17 Aug 2011

We welcome aboard new graduate student Catherine Brunsen, B.Sc., University of Houston. Her research interests include the natural history of coral-reef invertebrates. The tentative subject of Cat's Masters thesis will be the management and conservation of Guam's commercially valuable holothuroids.

21 Jun 2011

The Union of Concerned Scientists in partnership with the Ecological Society of America (ESA) honored five young scientists, including Ann Marie Gawel for their contributions to the discipline of ecology that have extended beyond the realm of academia and into the broader communities of which they are a part. The award consists of a cash prize and a commemorative plaque given during the 96th annual conference of the ESA in Austin, Texas.

17 Jan 2011

We welcome aboard new graduate student Allison Miller, B.Sc., University of California at San Diego. Her research interests include the biology of corals and echinoderms. The tentative subject of Allison's Masters thesis will be the molecular phylogenetics of Holothuroidea.

16 Sep 2010

Alex Kerr is part of a team of principal investigators (D. Janies, Ohio State, Lead Investigator) awarded a five-year grant of $3 million from the National Science Foundation for their collaborative project entitled "Assembling the Echinoderm Tree of Life". The goal of the research is to resolve the broad-scale relationships among extant and extinct forms of echinoderms using genomic and morphological data, as well as provide a phylogenetic platform to test hypotheses from paleobiology and developmental biology about the evolution of this group.

21 Jun 2010

Alex Kerr with co-authors A. Baird and T. Hughes (both James Cook University, Australia) present findings in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society. Using a comprehensive phylogeny and maximum likelihood methods, the authors reconstruct the evolution of sexual systems in corals to show that the dominant state of reproduction in most reef-building species, hermaphroditic annular spawning, has evolved via an unexpectedly complex series of shifts in reproductive types. Marine Lab Adjunct Research Associate Dave Burdick took the cover photo.

21 Jun 2010

Ann Marie Gawel presents a poster of her thesis work in progress at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America.

7 Jun 2010

Students of holothuroid systematics from around the world will converge this summer on the University of Guam's Marine Laboratory to study the latest in integrative taxonomy. The workshop, sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation and organised by Gustav Paulay (University of Florida) and Alex Kerr, will take advantage of the combined expertise of mentors from the Aspidochirote Working Group, an easily accessable and diverse Indo-Pacific coral-reef holothuroid fauna, the online literature resources developed as part of this project, as well as the well-equipped facilities at the Marine Lab. Participants hail from Belgium, Colombia, France, Guam, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Micronesia and the continental U.S.

6 April 2010

Congratulations to Sun Kim, M.Sc., for successfully defending his thesis entitled "Molecular systematics of the tropical sea cucumbers Bohadschia (Holothuriidae: Holothuroidea)". Sun has accepted a full-time position as a biologist at the Korean Oceanographic Research and Development Institute, Seoul, Korea.

5 March 2010

Alex was awarded a two-year grant of $121,000 from U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Initiative to study the population structures of Guam's holothuroids (Echinodermata). The funding will permit assessment of the management and conservation status of these often commercially valuable reef organisms as they come under the increasing threat of overexploitation.

29 September 2009

Marine Lab scientists Laurie Raymundo, Andrew Halford and Alexander Kerr, with A. Maypa, University of Hawaii, show that healthy coral reefs possess a functionally diverse fish community and a low incidence of coral disease. The authors' paper, appearing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that reefs with reduced fishing pressure incur less coral disease than those whose diversity has been reduced by overfishing. This suggests that marine protected areas can serve as a novel management tool for increasing coral health.

5 - 11 December 2009

Sun Kim collected holothuroids and other invertebrates on Yap, Federated States of Micronesia as a follow up to a previous trip by AWG members. Sun concentrated on habitats not fully examined before, bringing back important exemplars of uncommon and undescribed species known from the island. His trip was funded by PEET and an American Museum of Natural History Lerner Gray Grant for Marine Research.

15 Aug 2009

We welcome aboard new graduate student Ann Marie Gawel, B.Sc., University of Chicago. Her research interests include the conservation and management of Pacific island natural resources. The tentative subject of Ann's Masters thesis will be the effects of introduced ungulates on the native vegetation of the Mariana Islands.

20 April - 15 May 2009

Tim Werner, Boston University, will visit Guam to perform fieldwork for his PhD dissertation on the population structure of the common, Indo-Pacific holothuroid Holothuria atra.

1 April - 30 June 2009

Go-Eun "Gon" Kim, PhD candidate, under the primary advisement of Choong-Gon Kim, University of Science and Technology at Jaejeon and the Korean Ocean Research and Development Institute, will visit Alex Kerr's lab at the Marine Laboratory, University of Guam, to study the systematics of echinoderms. Gon's primary interest is in the comparative anatomy of echinoids.

12 March - 1 April 2009

Sun Kim will collect holothuroids and other invertebrates on Wake Island as part of an expedition by the NOAA research vessel Hi'ialakai. Wake's isolation and lack of comprehensive collecting efforts there, make the island of keen interest to AWG, particularly given the recent unexpected high endemicity of holothuroids and other echinoderms from other isolated northern Pacific islands.

14 February - 15 May 2009

Chad Riopel, Masters candidate, University of Guelph, Canada, will visit our lab to study the evolution and ecology of tropical holothuroids. Chad's thesis combines field experiments, phylogenetics and chemical ecology to understand the evolution of ecological interactions between holothuroids and their predators.

