Rachel Bell

Email Twitter

Research Area: Primate ecology, evolution and microbiomes

My research interests are broad and include phylogenetic comparative methods, mammalian color evolution, biogeography, and the microbiome. My dissertation research focuses on how human disturbance affects the microbiomes of three sympatric lemur species in southwest Madagascar. I am the 2020-2021 Vice President of TLS.

2022

• Musings of a Hobby Mushroom Hunter

2021

• How the search for a universal gene forever changed biology: the story of Carl Woese and 16S sequencing

• Why Don't Apes Have Tails?

• A breath of fresh air: How the great oxygenation event changed life on Earth forever

• Three things STEM undergrads might not know (that you can teach them!)

2020

• How do microbes help animals adapt?

• What's the world's largest virus?

• How Community-based Conservation Helps Lemurs

• Sound the Alarm! One Unique Way Primates Avoid Being Eaten

2019

• Why are some primate infants brightly colored?

• The Traveling Field Biologist

• Sifak-huh?

• Things That Glow Pink in the Night: Why do some animals have fluorescent coloration under ultraviolet light?

2018

• Tails from the Field: Studying Lemurs in Southwestern Madagascar

• The Colorful World of Primate Hair

• Grad Students Meet Girl Scouts Part 2: Conserving Local Bee Habitats, One Person at a Time!