Join us tomorrow for our Biology Seminar Come a little early to chat and enjoy coffee and cookies 🎙️ Speaker: Jesse Lasky, Professor, Penn State 🌿 Title: Environmental adaptation in plant populations 🕛 Time: 12:00–1:00 PM 📍 Location: 8 Müller Lab We hope to see you there!

Join us tomorrow for our first Biology Seminar of the semester! 🎉 Come a little early to chat with colleagues and enjoy some coffee and cookies before the seminar. ☕🍪 We hope to see you there!

Our seminars will start next Tuesday! More details on Monday. We are excited to see you all again

We’d love to feature what our Biology community has been working on! 🐸🔬🌱

Dear Bio Community! 🧬🌿 Have you been enjoying our new summer fieldwork highlights? We’d love to share your stories too! If you’ve been doing fieldwork, lab work, or other exciting research that we could highlight on the Department of Biology’s social media, please comment here or reach out to us.

These sediment records may help reveal when Bd arrived, how it spread, and how amphibian communities changed through time. A huge field effort made possible by an incredible research team! 🐸🧬🏔️ 📸 All photos by Anton Sorokin @Anuranton 6/6

Why go to all that trouble? Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is an invasive fungal pathogen linked to more amphibian extinctions than any other known infectious disease. But much of its early spread happened before scientists detected it. 5/6

At the lake, the team inflated backpack kayaks, paddled to the deepest point—65 feet—and collected four sediment cores. Then came the 5-mile hike back out. They were on the move from 4 AM until 11 PM. 🚣🏔️ 4/6

Getting those cores was no small task. One day started at 4 AM with a drive into Yosemite, followed by a 4-mile hike, another mile of bushwhacking, and 50-lb backpacks—all before the sampling even began. 🥾 3/6

The goal: reconstruct the history of pathogen invasion using freshwater sediment cores. Lake sediments preserve DNA shed by aquatic organisms in chronological layers—creating a natural archive of host-pathogen interactions through time. 🧬 2/6

🧵 Fieldwork Highlight: From 4 AM starts to 50-lb backpacks, this team headed deep into California’s Sierra Nevada to uncover the hidden history of an amphibian pathogen. 🏔️🐸 Their destination? Backcountry lakes in Yosemite National Park and Sierra National Forest. 1/6

You’re Invited! Welcome Social: Meet, Mingle, & Connect! �� Join BMMB, HGSAC, and Biology for a Meet & Mingle event as we welcome our new and incoming graduate students to the community!

🌱 We’re hiring in Plant Biology at Penn State! The Department of Biology at Penn State University Park is searching for a tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professor in any area of plant biology.