Evolutionary Ecology of Fishes Laboratory: Lab News

Updated: March 23, 2008

March 2008

Ron participated in two "Dinner with a Scientist" events this month. The program brings 5th through 10th graders together with scientists to interest you people in careers in science. The first was March 11 at the Stockton Grand Hotel and the second was at UC Merced. The latter was written up in the Saturday March 22 issue of the Merced SunStar including a photo of Ron explaining to a student how to use an underwater camera.

James Phillips competed in the CSUS Student Research Competition on March 15 and was one of the ten Sac State students selected to go on to the statewide competition being held at CSU East Bay in May.

Erika Holland has accepted an offer to do her PhD at UC Davis with Dr. Inge Werner.

February 2008

Ron was awarded a University Enterprises Incorporated grant for his Costa Rican fieldwork.

January 2008

The NSF awarded a Research Network grant to La Selva. In this grant, Ron is the "fish person".

Ron, Selina Cole, Christine Capelle and Samantha Hilber travelled to Costa Rica to continue work on the riverine cichlids.

November 2007

James Philllips successfully defended his Masters thesis "Reproductive Ecology of the plainfin midshipman, Porichthys notatus" on November 28. James completed his thesis in under two years and is the first in the lab to do so.

Beth Glidewell presented a poster of her Honors thesis "Sexual dimorphism in the Convict Cichlid" and was one of three winners in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology section at the 108th Annual Meeting and Student Research Compettion of Sigma Xi, Orlando, Florida, November 1-4.

Ron attended the 108th Annual Meeting and Student Research Compettion of Sigma Xi, Orlando, Florida, November 1-4 as the Sacramento State representative.

Ron attended the ABRCMS meeting in Austin, Texas as part of the Sac State team.

October 2007

Ron gave a talk about his research at Rutgers University, in New Jersey.

Danielle Delaporte successfully defended her Masters thesis "Effects of Predator Size and Lag Time between Attacks on Parental Care by Female Archocentrus nigrofasciatus" .

September 2007

Robyn, Erika and James all presented at the American Fisheries Society conference held in San Francisco.

August 2007

Stephen Stringer turned in his thesis and is done. He is starting a new job with HDR/SWRI consulting.

July 2007

Ron was the Show Chair of the American Cichlid Association annual convention, held in Sacramento. This was the first time the convention was held on the west coast since 1995. The convention was a great success. Several members of the lab helped setup some of the 300+ fish tanks at the start of the convention. Ron also spoke at the conference.

Bianka Bommarito was awarded a Guy Jordan research grant from the American Cichlid Association.

May 2007

Ron spoke at the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association "Cichlid Classic"

Ron was invited to and attended the "Changing Forests" workshop held at La Selva Biological Station, in Costa Rica.

April 2007

Ron chaired the American River Watershed Conference held April 12-13, 2007 at Sacramento State. The event brought hundreds of politicians, policy makers, planners, scientists and agency folks to campus. Erika and Robyn presented oral papers at the conference.

March 2007

Ron spoke at the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association (San Jose, CA) and at the Greater Portland Aquarium Society (GPASI).

February 2007

Beth, Kim and Erika competed in the CSUS Student Research Competition.

Ron spoke at the California Organization for Aquatic Show Tropicals (COAST) in Orange County.

January 2007

Ron completed another successful field season in Costa Rica, with Samantha Hilber as his field assistant. Meanwhile, Luli explored the waters of northern Argentina.

Geoff Teigen and Dan Worth joined the lab and Bianka has returned to finish her thesis. Geoff will be working on gene flow and conservation issues of frogs in Peru, while Dan will be working with striped bass predation on juvenile salmonids here in the Delta.

December 2006

Laura Cholodenko successfully passed her oral thesis defense on Friday, December 1 and Robyn Bilski successfully passed her Advancement to Candidacy.

November 2006

Lynn Drennan successfully passed her oral thesis defense on Friday, November 17, 2006. Later that day, Erika Holland successfully passed her Advancement to Candidacy.

Richard Aguirre and Carlos Montanez presented their posters at the 2006 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) held Nov 8-11, in Anaheim, California.

The lab acquired a pair of Paratilapia polleni "large spot", a rare cichlid from Madagascar. They must like their new home because the female already laid eggs. Unfortunately, as a safety precaution, the male and female were separated at the time by a solid acrylic barrier, so none of the eggs were fertilized. They are the most unusual cichlid eggs -- they do not stick to the substrate, but rather are attached to each other by a string-like filament. Very cool stuff!

October 2006

Liz Hanson (from Mira Loma high school) joined the lab to work on testing the swimming ability of very young fishes.

