My students and I have applied the knowledge and expertise we’ve gained from fundamental research to problems of societal concern. In my case, I served for several years as chair of NOAA Fisheries Recovery Science Review Panel, advising NOAA Fisheries on steps to recover over two dozen endangered or threatened groups of Pacific salmon. I’ve also lent my expertise to the Florida Wildlife Commission staff in reviewing models for demography of Florida Black Bears. On a larger stage, I served on a National Academy of Sciences committee that wrote a report about the ethical conduct of what is called gene drive research, which is a very promising approach to controlling the insects that carry malaria, dengue, and other diseases. My former students like Margaret Aresco, Mike Blouin, Felicia Coleman, Claude Gascon, Mike McManus, and Mark Schwartz, among others, have made lasting contributions to conservation, environmental protection, and fisheries biology and management.
Joseph Travis
Principal Investigator
I joined the lab in the Fall 2017. I received my B.S. in Ecology and Evolution from North Carolina State. As an undergraduate I studied the impacts of climate change and fire on the life cycle of rare butterfly species in North Carolina and southern Florida. I was also involved in various fish project under Dr. Brian Langerhans studying the causes of rapid evolutionary changes in phenotypes, as well as variability in poeciliid genital morphology, which led me to graduate school at Florida State. My current research focuses on better understanding the evolution and ecology of microbial symbionts in the digestive system of fish. In particular, I'm interested in identifying the role of digestive system microbial symbionts in alleviating the nutrient loading stress in local freshwater systems, using metagenomic and metaproteomic analysis of key microbial species.
Ben Pluer
Graduate Student
Sarah Kettelkamp
Graduate Student
I joined the lab in Fall 2017. I received by B.S. in Biology from Florida State University in December 2016. As an undergraduate, I worked under Dr. Wei Yang on the evaluation of potential energy surfaces in molecule solvation, as well as under Dr. David Houle on the artificial selection of wing shape in Drosophila melanogaster. I also interned at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to create an eLearning course on Eastern indigo snakes. My current research focuses on the genetics of sexual conflict, specifically the evolution of female resistance to male harm in D. melanogaster.
I received my B.S. in Wildlife from Purdue University in December 2017, and joined the lab in Fall 2020. During one semester in my undergraduate studies, I worked on research projects in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on a wide range of species from flowering plants and trees to fish and mammals. I also interned at the Salisbury Zoo in Maryland working hands on with the animals there and educating guests. My current research project focuses on geographic overlap of poeciliid populations.
Sierra Lundstrom
Graduate Student
I started in the lab as a volunteer with Alex Landy in the summer of 2015. During my time I became skilled in fish husbandry and earned DIS credit studying sex ratios in broods of Heterandria. From there I began working on the computer collecting data for the Trinidad Guppy Project, and I am now in charge of training new volunteers for both fish husbandry and data collection as Lab Manager. Starting Fall 2021, I will be studying for a Masters in Geographic Information Science, and I look forward to learning how I can apply this new skill back to the Travis lab.
Brighton Campbell
Lab Manager