Three Biology faculty publish research with Ursinus students

Dr. Denise Finney published a paper titled “Forage species identity shapes soil biota in a temperate agroecosystem” in the journal Sustainability. Students Matt Kenwood and Sam Garritano are co-authors on this study that investigated the role of belowground microbial communities in increasing plant diversity in crops.

Dr. Rebecca Roberts, along with students Britney Dyszel and Kailey Martin, are co-authors on a paper titled “Evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 proteome in three dimensions (3D) during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic” that has been accepted for publication in the journal Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics. This study was conducted during the summer of 2020 in a collaboration with the Institute of Quantitative Biology at Rutgers University.

Dr. Cory Straub acknowledges the contributions of his research students Alex Bailey, Gabby Altmire, Emily Klein, and Dan Bliss in an article titled “Landscape complexity promotes resilience of biological pest control to climate change”. The paper, published in Proceedings of The Royal Society, concludes that conservation of non-crop habitats in agricultural landscapes can confer resilience to ecosystems experiencing climate change.