Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! 

Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time. Experience firsthand what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens! 

You will be picking and sorting 3,000 to 30,000-year-old fossil specimens from rock matrix that has been brought back from Natural Trap Cave, WY. These specimens are part of many research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that used to live in North America. 

You are welcome to participate anytime that is convenient, with no commitment necessary. In fact, you can drop in or leave anytime within the two-hour timeframe. All are welcome, so bring your friends! 

For more information join the mailing list and/or contact Katie Slenker (kslenker3@gatech.edu) or Jenny McGuire (jmcguire@gatech.edu).

​* No T. rex actually helped with the excavations of Natural Trap Cave as their arms would be much too small.

Due to Inclement weather, this in-person session has moved online.

Prepare to showcase your scientific expertise at career fairs and networking events with confidence! 

"CoS Under the Scope: Selling Your Science" is designed to help students craft compelling personal narratives and refine their professional communication skills. Gain insights into making impactful first impressions and learn strategies to highlight your unique strengths as a science student. This interactive session is your key to standing out in a competitive job market.

Register via Career Buzz and Zoom.

Astract: Fishes exhibit remarkable adaptability, navigating complex aquatic habitats while balancing competing demands that influence their locomotion mechanics and energetics. This extraordinary ability to sense and maneuver through fluid environments offers valuable insights for advancing autonomous underwater vehicle technology. However, our understanding of how fishes detect and navigate their surroundings, especially during dynamic behaviors, remains limited. In this presentation, I will discuss advances made by my laboratory in elucidating the diversity, energetics, and underlying mechanisms of fish locomotion. I will demonstrate how the environment shapes the costs of swimming through the ability of fishes to recapture energy from turbulence, causes the convergence of body kinematics during acceleration, and impacts the collective behavior of fish schools. Additionally, I will highlight our progress using zebrafish and cavefish model systems to elucidate the response properties and evolution of the lateral line system in fishes, a sensory modality required for swimming, schooling, and predator-prey interactions. Finally, I will outline our innovative approaches to studying behavior in naturalistic mesocosms and field settings, aiming to translate fundamental scientific discoveries into practical applications for conservation, ecological management, and the development of cutting-edge, bio-inspired technologies.

Abstract: Nuclear speckles, a type of membrane-less nuclear body, are increasingly recognized as dynamic regulators of 3D genome organization and gene expression. My talk will explore the connection between nuclear speckles and chromatin architecture, highlighting how this association coordinates gene expression and influences pathways involved in stress responses and diseases, including cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Abstract: Nectar-feeding bats defy mammalian norms by thriving on sugar-rich diets that would typically induce glucotoxicity in other mammals. Consuming up to 1.5 times their body weight in nectar daily, they offer a natural model for studying metabolic resilience. My research explores their adaptations in digestive physiology, glucose regulation, and energy metabolism that enable them to sustain extreme hyperglycemia while maintaining metabolic health. In Part 1, I will discuss the anatomical and cellular adaptations in the small intestine that support their capacity for extreme hyperglycemia. Nectar-feeding bats exhibit an elongated duodenum and increased microvilli absorption, enhancing glucose uptake. Positive selection in glucose transporters, particularly GLUT2, which shows elevated expression in the duodenum, underscores the gut’s role in regulating blood glucose levels and supporting a sugar-rich diet. Part 2 focuses on glucose homeostasis and muscle-specific adaptations. Using metabolomics, proteomics, and RNA sequencing, I identified altered insulin signaling and energy storage strategies that promote glucose utilization for immediate energy rather than glycogen synthesis. Exercise-mediated glucose homeostasis also supports their high-energy demands during flight. In Part 3, I will present molecular tools developed for this research, including stable cell lines (fibroblast and muscle), a lipidomics and metabolomics platform, and a single-cell energy metabolism profiling assay using flow cytometry. These resources reveal how bats utilize glycolysis, fatty acid oxidation, and amino acid oxidation for ATP production. Ultimately, I will discuss how these findings pave the way for uncovering novel principles of metabolic adaptation, enhancing our understanding of nectar-feeding bats and offering potential insights into strategies for managing human metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity.

Abstract: Slithering, sprinting, swimming, soaring – virtually all vertebrate animal motion relies on the joints that hold our skeletons together. However, despite our ability to repair torn ACLs and replace faulty hips in humans, we have a surprisingly poor understanding of how joints work at a basic level. Disentangling how the structure of joints relates to their function is essential to explaining the anatomical basis of adaptations, attributing functional diversity to differences in morphology versus behavioral plasticity, and anticipating how animals will move and migrate through risky and ever-changing environments. In this seminar, I will discuss how integrating methods and approaches from disparate fields like paleontology, computer animation, and cartography empowers us to illuminate (1) how joints work and (2) where they come from, both developmentally and evolutionarily. In the process, I will share explorations of joint form and function from across the vertebrate body plan (from skulls to toes) and phylogenetic tree (from sharks to humans).