogamous species of voles, mice, song birds, dendrobatid frogs, and cichlid fishes using the next generation sequencing approach RNA-seq. By comparing neural gene expression between monogamous and non-monogamous species within a group (e.g., within voles) we can identify the genes that are up-or down-regulated in the monogamous species. If we do this in all of the groups we can identify the genes that are differentially regulated across all monogamous species examined. This is a jumping off point. From here, we can further examine this list of differentially expressed genes to identify groups of co-expressed genes. We can assess the known interactions and functions of the differentially expressed genes to identify the types of neurogenomic changes that accompany the transitions to monogamy in all of these groups generating functional hypotheses for future experiments.

Illustration of orthologs and paralogs.

Illustration of orthologs and paralogs.

Getting a list of genes differentially regulated in all these independent evolutionary transitions to monogamy is no small feat. Outside of the efforts required to recruit a consortium of experts who can provide the appropriate tissue for each of these distinct species, comparative approaches in next generation sequencing data analysis are in their infancy. To date, comparative ‘omics research has focused largely on closely related species. When studies do span large evolutionary distances they focus on model systems with well-developed genomic resources (e.g., a well-annotated, published genomes and functionally annotated genes) that facilitate comparisons. Much of our effort has focused on improving these approaches in non-model species like those explored for this project. One of the major challenges is identifying the ‘same’ (orthologous) genes in each species. This problem comes from differences in genome complexity across organisms. For example, gene, gene family, and whole genome duplications have occurred in some lineages and not others, meaning that quite often a gene has more than one copy – called paralogs. How can you compare expression of one gene in one species with two genes in another? To resolve this problem, I have worked in collaboration with the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CCBB: http://ccbb.biosci.utexas.edu/) and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC: https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/) to establish an analysis pipeline based on OrthoMCL (http://www.orthomcl.org/) in a high performance computing environment. Rather than focusing on individual genes, we use OrthoMCL to generate ‘orthologous gene groups’ that contain all of the paralogs for a particular gene. These gene groups are generated by comparing sequences within and between species. When gene sequences within species are more similar to each other than to genes in another species, they are grouped as paralogs into these orthologous gene groups. Expression values of the orthologous gene groups can be calculated and compared directly across species. This is not only critical for our research interests, but facilitates comparative ‘omics in general as next generation sequencing approaches are applied to more and more non-model organisms in a diversity of empirical and experimental contexts.

My 2 year old daughter at the Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary .

My 2 year old daughter at the Austin Zoo
and Animal Sanctuary .

Right now the scientific pursuits that drive my curiosity are best explored indoors, in a lab or on a computer rather than in the field. Until my research takes me outside again, and from time to time it does (read about my other research directions here http://devoevo.ccbb.utexas.edu/), the observations of the beautiful and wonderful natural variation I have made on horseback as a teenager, in the field as a scientist, and exploring nature with my kids have generated endless questions on the developmental and evolutionary origins of animal diversity.

For more information about Rebecca’s work, you can contact her at youngrl at utexas dot edu.

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Long-Term Ecological Research Sites as Evolutionary Experiments

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker
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BEACON Researchers at Work: Evolutionary Optimization and the Open Source Community

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Brian Goldman.

Brian visits Austria as part of his research collaboration.

Brian visits Austria as part of his research collaboration.

I teach computers to be better at guess, check, and revise. At least, that is the short version of my research. More precisely, I develop optimization algorithms based on evolutionary principles for the purpose of finding high quality solutions to challenging real-world problems. Most of the time this involves staring at white boards, pacing back and forth, and muttering to myself, with occasional rushes of pure excitement caused by some new revelation. However, thanks to months of hard work and the generous support of BEACON, I recently got to travel to Austria to share my ideas with the open source community.

