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    • Jorge I. Mena-Ali

    Website
    Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology
    Biology
    Bioinformatics
    717-358-4867
    Life Sciences & Philosophy
    Office: LSP-254A
    Summary: Ecology, Evolution, Heredity. Evolution/Ecology of plant reproductive strategies/pathogen interactions; Evol. Biology of disease dynamics.
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    Education Research Grants & Awards Publications Student CollaborationsCourse Information

    Education

    B.S. Universidad de Costa Rica
    M.S. Universidad de Costa Rica
    Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University

    Research Interests

    Plant Reproductive Ecology and Evolution
    Plant-pathogen interactions
    Population Genetics, Molecular Ecology
    Biology of Invasive Species, Conservation Biology , Tropical Biology

    Grants & Awards

    Directorate of Environmental Biology, National Science Foundation. Research Initiation Grant: Disease as a driver of diversification in life history, pathogenicity and reproductive strategies. August 2009-August 2012

    Directorate for Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation. Post-Doctoral Minority Fellowship, Phylogenetic, ecological and life-history determinants of a globally distributed disease complex. July 2007-June 2009.

    Publications

     Most Recent Publications: 

    Kariyat, R. R., J. I. Mena-Alí, B. Forry*, M. C. Mescher, C. M. De Moraes and A. G. Stephenson. 2012. Inbreeding, herbivory, and the transcriptome of Solanum carolinense. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata (in press)

     A. K. Gibson* J. I. Mena-Ali and M. E. Hood. 2010. Loss of pathogens in threatened plant species. Oikos 119: 1919-1928
     
    Hood, M. E., Mena-Ali, J. I., A. K. Gibson*, , B. Oxelman, T. Giraud, R. Yockyeng, M. Arroyo, F. Conti, A. Pedersen, P. Gladieux and J. Antonovics. 2010.  The worldwide occurrence of the anther-smut fungus Microbotryum violaceum on species of the Caryophyllaceae as assessed from herbarium surveys. New Phytologist 187: 217-229. 
     
    Mena-Ali, J. I., L. Kessler* and A. G. Stephenson. 2009. Evidence for sheltered load around the S-locus in Solanum carolinense. Sexual Plant Reproduction 22:63-71
     
    Mena-Ali, J. I., L. Kessler* and A. G. Stephenson. 2008. Inbreeding depression in Solanum carolinense, a species with a plastic self-incompatibility response. BMC Evolutionary Biology 8:10 (DOI:10.1186/1471-2148-8-10)
     
    Mena-Ali, J. I. and A. G. Stephenson. 2007. Segregation analyses of partial self-incompatibility in self and cross progeny of Solanum carolinense reveal a leaky S-allele. Genetics 177: 501-510
     
     

    Student Collaborations

     HHMI Summer Fellowships:

     
    • Kristen Lancaster
     
    • Liz Heppenheimer
     
    NSF-RIG Student Fellowship:
     
    • Erica Goldberger
     

    Course Information

    Fall 2012


    BIO373: Evolutionary Disease Biology