The Walke Lab

Congratulations to Philip for successfully defending this master's thesis today! He found that frogs infected with the chytrid fungus had different skin microbiomes than uninfected frogs in the Inland Northwest. Nice work, Philip! Cheers!

Dr. Walke was honored to be in such great company on a panel to discuss the role of the microbiome in Bees, Guts, Soil, and Cancer at a Town Hall Seattle forum. Thanks to Bob Redmond of Survivor Bee for organizing such a great event. The public thought it was an import...

Dr. Walke enjoyed engaging with the Backyard Beekeepers at their meeting in Deer Park, WA to talk about what the "little bugs" (AKA microbes) are doing inside the guts of the "big bugs" (AKA bees!). 

Walke lab graduate student presents their research on the effects of diet and nutrition on the honey bee gut microbiome, health, and disease. Their poster was lively and well-received.

I had a wonderful visit to Oregon to meet with collaborators and sample Taricha newts to test for Bd and Bsal. Don't forget your hard hats!

We did our spring treatment for Varroa mites at our two experimental apiaries. We used oxalic acid vapor, which involved using a car battery. Enjoyed the sunset view with the kiddos! 

Some of our samples collected in Virginia, USA and Panama were incorporated into this study on global climate and amphibian skin microbiomes.

Kueneman JG, MC Bletz, G Becker, M Joseph, JG Abarca, H Archer, L Areleno, A Bataille, MH Becker, LK Belden, A Crottini, R Geffe...

First, on Friday Feb. 8, we hosted a “HappBee Hour” for EWU students with the Bee Girl (beegirl.org), which entailed a lunch and meet-n-greet with Sarah Red-Laird (AKA the Bee Girl). We also held a pollinator fair about ways to gets involved with pollinator protection...

I am excited to welcome Shelby and Philip as graduate students in the Walke lab this year.  Also, check out our sweet new bee suits embroidered with the EWU logo. Go team!

I enjoyed working with Daniel Walters from The Inlander weekly newspaper as part of the Scholastic Fantastic series on "Five cool discoveries local universities made this year." The article is titled "Can we harness the microbes in bee guts to create stronger bees?", a...