For the last 18 months I have been working to develop what I call the Parameter-less Population Pyramid, or P3 for short. P3 is built on the idea that it is often easier to determine how good a solution is than to find the best possible solution. To understand how P3 works, let’s apply it to the problem of packing a moving truck. It’s pretty easy to measure how good a packing configuration is (how much stuff fits in the truck) but pretty hard to find the best configuration (getting everything in the truck). To solve this problem, P3 starts with an initial guess (random solution) for how to pack the truck, and then makes minor changes to that guess (hill climbing) until doing so can’t make it any better. For instance, you might get to the point where moving any chair will not make things better, but if you could move all of them at once into a big stack it would be a lot better.

Algorithm overview of P3.

Algorithm overview of P3.

Unfortunately, trying to test all ways to make larger changes to a guess can take a lot of time. To overcome this problem, P3 stores multiple good guesses (population) and tries to learn what makes them good. To further improve, P3 tries to take the good parts of previous guesses and combine them to create new ones (mixing). In our example, this could mean putting together the box stacking from one guess and the furniture layout of another. In order to focus learning, P3 filters guesses based on how much effort went into producing each guess, storing them separately (pyramid of populations). This design also lets P3 learn as it goes (parameter-less), unlike most evolutionary systems where you need to know how many guesses to store before starting optimization.

This method of iterative solution improvement is designed to be applicable to a wide range of problems. The exact same algorithm can, for instance, be applied to making better crumple zones in cars and to reducing power consumption in electronics. Unlike many previous methods which rely on people to provide problem specific information, P3 is focused on learning everything it needs from the problem itself. On top of being easier to use, all of the initial results suggest that P3 is actually more effective than existing methods for performing this kind of optimization.

Brian and members of the HEAL group.

Brian and members of the HEAL group.

The challenge now is to get P3 in the hands of people who have problems they need solved, which brings us back to my trip to Austria. HeuristicLab is an open source tool developed by the Heuristic and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory (HEAL) at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. Built to be user friendly, HeuristicLab provides a graphical interface which allows users to test out a wide variety of optimization algorithms and is currently in use by many researchers and practitioners world wide.

Example P3 optimization using Heuristic Lab.

Example P3 optimization using HeuristicLab.

Last December I flew to Austria to further BEACON’s collaboration with HEAL and to integrate P3 into HeuristicLab. This in-person interaction was essential to ensuring the smooth transition of my work into their toolbox as I was the first non HEAL member to significantly expand HeuristicLab. That is to say I asked a lot of questions and got a lot of help, but I think in the process we made it easier for future researchers to add their work. I am proud to say we were completely successful, and P3 is now available for download as part of HeuristicLab 3.3.11. By integrating into their software, I gained access to their real time data visualization and analysis tools, which will definitely help me better understand how P3 works and how to make it even better. Doing so also makes P3 more accessible to the optimization community, a critical step toward increasing its utilization.

For more information about Brian’s work, you can email him at goldma72 at msu dot edu.

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BEACON Researchers at Work: How the chicken crossed the sea

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU postdoc Eben Gering.

Biotic invasions (the Disney version)

Some ecologists have likened invasive species to the army of enchanted brooms in Disney’s Fantasia. In the movie, Mickey Mouse portrays a sorcerer’s bumbling apprentice who uses borrowed magical powers to bring his broom to life. Once the broom has completed an epic chore (intended for Mickey), it divides into millions and millions of brooms that the apprentice is powerless to stop.

A native of Southern Asia, the small Asian mongoose (Herpestes javanicus) was introduced to Pacific and Caribbean islands in a misguided effort to control invasive rats. Image modified from Wikipedia.

A native of Southern Asia, the small Asian mongoose (Herpestes javanicus) was introduced to Pacific and Caribbean islands in a misguided effort to control invasive rats. Image modified from Wikipedia.

Like those pernicious magic brooms, invasive species often begin as small and seemingly harmless propagules that quickly reach high densities via unchecked population growth. And while invaders usually disperse as stowaways, sometimes like Mickey’s broom, they begin as hopeful experiments.