September 2006

Paul Clerkin joined the lab to work on an undergraduate research project. He is working on semelcavous vs. iterocavous mouthbrooding cichlids.

Mark Dendy is now doing his Masters degree through the University of Maryland but will be conducting his out here on the West Coast with some supervision provided by Ron Coleman.

Both Richard Aguirre and Carlos Montanez have had their abstracts accepted to present as posters at the 2006 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) to be held Nov 8-11, in Anaheim, California.

Kim Nelson has joined the lab to do her undergraduate Honors thesis. She will be working on the biochemistry of cichlid eggs.

Unfortunately, Bianka Bommarito has decided not to continue pursuing her Masters degree at this time.

June 2006

Two more undergraduates, Richard Aguirre and Carlos Montanez, have joined the lab as part of the SEE summer research program.

Ron, Luli and Samantha participated in the Ecological and Evolutionary Ethology of Fishes (EEEF) 2006 conference at Aliso Viejo, CA. Ron presented a talk by Nina Kogut and himself (her Master's thesis work) and Samantha presented her undergraduate Honor's thesis work.

May 2006

Sac State sent a team of two students to the recent 20th Annual CSU Student Research Competition, held May 5 and 6th, at CSU Channel Islands. Our two competitors were Elaine Manzanilla and Andro Rios.  Andro won first place in the Undergraduate Biological and Agricultural Sciences Session with his talk "The Power of the Bergman Cyclization: Design and Synthesis of Light-Activated Pro-Drugs".  This is the second time in three years that Sac State has won the Biological Sciences Undergraduate session.  The team was coached by Ron.

April 2006

Beth Glidewell has joined the lab to do her undergraduate Honor's thesis project this summer and next year.

March 2006

Ron was invited as one of a handful of scientists to participate in the Modesto "Dinner with a Scientist" program. It was great. This program is designed to introduce middle schoolers to the possibility of careers in Math, Science and Engineering.

February 2006

Two undergraduates joined us doing "199's": Courtney Ray and Mark Dendy. Courtney is interested in cichlid behavior.  She is a recent transfer student from junior college and will likely be with us for awhile. Mark Dendy will be working on a sculpin project in the field.  Mark is a graduating senior who teaches at a small, local high school -- in fact, he IS the science department, teaching everything from physics to biology.

January 2006

Ron and Samantha did field work in Costa Rica for over three weeks.

Rob presented at the Declining Amphibian Task Force conference in Arcata.

Erika presented at the CSUPERB conference in San Jose.

Three new graduate students joined the lab: Robyn Billski, James Phillips and Luciana Ramirez.

Lesley's research award was written up in the December 2005 issue of the Buntbarsche Bulletin (Journal of the American Cichlid Association).

December 2005

Rob Grasso successfully defended his thesis and both Lynn Drennan and Stephen Stringer successfully passed their advancement to candidacy exams.

November 2005

Samantha was awarded the Clair A. Hill Water Agency Award for Excellence from the Carmichael Water District for her outstanding record as an undergraduate and for her passion for water-related research. This was written up in the Association of California Water Agencies Newsletter, vol 33, No. 24.

Samantha presented her Honors thesis research in the student competition at the annual meeting of Sigma Xi, in Seattle, Washington, November 4. Her poster paper was entitled "Egg Size Through Consecutive Spawnings in the Convict Cichlid"

October 2005

Lynn Drennan was awarded the Mark Tomasello Grant from the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association.

August 2005

Lesley was awarded a research grant from the Guy Jordan Fund of the American Cichlid Association.

Bianka Bommarito, Patrick Crain and Erica Holland joined the lab for Masters degrees. Elif Fehm-Sullivan and Shelly Amrhein have withdrawn from the lab. DJ Eichenberger has decided to pursue her Masters on mammals with Dr. Lancaster.

Ron visited British Columbia where he personally saw Enos Lake sticklebacks.

July 2005

Samantha, Bianka and Ron went to the annual American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists meeting in Tampa, Florida. All three presented oral papers. In addition, Ron presented a poster by Rob Grasso, Ron and Carlos Davidson.

May 2005

Nina Kogut graduated with her Master's degree and Ameer Thompson and Bianka Bommarito graduated with their Bachelor of Science degrees. Congratulations to all of them!

Ameer Thompson was one of two NSM undergraduates selected to give speeches at convocation -- Ameer's speech was fabulous!

Nina Kogut successfully defended her Master's thesis and turned it in. She is now done! Nina will continue with her position with the California Department of Fish and Game.

Lynn Drennan and Laura Cholodenko each won two awards at the recent Department end-of-year pizza party. Lynn won an Outstanding Teaching Assistant award and a Biological Conservation scholarship. Laura won a Biological Conservation scholarship and the Jack and Bernice Newell Scholarship from the Sacramento Safari Club.

