PEOPLE & RESEARCH Stephen Vander Wall, Dale W. Johnson, Gary Blomquist, Alan Gubanich Stephen Vander Wall -- Associate Professor, Dept of Biology; Director of Whittell Forest & Wildlife Area Field Station sv@unr.edu, website Dr. Stephen B. Vander Wall is the director of the Whittell Forest and Wildlife Area. He and his graduate students study plant-animal interactions. They are currently conducting research on the dispersal of pine (Jeffrey, sugar, ponderosa, pinon, and others) and shrub (bitterbrush, chinquapin) seeds by rodents and jays, focusing most of their activities in Little Valley (i.e., the Whittell Forest) in the Carson Range of western Nevada. These animals, primarily yellow pine chipmunks, cache seeds in shallow, scattered sites in the soil. Seeds that are not retrieved by spring germinate, resulting in plant establishment. The relationships between these plants and animals are mutualistic; the rodents receive a nutritious food supply and the plants are disseminated throughout the region. These plant-animal interactions are excellent model systems for studying the process of plant dispersal by food-hoarding animals. Vander Wall and his students are also studying how rodents use spatial memory and olfaction to recover cached food. Vander Wall, S. B. 1991. Mechanisms of cache recovery by yellow pine chipmunks. Animal Behaviour 41:851-863. Vander Wall, S. B. 1992. The role of animals in dispersing a "wind-dispersed" pines. Ecology 73:614-621. Vander Wall, S. B. 1992. Establishment of Jeffrey pine seedlings from animal caches. Western Journal of Applied Forestry 7:14-20. For a full listing click here Link to graduate student pages Dale W. Johnson -- Professor, Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Science dwj@cabnr.unr.edu, website Research interests include soil chemistry and terrestrial nutrient cycling and their effects on plant nutrition and water quality. Past research has included effects of air pollution, forest management, climate change and elevated carbon dioxide. Current research focusses on the effects of fire (wildfire and prescribed fire) on soils and biogeochemical cycling, including the effects of post-fire nitrogen-fixing vegetation. Caldwell. T.G., D. W. Johnson, W. W. Miller, and R. G. Qualls. 2002. Forest Floor Carbon and Nitrogen Losses Due to Prescription Fire. Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 66:262-267. Johnson, D.W., R.B. Susfalk, H.L. Gholz, and P.J. Hanson. 2001. Simulated effects of temperature and precipitation change in several forest ecosystems. J. Hydrology 235: 183-204. Johnson, D.W., R.B. Susfalk, R.A. Dahlgren, T.G. Caldwell and W.W. Miller. 2001. Nutrient fluxes in a snow-dominated, semi-arid forest: Spatial and temporal patterns. Biogeochemistry  55:219-24 For a complete listing of Biogeochemical Cycling publications click here Gary Blomquist -- Professor and Departmental Chair, Dept. of Biochemistry blomquis@unr.edu, website Bark beetles are the most destructive pest of coniferous forests in North America, and are a serious problem in the Tahoe basin, Little Valley and in Pinyon pine forests throughout Nevada and the Southwest. Bark beetles use aggregation pheromones to orchestrate the ‘mass attack’ that is necessary to colonize host trees. Ongoing studies are designed to gain an understanding of the endocrine regulation of isoprenoid pheromone production in selected bark beetle species. We use a combination of biochemical and molecular approaches to determine how juvenile hormone regulates pheromone production, including both genomic and proteomic techniques. In collaboration with Dr. Tittiger’s laboratory, we are looking at the mode of action of juvenile hormone in inducing pheromone production. These studies are funded by the NSF, USDA-NRI and USDA-Hatch. Many of beetles that we use in these studies are harvested from infested trees in Little Valley. G. M. Hall, C. Tittiger, G. Andrews, G. Mastick, M. Kuenzli, X. Luo, S.J. Seybold and G.J. Blomquist. Male pine engraver Beetles, Ips pini, synthesize the monoterpenoid pheromone ipsdienol de novo in midgut tissue. Naturwissenschaften 89:79-83 (2002). G.M. Hall, C. Tittiger, G.J. Blomquist, G. Andrews, G. Mastick, L.A. Barkawi, Cody S. Bengoa, and S. J. Seybold. Male Jeffrey Pine Beetles, Dendroctonus jeffreyi, synthesize the pheromone component frontalin in anterior midgut tissue. Insect Biochem. Mol. Biol. 32:1525-1532 (2002). J.B. Nardi, A. Gilg Young, E. Ujhelyi, C. Tittiger, M.J. Lehane and G.J. Blomquist. Specialization of midgut cells for synthesis of male isoprenoid pheromone in two scolytid beetles, Dendroctonus jeffreyi and Ips pini. Tissue and Cell. 226:221-231 (2002). For a complete listing click here Alan Gubanich -- Emeritus faculty, Department of Biology, UNR. aag@scs.unr.edu Dr. Alan A. Gubanich was a faculty member of the UNR Department of Biology from 1970 to 2005. He has been banding birds in Little Valley since the summer of 1994 as part of the MAPS program (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship), a nation-wide effort created and administered by the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP) headquartered in Pt. Reyes, CA. The MAPS program is an attempt to assess and monitor the population health and demographics of North American landbirds across the continent. The program uses constant-effort mist netting and banding to collect data on avian populations during the breeding season (mid-May to early August in Little Valley). Almost all the bird banders are volunteers. Anyone interested in helping with this or other MAPS banding stations in northern Nevada should contact Dr. Gubanich (other stations are located at McCarran Ranch and along the Carson River). For more information on the MAPS program, go to the IBP website at http://birdpop.org and click on the MAPS link.