 

A male and female Lesser ʻakialoa (Hemignathus obscurus), last seen in the year of Fantasia’s theatrical premier (1940). This species is one of several dozen endemic Pacific songbirds driven to extinction by introduced predators and other anthropogenic stressors. Image source: Walter Rothschild. The Avifauna of Laysan and the neighbouring islands with a complete history to date of the birds of the Hawaiian possession. London: R.H. Porter, 1893-1900).

A male and female Lesser ʻakialoa (Hemignathus obscurus), last seen in the year of Fantasia’s theatrical premier (1940). This species is one of several dozen endemic Pacific songbirds driven to extinction by introduced predators and other anthropogenic stressors. Image source: Walter Rothschild. The Avifauna of Laysan and the neighbouring islands with a complete history to date of the birds of the Hawaiian possession. London: R.H. Porter, 1893-1900).

The small Asian mongoose, for example (above), won a free trip to several remote archipelagos in order to help regulate invasive rats. Perhaps you remember the mongoose from Rikki Tiki Tavi1, in which the bold little predator massacres two cobras along with all of their eggs. This predisposition to ovivory (egg eating) came in handy for invasive mongooses2. As diurnal hunters, they seldom encountered island rats (which prefer to forage at night). So instead they ate eggs of native songbirds, many of which lacked evolutionary histories with (and defenses against) terrestrial mammalian predators.

Now cited as one of the world’s 100 worst invaders3, the mongoose has already abetted several dozen bird extinctions… each species irreplaceable, each irrevocably gone.

How the chicken crossed the sea (a case study of invasion)

Most of Hawaii’s non-native birds have faired better than native counterparts. For example, wild chickens have overrun Kauai – perhaps helped by the island’s lack of mongoose and other predators. These birds are somewhat difficult to classify (invasive? exotic? Polynesian legacies?) since neither their origins nor their ecological impacts have been established. Museum specimens indicate that Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus; the chicken’s closest living relative), were introduced to Hawaii by ancient Polynesians, but it’s unclear if they persisted. According to many Kauai locals, modern wild chickens instead descend from livestock that went feral after recent hurricanes (see figure below). Scientific studies of Pacific chickens (both morphological and genetic) have reached similarly conflicting conclusions4,5,6.

Census data from feral chicken populations on Kauai confirm reports by Kauai locals of recent, exponential growth coinciding with hurricane events. For additional details, refer our recently published study7 (from which this figure was modified).

Census data from feral chicken populations on Kauai confirm reports by Kauai locals of recent, exponential growth coinciding with hurricane events. For additional details, refer our recently published study7 (from which this figure was modified).

Our team recently completed in depth analyses of feral chicken genomes, morphologies and behaviors7. Here are our key findings:

  1. Some individuals’ genomes “matched” DNA sequences from ancient Kauai fossils (consistent with ancient Polynesian origins).
  2. Other individuals’ genomes match European breeds domesticated for food production and later distributed worldwide (consistent with recent feralisation).
  3. Individuals’ genomes, behaviors and morphologies exhibit tremendous variation, and show patterns consistent with hybridization between Red Junglefowl and domesticated chickens.
A feral rooster from Kauai displaying the plumage phenotype that is typical of Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus), the ancestor of domesticated chickens. Red Junglefowl were spread throughout the Pacific by ancient Polynesians prior to European contact, and before the development of modern, food production G. gallus breeds. We found molecular, morphological, and behavioral signatures of Red Junglefowl ancestry, but also derived traits, such as yellow legs (pictured here), that are unique to domesticated breeds. These patterns are consistent with an invasion of domesticated genes into a Red Junglefowl reservoir population in the Pacific, and with the hypothesis that feralization may have contributed to the exponential growth of Kauai’s G. gallus population during the late 20th century (photo by Dominic Wright).