April 2005

Rob Grasso shared second place in the Biological Sciences Graduate Student session at the CSU systemwide Student Research Competition held at CSUS on April 29-30. Bianka Bommarito and Samantha Hilber both competed in the Undergraduate Biological & Agricultural Sciences session.

Laura Cholodenko passed her Advancement to Candidacy exam.

Guthrum Purdin has been accepted into the Vet program at UC Davis and will be starting there in the fall.

Rob Grasso passed his Advancement to Candidacy exam.

March 2005

Lesley Hamamoto was awarded a $500 research grant from the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association, which was presented at their meeting in San Jose on March 12.

A story on Ron's community service and the Cichlid Egg Project appeared in the CSUS Bulletin, Vol. 11, Number 22, entitled "Coleman's community service helps humans, fish."

Rob Grasso, Bianka Bommarito and Samantha Hilber competed in the CSUS Student Research competition (March 5). Rob was co-winner (along with Rebecca Money of Engineering). Rob, Bianka and Samantha were all selected to go on to the systemwide competition to be held at CSUS on April 29-30.

Gena Lasko has joined the lab for her Masters degree.

February 2005

Samantha Hilber was awarded a Faculty Merit Scholarship, one of only three given to undergraduates at CSUS.

The proposal Ron and DJ submitted to the Water Forum was funded.

Guthrum Purdin has joined the lab for his Masters degree.

Rob Grasso was awarded a Valentine Reserve research grant.

January 2005

Ron, Sam, Elif, Brandon, Shelly and Luciana (Luli) Ramirez survived a trip to Costa Rica.

Rob presented a poster at the Declining Amphibian Task Force meetings held at ???

Laura presented a poster at the Bay Area Conservation conference held at Stanford.

December 2004

Both Martha and Lissa Thompson turned in their Master's theses; they are now done!

Martha Volkoff successfully defended her Master's thesis.

November 2004

Teresa Kirkpatrick presented a poster at the AGEP conference at UCSF.

October 2004

Lissa Thompson passed her oral thesis defense for her MS degree.

Teresa Kirkpatrick was selected for the McNair Scholar program.

September 2004

Nina Kogut passed her Advancement to candidacy exam.

Stephen Stringer has joined the lab as an incoming graduate student. Stephen was an undergraduate at CSUS and is very interested in fisheries research. He currently works at an environmental consulting firm. His research will have to do with fish and/or fisheries in the Lower American River.

Courtney Dietz, former member of the lab, started a Masters program at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

August 2004

Lynn Drennan was awarded a $900 research grant from the American Cichlid Association.

Allison Berke is off to the Massechusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to begin her undergraduate degree.

Camelia Bianchi, former member of the lab, started a Master of Environmental Science degree at Washington State University (Vancouver campus). Her supervisor is Brian Tissot.

July 2004

Allison Berke, a recent graduate of Mira Loma High School, joined the lab for the summer. She participated in several projects including egg hatching experiments as well as analysis of water temperature data from the Rio Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica.

Madeline Majer headed off to Dental School at the University of Michigan.

Martha Volkoff flew to Australia to present her work on identifying juvenile salmon using their otoliths at the Salmonid Otolith Conference.

Ron gave a public lecture at the Sacramento Aquarium Society.

June 2004

Ameer Thompson went out east to New York University to do a summer internship on neural physiology.

Ron and Robin went to the Animal Behavior Conference in Oaxaca. Ameer joined us from New York (what a jet-setter!). Ameer and Ron presented separate oral papers.

Allison Berke joined the lab for the summer working on various projects having to do with cichlid eggs and temperature.

Sam started her Honors work looking at egg size variation through the spawning sequence using convict cichlids.

Rob spent the month in the field working with Yosemite toads at SNARL (Sierra Nevada Alpine Research Lab?).

Laura began her field work on amphibians in northern California.

Bianka finished up her project on growth in juvenile mouthbrooders and found some fascinating patterns.

Ron gave a public lecture at the San Francisco Aquarium Society.

 

May 2004

DJ Eichenberger graduated from CSUS with a B.S. in Biological Sciences. She graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Ron spoke at CSU Hayward on his research on egg size as well as an overview of the lab.

Autum Bahlman and Mike Cain visited La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica to scout out future Masters projects.

DJ Eichenberger presented her Honor's thesis work at the West Coast Undergraduate Biological Sciences Conference at Point Loma University in San Diego.

