The Robbins Lab

Lab News

Lab Happenings

August 2024 - Owen Conroy joins the lab, Ben graduates, and Tiffany moves into a new role

This month is bittersweet. We welcome Owen Conroy into our graduate program and to the lab! He will become our new respirometry machine expert. Our very first graduate student, Benjamin D. Haussmann, graduates with his well-deserved master of science degree. He was accepted into the Biological Sciences Ph.D. program at Auburn University. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors, Ben! Lastly, our research tech, Tiffany R. Hegdahl, will be stepping down from her role. She will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Animal Science at University of Nebraska - Lincoln. She will be sorely missed in the lab!

May 2024 - Summer sunshine, lizard lassoing, and new undergrads!

Those lizards aren't going to catch themselves, so Travis set out to collect gravid females once again! In addition, we welcome three new undergraduate students who will be working in our lab this summer. Two of the students come to us from the Summer Undergraduate Research Program - Hayli Spellman and Kayden Ramirez. They will be working on isolating DNA from lizard fecal samples to assess their microbiome. Our final summer undergrad, Maya Simet, will be working on many projects including going to video camera footage and measuring the copious amount of hatchlings we will have.

April 2024 - Successful masters seminar and a very busy lab

Our graduate student, Ben Haussmann, gave his graduate seminar to the biology department this month. Talk of "best masters seminar I've ever seen" and "wow, that guy spent a lot of time with respirometry machines" filled the department. In other news, everyone in the Robbins lab is hard at work on their respective projects! We're gearing up for another field season!

February 2024 - New interns in the lab and undergrad worker FUSE grant

Winter doesn't mean less busy for the Robbins Lab! We are very excited to have Clara Wallace and Kayla Wycoff join our lab as interns. They will be running several experiments with our lizards, including a feeding trial, recording different laterality behaviors, and operating our lizard racetrack (which is as fun as it sounds!). Our student worker, Garret Peterson, also received a Fund for Undergraduate Scholarly Experience (FUSE) grant! Awesome job Garret! He will be conducting a shy/bold study on our lizards.

January 2024 - Onward to Seattle for SICB

Travis, Ben, and Tiffany traveled to Seattle, WA for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting to present current research. Each gave an oral presentation: Ben presented on the metabolic differences and developmental times of our lizard embryos, Tiffany presented on the phenotypic variance and epigenetic differences between populations, and Travis gave a talk on the current lab projects and future research.

November 2023 - KHS Round 2

Our triumphant return to the Kansas Herpetological Society's annual meeting! Travis, Ben, and Tiffany all presented some of our current projects. Ben and Tiffany presented posters. Travis gave a talk on our overarching research. We'll see you next year KHS!

October 2023 - Both graduate students receive funding, plus a new student worker

Masters students Benjamin D. Haussmann and Brandon Wolfsohn received funding for their respective projects from the Graduate Research and Creative Activity (GRACA) office in ORCA. Awesome job Ben and Brandon! We are also really excited to have Garret Peterson join our lab as a student worker.

June 2023 - Heading back to Texas and Oklahoma

We returned the gravid female lizards from last field season to their homes. You know what that means; time to wrangle some new lizards! Ben and Brandon joined Travis in the field to be taught the art of capturing lizards (which they did great at!). We've returned to UNO with our new gravid females for another year of research!

March 2023 - Biology Department Symposium

Ben and Brandon both gave talks to the biology department on their respective thesis projects.

January 2023 - Brandon Wolfsohn joins the lab

We are excited to welcome Brandon to our lab as a masters student. He will be studying the digestive efficiencies of our Sceloporus consobrinus populations.

November 2022 - KHS

Travis and Tiffany headed to the Kansas Herpetological Society's annual meeting in Joplin, MO. Tiffany presented a poster which got honorable mention!

August 2022 - Benjamin D. Haussman joins the lab

We are excited to welcome Ben to our lab as a masters student. He will be studying the metabolic differences in our Sceloporus consobrinus populations.

June 2022 - Heading to Texas and Oklahoma

We just wrapped up a successful field season, capturing many lizards from our three populations. Tiffany joined Travis out in the field field for her first lizard hunting expedition. Now that we're back at UNO, the fun really begins!

April 2022 - Tiffany R. Hegdahl joins the lab

We are excited to welcome Tiffany to our lab as our research technologist. She will act as lab manager, running the many experiments we're excited to begin this coming year.

June 2020 - Two papers being submitted with student authors

We just completed one paper on functional sperm storage in fence lizards and anothe ron optimal escape theory in parental species and their evolutionary naive hybrids.

April 2020 - Successful herping trip to start out the summer

We made it out to Folsom Point Preserve and found North American Racers, Western Milk Snakes, Ring-necked Snakes, Bullfrogs, Leopard Frogs, and Blanchard's Cricket Frogs. That is a pretty good day!

March 2020 - Funding for summer research

We received funding from the Office of Research and Creative Activity (ORCA) to study latitudinal trends in lizard body size in search of geoevolutionary boundaries. Covid-19 has pushed this work to next summer, but we can't wait to get in the field!