A feral rooster from Kauai displaying the plumage phenotype that is typical of Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus), the ancestor of domesticated chickens. Red Junglefowl were spread throughout the Pacific by ancient Polynesians prior to European contact, and before the development of modern, food production G. gallus breeds. We found molecular, morphological, and behavioral signatures of Red Junglefowl ancestry, but also derived traits, such as yellow legs (pictured here), that are unique to domesticated breeds. These patterns are consistent with an invasion of domesticated genes into a Red Junglefowl reservoir population in the Pacific, and with the hypothesis that feralization may have contributed to the exponential growth of Kauai’s G. gallus population during the late 20th century (photo by Dominic Wright).

Kauai’s colorful modern flocks may thus descend from both intentional and accidental introductions, each originating in different places, at differen

t time points, and from different selective environments.

Why we are crowing about feral chickens

While feral chickens pose significant threats to agriculture and human health, Kauai’s G. gallus seem fairly benign (e.g. compared to mongoose). Chickens have even been adopted by locals as their island’s unofficial mascot, which enjoys limited regulatory protections on public land. Perhaps someday our team’s data will prove useful for revisiting local management priorities. Meanwhile though, we have broader (and exciting!) motivations to continue our studies:

  1. Advancing invasion biology. When we left off with Mickey Mouse (above), he was inundated by monsters of his own making. Fortunately his skilled mentor arrives in time to intervene, and easily puts the brooms to bed. One can hope, Fantasia suggests, that by understanding our errors we obtain the power to correct them. But even if that’s so, we are leagues from understanding population biology well enough to mitigate invasions8. If invasive species are analogous to Mickey’s demonic brooms, then today’s ecologists are well-meaning apprentices at best, fumbling against nature’s complex interdependencies.
  2. Biosecurity. There are more than 20 billion chickens on earth right now, which comprise humanity’s leading source of animal protein. In contrast, the Red Junglefowl has disappeared throughout its native range due to habitat loss and “contamination” of gene pools by hybridization. It is crucial that we identify and conserve the genetic variation that still remains in the Red Junglefowl. This variation could soon be essential for the improvement and/or evolutionary rescue of commercial chicken breeds. Recent years found chicken producers combating both rapidly evolving pathogens, and fertility issues believed to be products of inbreeding. An exciting new collaboration between MSU and UT biologists will use Kauai’s feral birds to obtain insight to these issues, combining molecular, biophysical and evolutionary approaches.
  3. Studying evolution in action. Darwin drew heavily from his studies of domesticated species to develop his theory of evolution9. He did this because domesticated taxa display many traits that are readily apparent as product of artificial selection regimes. Broiler chickens are 3x larger than Red Junglefowl, yet somehow mature 2x as fast. Hens from certain egg-laying varieties exceed 300 eggs/year, while Red Junglefowl females produce only a dozen. In Kauai, hybrid G. gallus can potentially inherit both domestication-related enhancements to growth and fecundity, and ancestral abilities to survive and compete in complex natural and social environments. We are eager to learn which combinations of genes and traits are emerging from this ‘evolutionary experiment,’ and to see whether our findings can translate to gains in the sustainability or efficacy of egg and poultry production.

Disney’s Fantasia was based on an 18th century poem by Goethe (German poet, naturalist, philosopher and statesman). The plots of Der Zauberlehrling and of the derivative scenes from Fantasia are basically the same… except for one detail. Whereas Goethe’s sorcerer is unruffled by his pupil’s mistake, his Disney counterpart becomes enraged when he stumbles upon Mickey’s magic mess. Here are two wild guesses as to the reason for that discrepancy: 1) By the time Fantasia was made (1940), we better understood what can happen when people like Mickey muck with nature expecting simple outcomes. 2) While growth of human knowledge and experience might have made us more cautious, it has also produced newer, better, and more idiot-friendly tools for the mucking-inclined. Or maybe, like me, something about Mickey Mouse just irritated him. We stand as little chance of knowing this as we do of deciding if the chicken preceded its egg. My parting gift is this: if anyone ever asks you which came first? and you happen to be standing on Kauai, then you can answer with reasonable conviction: Red Junglefowl did. 