Ameer Thompson won first place in Session 18 (Biological and Agricultural Sciences -- Undergraduate) at the CSU Student Research Competition held at CSU Northridge. There were 19 different sessions covering just about every academic discipline you could think of. The CSUS team of seven students walked away with 3 firsts and a second place. They did not award overall prizes, just first and second place in each of the 19 sessions. Next year, the competition is being held here at CSUS!

Danelle Delaporte was accepted into the teaching credential program.

April 2004

Ron gave a talk at the Silicon Valley Aquarium Society.

Madeline Majer was accepted into several Dental Schools and has decided to go to University of Michigan next fall to pursue her DDS degree.

March 2004

Ameer Thompson won the CSUS Student Research Competition.

January 2004

Rochelle (Shelly) Amrhein joined the lab as a Masters student.

Ron, Maddy, Autumn and Jennifer spent three weeks in the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica studying cichlid reproductive biology. They continued the long-term studies of the cichlids of the Rio Puerto Viejo at the La Selva Biological Station, but they also visited dozens of other sites in eastern Costa Rica, between Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui and Cahuita on the coast. .

December 2003

Martha Volkoff had her abstract accepted for a poster presentation at 3rd International Symposium on Ototlith Research and Application, to be held 11-16 July in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.

Martha Volkoff passed her Advancement to Candidacy Examination, December 10.

November 2003

Ameer Thompson presented a poster at the Sigma Xi national conference in Los Angeles. His poster was extremely well-received and was given a rating of "Superior" by the judges. Listed in CSUS Bulletin, Jan 26, 2004 (volume 10, number 16)

Lissa Thompson passed her Advancement to Candidacy Examination, November 11.

Alison Galvani (former student), published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with coauthor Montgomery Slatkin, on smallpox. The paper was written about in an article on vaccination and immunology in the Economist [vol 369, number 8351, pp. 77-78].

Ron presented at the Ohio Cichlid Extravaganza and at the Canadian Cichlid Association in Winnipeg.

October 2003

Ameer Thompson had his abstract accepted for the Sigma Xi conference in Los Angeles in November and received some funding from Sac State to attend the conference.

The lab was open for Homecoming.

September 2003

Bianka Bommarito joined the lab for a 199 project on cichlids.

August 2003

Elif Akaaboune, Laura Cholodenko, Lynn Drennan and Rob Grasso joined the lab as Master's students.

Ron presented at the Southern California Cichlid Association in Los Angeles.

July 2003

Ron (and Robin) and Ameer travelled to Manaus, Brazil for the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists annual meeting. They had a great time. Ron presented an oral paper and Ameer presented a poster.

May 2003

Lesley Hamamoto and Martha Volkoff joined the lab as Masters students. DJ Eichenberger joined the lab for her Undergraduate Honors project.

March 2003

Lissa Thompson was awarded a research grant from the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association for her work on mouthbrooding cichlids. .

Danielle Delaporte joined the lab as a Masters student.

February 2003

Ron published the following paper:

Galvani A.P., Coleman, R.M. and N.M. Ferguson (2003) The maintenance of sex in parasites.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 270:19-28.

January 2003

Ron, Erin and Courtney spent three weeks in the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica, studying cichlids and tropical biology. Most of the research was done in the Rio Puerto Viejo, at the La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, although they also visited a number of other local rivers.

December 2002

"Fish parenting", a story on Ron Coleman's cichlid research by Dierdre Fitzpatrick, appeared on KCRA (Channel 3) 5pm News, December 3.

November 2002

The Folsom Telegraph ran a cover story on Ron's Fisheries Biology class and their survey of Willow Creek. (November 20)

Ameer Thompson was made a McNair Scholar, a prestigious award.

September 2002

Ameer Thompson joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher. Ameer and Lissa begin experiment on Eyespots, following up on the success of a pilot experiment Ron did with 5 excellent STP students in August. .

July 2002

Ron presented a paper titled "Egg Size of Cichlid Fishes" at the 10th meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Ecologists, in Montreal, Canada. As usual, the meetings were fascinating and invigorating, displaying the incredible diversity of research in Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecological research from around the world.

June 2002

After months of work, the remodelled fish room is nearly ready to go!

May 2002

Bernie Lau joined the lab. Bernie will be working on the effects of environmental estrogens on fishes.

January 2002

Melissa Thompson and Nina Kogut have joined the lab to pursue their MSc research. Melissa will likely be working on the reproductive biology of Sacramento perch (the native sunfish in California) while Nina will be working on diet choice in white sturgeon.

Ron, Camelia and Adriana made a successful two-week trip to the La Selva Biological Station in the northeastern lowlands of Costa Rica. As part of Ron's ongoing research at La Selva, we were interested in knowing if the cichlid fishes breed at the start of the "dry" season -- they do!

 

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