Coltman Lab

It was a big day for the Coltman crew at Western’s EnviroCon last Friday. Cassidy Moline and Carson Mitchell both presented their work and both came away winners: Cassidy placed first for her poster presentation, and Carson won first prize for her 10-minute oral talk. Congratulations!

Inbreeding is a big problem for the conservation of small wildlife populations, and genetic rescue is a critical management tool used to aid in population recovery and decrease inbreeding. A new publication in Evolutionary Applications by David Coltman, graduate student Carson Mitchell, and collaborators show how genomic tools outperform traditional pedigree tools to monitor the…

Last Friday, two students from the Coltman Lab showcased their ongoing research at the 40th annual Western Research Forum. Cassidy Moline presented a poster titled “Biological aging and life history variation in female grey seals (Halichoerus grypus)”, and Carson Mitchell delivered a 10-minute oral presentation titled “No pedigree, no problem: genomic inbreeding tracks genetic rescue with high…

Creativity in the Coltman lab was in full force this week when we gathered with friends to decorate Christmas cookies for a good cause. Our creations were donated to the United Way Merry Market, where they were sold to help raise funds for the United Way. To make the event uniquely us, we designed and…

We are proud to highlight that Dr. Christi Bubac — PhD alumnus of the Coltman Lab — has co-authored a compelling new study titled “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Prion Gene Variation Are Consistent With a Response to Chronic Wasting Disease-Induced Selection in Wild White-Tailed Deer” in Ecology & Evolution. This paper advances our understanding…