Featured Faculty Research

Roane reclaims Native American artifacts

Significant national artifacts contaminated by mercury and pesticides may be one step closer to reclamation and repatriation. In collaboration with the Arizona State Museum, Associate Professor of Biology Timberley Roane has begun testing bacteria as a means to extract mercury from artifacts without damaging them.

“Early methods of preserving native artifacts—such as headdresses, pipes, blankets and ceremonial masks—relied heavily on the use of pesticides,” Roane says. “Two common ingredients in those pesticides were mercury and arsenic. Concentrations of those chemicals now make it risky for humans to come into contact with the artifacts.”

Roane has been working on a means to safely remove harmful chemicals under a grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, an office of the National Park Service, and with the help of a grant facilitated by the Center for Faculty Development.

Roane has found 20 types of bacteria able to grow in high concentrations of toxic mercury with one bacterium capable of removing approximately 20 percent of the mercury from a surface within two weeks.

“These bacteria may be the key to helping return artifacts to the people who created them and to return them without endangering individuals coming in contact with the items,” Roane says.

Greene captures ant’s eye view of insects’ order

Michael Greene, assistant professor of biology, studies how ants use chemicals as information cues to recognize the group membership of the ants they interact with.

In a colony, different harvester ants perform different tasks -- maintaining the nest, foraging for seeds or tending to the brood. But those that perform differently do not differ in morphology, form or structure. “However each task has a unique blend of chemicals on its surface that is specific to that task,” he explains.

The data provides basic information about how a complex biological system—one that lacks central control and is not regulated using a hierarchy—is regulated, Greene says.

A grant facilitated by the Center for Faculty Development last summer funded a highly productive field-research trip to Arizona resulting in a full manuscript of information, Greene says.  Greene previously published four manuscripts in this area and has four more in various stages of preparation or in the editorial process at peer-reviewed journals. 

Greene’s research has a broad base of interest among researchers studying animal behavior. “The ability to recognize self from non-self is a central concept to studies of mate choice, kin recognition, and predator-prey relationships,” he explains.