 

1Ricki-Tikki-Tavi is one of the stories from The Jungle Book. It was not included in the Disney version.

2mongooses is, indeed, the plural form of mongoose

3http://www.issg.org/database/species/search.asp?st=100ss

4Condon T (2012). Morphological detection of genetic introgression in red junglefowl (Gallus gallus). MS Thesis, Georgia Southern University.

5 Storey AA, Ramırez JM, Quiroz D et al. (2007) Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104: 10335–10339.

6 Thomson VA, Lebrasseur O, Austin JJ et al. (2014) Using ancient DNA to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens across the Pacific. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 4826–4831.

7Gering E, Johnsson M, Willis P, Getty T, & Wright, D (2015). Mixed‐ancestry and admixture in Kauai’s feral chickens: invasion of domestic genes into ancient Red Junglefowl reservoirs. Molecular ecology.

8Bock, Dan G., Celine Caseys, Roger D. Cousens, Min A. Hahn, Sylvia M. Heredia, Sariel Hübner, Kathryn G. Turner, Kenneth D. Whitney, and Loren H. Rieseberg. (2015) “What we still don’t know about invasion genetics.” Molecular ecology

9Darwin C. (1871). On the origin of species by means of natural selection. Murray. London.

For more information about Eben’s work, you can contact him at geringeb at msu dot edu.

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BEACON Researchers at Work: The KBS GK-12 program: Graduate training in science communication through K-12 classroom engagement

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Danielle Whittaker

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU postdoc Sarah Bodbyl.

It is 6 AM on a Wednesday. Graduate student Di Liang is preparing to head in to the lab to collect data on a set of research plants. He wonders if one set of plants will be showing yellow leaves, a sign of nitrogen depletion, then considers whether or not a student will ask if he can eat the experimental plants again. Wait, what?! Di is not working in a typical MSU research lab–it is a middle school classroom. Di is one of many graduate student fellows that share their research and bring hands-on activities to K-12 classrooms as a part of the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) GK-12 program.

GK-12 Fellow Di Liang and students display their hydroponically grown plants. Photo credit: Di Liang

GK-12 Fellow Di Liang and students display their hydroponically grown plants. Photo credit: Di Liang

The Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program is a training program for graduate students to develop broad science communication skills and prepare for advanced careers. Specifically, GK-12 fellows learn to place their research in a broader societal and global context, integrate research with teaching, collaborate across disciplines, and more effectively communicate their research to professional, K-12, and public audiences. A unique aspect of the GK-12 program is the partnership with K-12 educators, fostering transformative learning opportunities for students, teachers, and graduate fellows alike. Fellows spend up to 15 hours a week in K-12 classrooms, learning how to effectively convey advanced concepts and their love of science to broad audiences.

The participation and support of the many K-12 educators involved in the GK-12 program stems from a rich history between KBS and local school districts. In 1999, KBS professor Phil Robertson established a partnership with 11 nearby districts as a way to share current KBS research with the community. This collaboration between the teachers, administrators, and students of K-12 classrooms and the graduate students, faculty, and staff of MSU is called the KBS K-12 Partnership for Science Literacy. The partnership continues to grow and there are currently 140 active teachers representing 15 school districts.

Two awards have shaped the GK-12 graduate fellow experience since 2006. The first, Ecological Literacy in the K-12 Classrooms of Rural Michigan, focused on one-to-one graduate student and mentor teacher classroom partnerships. Fellows spent over 5,000 hours in the classroom over the three-year award, testing the KBS GK-12 model and searching for ways to enhance the experience. When applying for a second award, project leaders and partner teachers developed a plan to bring two KBS research strengths, bio-energy and sustainability, directly to the schoolyard. They posed the question, “Can we grow our fuel and have our birds and butterflies, too?” This was the birth of the BioEnergy SusTainability Project plots, or BEST plots. The plots, planted with experimental biofuels, are modeled after large-format experiments established at KBS by the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) and the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. Since the second award was granted in 2010, 304 research plots have been established at 22 school sites across the K-12 Partnership. GK-12 fellows assist teachers and their students as they use the plots to gain experience with the scientific method: making observations, generating hypotheses, collecting field data, and making claims from evidence.

