October 2018

Another successful, and long, field season in Western Australia’s York-Gum Jam Woodlands has been wrapped up. Abundant rain and hard work made this one a beautiful and productive year for the lab group. The crew finished up with a very well deserved celebration. L–R: Cath Bowler, Trace Martyn, Abigail Pastore, Isaac Towers and Kimberley Riddell.

March 2018

Professor Margie Mayfield has recently begun her five year tenure as Head of School in The School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland. While Margie takes on new roles and responsibilities in this exciting position, the action and adventure of research science by Margie and the lab team continues to grow. We have a diverse group of people and skills, and lots of cool projects starting and continuing. Stay tuned for some updates soon. For now, congratulations Margie, HOS.

January – February 2018

The Mayfield lab has started 2018 with some great news.  Firstly, congratulations to Tim Staples who has submitted his PhD thesis and has now joined the Marine PaleoEcology Lab at UQ as a postdoc under Professor John Pandolfi.  Tim was an integral part of the lab over the years and we would like to thank Tim for his considerable contribution and wish him all the best in the next step in his scientific career.  Congratulations also to Abigail and Malyon who presented their research at the American Society of Naturalists conference in Portland, Oregon.  We would also like to welcome two new members to the lab.  New PhD student Isaac Towers has joined the lab and will be investigating spatial coexistence mechanisms in the annual plant communities of the York-Gum woodlands of Western Australia.  Secondly, Fullbright scholar Jessa Thurman from Washington State University will also be joining the lab for the year.  During her time at at the Mayfield Lab, Jessa will be describing a new species of parasitoid wasp (Anastatus sp.) and assessing its performance on crops with and without floral resources.  Finally, our own Fullbright scholar Tori will be presenting at and attending a workshop on pollinators and pollination modelling at the Fields Institute in Toronto.

 .   Fantastic winter landscape in the U.S. Photo: Tori Reynolds