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It’s the final week of instruction for the Spring 2026 semester. CSUN Biologists are preparing for commencement and awards ceremonies in a week, presenting semester projects and studying for final exams, and pushing through the final round of grading.
Students in the 2026 Tropical Semester, led by Professors Fritz Hertel and Tim Karels, will give poster presentations showcasing the results of research projects conducted during their time in Ecuador Friday from noon to 1:30pm on the third floor of Chaparral Hall. Refreshments will be served, and everyone is invited to view a variety of student science and tropical biodiversity.
The final Biology Colloquium seminar of the semester will feature not one, not two, but three Biology faculty. Prof Peter Edmunds will present “Goodbye coral reefs, hello algal reefs?”, a look at his lab’s work on the marine communities forming as global climate change threatens and kills off reef-forming corals. Prof Robert Espinoza, who studies the physiology and behavior of reptiles and amphibians, will present “Invasives, Islands, and Investment: The Lizard Link.” And, finally, Prof Yoshie Hanzawa, who studies the genetics of plants’ plastic responses to environmental stressors, will present “On the Challenge of Modeling Plant Responses to Their Environments.” Colloquium seminars are held this semester at 2:30pm in Chaparral Hall room 5125.
Click through below for more news from around the Biology Department this week.
Honors Reception and graduation plans
Master’s students graduating in Fall 2025, Spring 2026, or Summer 2026 will join in the first-ever Biology Department graduate hooding ceremony, at 10:30am Friday, May 15 in Chaparral Hall room 5122. After the hooding ceremony there will be a reception with light refreshments in the CSUN Botanic Garden, and then the Biology Department Honors and Awards Ceremony, recognizing students who have received awards and scholarships in the 2025-26 school year, will commence at 1pm in Chaparral Hall room 5122. Faculty whose student mentees have received awards, especially extramural honors and scholarships, should let Sarah Cohen know to include them in the program.
Master’s student Mendelson publishes undergraduate research on the sociability of Australian tubeworm larvae
Australian tubeworms are sessile marine invertebrates that anchor themselves in dense clusters— so their free-swimming larvae must have a way to find each other as they settle down to being their adult lives. A new paper led by Biology Master’s student Alex Mendelson reports on his undergraduate research project at CSU Long Beach, which demonstrated that tubeworm larvae were more likely to settle on substrates in water that had been passed over other tubeworms, compared to a control that was passed over mussel shells. That strongly suggests the worm larvae track chemicals released by their conspecifics to find and form “gregarious” clusters of adult worms.
Find the full paper online at The Biological Bulletin, or hit up Alex for a PDF copy.