A BioEnergy SusTainability, or BEST plot, part of the GK-12 schoolyard network. Photo credit: Dani Fegan

A BioEnergy SusTainability, or BEST plot, part of the GK-12 schoolyard network. Photo credit: Dani Fegan

It is a beautiful summer day at KBS and there’s a commotion on the soccer field. Three GK-12 fellows are calling out instructions to a pack of K-12 teachers as they compete to find cryptic green twist-ties lurking in the grass. The fellows have designed this game to illustrate how biological competition for resources can affect population trends; the teachers provide critical feedback. Will the game engage students? How and what will students learn from the exercise? Fellows learn the art of pedagogy by working with experienced teachers, not only in the classroom, but also at professional development workshops held at KBS multiple times per year. Fellows have also found that their mentor teachers help them discover specific aspects of their research that are relevant and inspiring to others–a useful skill for grant-writing and applying for professional careers! 

The GK-12 model of pairing graduate student researchers with K-12 educators is a unique opportunity to create interdisciplinary educational and scientific products.

Together, GK-12 Fellows and teachers have designed over 110 freely available lessons addressing topics in ecology, evolution, and sustainability. These lessons meet the guidelines of the Michigan Core Curriculum, High School Science Content Expectations, and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and are available to the public on the GK-12 website “Lessons” page. Four GK-12 Fellows have published their lessons in peer reviewed teaching journals.

Beyond shared goals of graduate student training, science education, and public outreach, BEACON has direct connections to the GK-12 program. Current BEACON members Elizabeth Schultheis (GK-12 fellow 2010-11 and 2012-13) and Melissa Kjelvik (2008-09; 2010-11) collaborated with their partner teachers to create Data Nuggets: worksheet and graphing activities designed to give students practice interpreting quantitative information and making claims based on evidence. The Data Nugget project is now sponsored by BEACON and the Nuggets are undergoing testing, revision, and implementation in classrooms across the nation.

Greeted by cheers, applause, and fist-pumps, GK-12 Fellow Amanda walks into the classroom to spend another day honing her science communication skills with high school biology students. Feedback on the GK-12 program’s impact on the fellows, teachers, and K-12 students has been overwhelmingly positive. Fellows and their advisors report that fellows are more confident, competent, and comfortable placing their research in broader societal and global contexts, and explaining it effectively to professional peers, college students and non-technical audiences. Teacher partners report enhanced professional development; fellows provide them with a variety of real research experiences that help them understand what science is all about. Teachers explain that their students are given the opportunity to work with practicing scientists who differ from the conventional ‘scientist’ stereotypes. The program has shifted classroom emphasis from teaching to the standardized tests to training students to think more like scientists – being able to make arguments based on evidence, reflect on their thinking process, and integrate knowledge across subjects, predicting outcomes based on things that they know. The graduate students serve as role models by communicating, not only the excitement of engaging in research that
addresses national needs, but also the pleasure of learning.

The GK-12 project is currently in its final year. The current set of nine GK-12 Fellows is hard at work in the classrooms, learning to share their research, being relatable role models for students, and inspiring the next generation of STEM students. To continue supporting the K-12 partnership in bringing KBS research to the classrooms, the Graduate School will fund two additional fellowships over the following two years. However, the KBS K-12 partnership is looking for new project and faculty sponsors to continue training MSU students and K-12 teachers in science communication, education, and outreach. If you are interested in joining the partnership, please contact coordinators Sarah Bodbyl (bodbyl@msu.edu) and Kara Haas (karahaas@kbs.msu.edu) and check out the GK-12 website at http://kbsgk12project.kbs.msu.edu/. 

The 2014-2015 GK-12 fellows, partner teachers, and support staff.

The 2014-2015 GK-12 fellows, partner teachers, and support staff.

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