Stories

Carnivorous plants have a wild array of adaptations that help them flourish in nutrient-poor environments, which include strategies to lure prey to their traps. John Horner, TCU biology professor, is an evolutionary ecologist with research interests in plant-insect interactions. Here he answers some in-depth questions about these fascinating plants.

Biology graduate student, Kimberlee Whitmore, biology alumna, Maddy Hannappel, and Matt Chumchal, biology professor and director of the Pre-Health Professions Institute, worked with a team of high school students and their teacher, Andrew Brinker, from the Texas Academy of Biomedical Sciences. They collected dragonflies for the Dragonfly Mercury Project at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge.

TCU is involved in conservation and preservation efforts. This Earth Day, we look back at stories on how the College of Science & Engineering is making an impact, both locally and globally.

Matt Chumchal, TCU professor of biology, along with eight coauthors, recently had a paper, "Use of Riparian Spiders as Sentinels of Persistent and Bioavailable Chemical Contaminants in Aquatic Ecosystems: A Review," published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (ET&C), an international scientific journal. The article reviews the use of riparian spiders as sentinels of environmental pollution, and suggests the development of national-scale programs to monitor chemical contaminants in aquatic ecosystems using spiders.

Associate professor of biology, Marlo Jeffries, and co-PI Dalton Allen (M.S. Biology 2021, Ph.D. Biology 2024) were awarded a $10,164 grant from the American Association of Laboratory Animal Sciences (AALAS) to support portions of Allen's dissertation work that aims to determine whether toxicological tests that feature marine fish embryos or invertebrates can replace those that use marine fish larvae.

Annemarie Thompson, a senior biology major at TCU, founded Crafts & Conversations. Its objective is to connect students with seniors at Trinity Terrace, a Fort Worth retirement community, through fun crafting projects and conversation.