23 - 25 July 2008

Sun Kim and Alex Kerr presented work on aspidochirote systematics at the 11th NAEC at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. As part of the Aspidochirote Working Group, we presented five posters and six oral presentations, summarising work on the PEET project to date, including the most comprehensive phylogeny of the class and an overview of AWG's more general goal of performing large-scale integrative taxonomy.

12 - 21 July 2008

Sun Kim and Alex Kerr met with other members of the Aspidochirote Working Group at the Florida Museum of Natural History to examine the growing holothuroid collection and learn holothuroid systematics.

7 - 11 July 2008

Sun Kim and Alex Kerr will present work on aspidochirote systematics at the 11th ICRS in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. They will present half a dozen talks and posters on topics such as the cryptic diversity in the genera Actinopyga and Bohadschia, the evolution of ecological diversity in coral-reef holothuroids, as well as an overview of the Aspidochirote Working Group, its objectives and progress to date. Alex Kerr will also chair a session on reef biodiversity and phylogenetics.

2 - 10 April 2008

Sun Kim and visiting student Francois Michonneau (University of Florida) are collecting holothuroids and other echinoderms around Majuro Atoll. They will focus on obtaining representatives of the genus Bohadschia, particularly those from the B. "marmorata" complex and a recently discovered - and likely undescribed - large olive form. The photo of Majuro at left is from www.doi.gov

22 February - 8 March 2008

Sun Kim, visiting student Francois Michonneau (University of Florida), and Alex Kerr helped survey the reefs around the island of Kosrae. Technical support was provided by the Kosrae State government, who - like Yap (see below) - have requested that AWG assist Resource Management Authority with a survey of holothuroids around the island, under threat of commercial harvesting of these animals by foreign interests for export as beche-de-mer. At least four new species were found by the team, including a 50-cm long, striped Holothuria (Thymiosycia) "impatiens".

17 August 2007

We welcome aboard new graduate student Sun Wook Kim, B.Sc. cum laude, Seattle University. His research interests include the biology of nemerteans and echinoderms. Sun will pursue a M.Sc. in Biology under the advisement of AWG member Alex Kerr, University of Guam Marine Laboratory. The tentative subject of Sun's Masters thesis will be the taxonomy and phylogenetics of Bohadschia.

11 February 2008

Alex has accepted an appointment as an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies.

3 December 2007

Tom Schils and Alex Kerr were awarded (with L Raulerson, UOG CNAS) a two-year grant of $100,000 from the National Science Foundation entitled "Improvements to the GUAM Herbarium." The grant will provide funding to rennovate the university's Herbarium and digitise its collections, including the extensive holdings of marine plants.

26 July 2007

We head out to the main islets of Yap, Western Caroline Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, to conduct a survey of their echinoderm resources. At least two new species will likely be collected. Further, a comprehensive survey will be presented to Yap to assist in developing a management plan for conserving the island's commercially valuable holothuroid stocks, now under increasing threat from developed foreign interests who regularly seek to profit from young Pacific-island nations' often unregulated resources.

4 April 2007

We respond in an e-letter to a newspiece in Science, pointing out the potential futility of building coastal "greenbelts" against future tsunamis in the absence of empirical studies supporting their efficacy.

23 March 2007

Kris Netchy and Alex Kerr, with colleagues at the University of Florida and Boston University, present a poster at the NSF PEET conference on systematics at the University of Georgia, Athens GA.

3 December 2006

Our work with coral-reef sea cucumbers is now followed on a new website Systema Aspidochirotidae. The site will eventually serve as a clearinghouse for information on holothuroid systematics for the global community of cuke taxonomists.

20 May 2006

We head out to the Central Philippines to Semper's type localities. Carl Semper in the 1860's described numerous species of holothuroids from the islands of Cebu and Bohol; many of these types have been lost or are in poor condition. We will resurvey the area and collect echinoderms in an effort to clarify the validity of his species.

17 August 2006

Welcome to new graduate student Kris Netchy, from the University of Florida. Her research interests include the systematics of coral-reef holothuroids. Kris will pursue a M.Sc. in Biology; the likely subject of her Masters thesis will be the taxonomy and phylogenetics of Actinopyga.

13 April 2006

Our analysis challenges the widely reported notion that coastal forests mitigated death and damage from the catastrophic 2004 tsunami. Our paper runs counter to advice given by the United Nations Environment Program, non-government organisations, and other scientists that ‘green belts’ and buffer zones should be incorporated into reconstruction efforts to protect villages from future tsunamis. See reports by the Associated Press and New Scientist

20 December 2005

The University Magazine interviews alumni who have returned as new faculty members, including Alex. For story, click HERE

22 September 2005

Assisted with reef surveys in the northern, largely uninhabited Mariana Islands aboard the NOAA research vessel Oscar Elton Sette. Our adventures and misadventures are recorded on their MARAMP website

2 July 2005

Gustav Paulay (University of Florida) and I were awarded a PEET program grant from NSF to study the systematics and phylogenetics of coral-reef sea cucumbers. The funding will be used in part to support up to three graduate students and several undergraduate research assistants to work on the project.

18 March 2005

We published the first paper referencing Morphobank-hosted data. See the citation and data at their website.

12 January 2005

If all goes as planned, I will be joining the faculty at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory in September 2005. If you're interested in joining my lab, drop me a line (see "Contact" at left).