Time flies when you’re having fun! A little delayed but here are the 2023 teaching and research highlights from the KSU PlantEcoFizz lab.
Graduate Research
We finished another trial in our USDA funded phyllosphere research and Collin (now a Ph.D. student at the University of Houston) handed over the reigns to Zach, who has since begun working on the development of chitosan-based biostimulants. Katherine joined our lab and will continue her work on American chestnuts (Castanea dentata), and Megan has entered her second year working on royal catchfly (Silene regia) conservation.
Undergraduate Research and Teaching
We hosted Suchita for a semester, who joined us as intern from Wheeler Highschool. Suchita tested whether foliar inoculation with pink-pigmented bacteria impacts photosynthesis at different wavelengths of light.
As much as possible, we continue to utilize the KSU Field Station as a living lab. This included both plant ecology and plant physiology, and general ecology. Students of these courses got involved in our ongoing research on royal catchfly, and students enrolled in my summer course in general ecology performed a “bioblitz” at the field station, including camera trapping, vegetation sampling, insect trapping, and soil sampling.
Native Plant Conservation
We hosted the 17th annual Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance symposium, which was a huge success with over 100 attendees. In addition, we have begun the construction of a native plant safeguarding and propagation facility at the KSU Field Station.
Graduate Student Community
In continuing a tradition we started in 2022, our lab organized the second annual Biology Chili Cookoff. The trophy in 2023 went to Dr. Whitney Preisser. Congratulations! And last, but not least, below is the second KSU Biology Research Rollcall video:
