News Release
January 2000
A senior biology major at Moravian College, Christy Scholtes
was recently awarded a grant-in-aid from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research
Society, to support her Honors research on the bacterial communities
of pitcher plants. Scholtes is identifying and characterizing bacteria
that inhabit the "pitcher-like" leaves of carnivorous plants
which typically occur in bogs and other wetland environments.
Since September, Scholtes has been collecting samples
from pitcher plants at a Cranberry Bog located in Tannersville, Pennsylvania.
Scholtes has been identifying various bacterial isolates using the Biolog
Microbial Identification System in which "metabolic fingerprints"
of the bacteria are generated and checked against a computer database
of known fingerprints.
Sigma Xi was founded in 1886 as an honor society for scientists
and engineers. Today the society actively promotes scientific research
and the promise of science and technology. Approximately 80,000 scientists
and engineers are active members of Sigma Xi in North America and abroad.
There are more than 500 chapters at academic institutions, government
laboratories and industry research centers. Christy Scholtes proposal
was one of only 179 projects funded out of 445 applications submitted
by both graduate and undergraduate students. She is completing her Honors
Project under the direction of Professor of Biology Frank T. Kuserk
and will be presenting her findings at the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania
Academy of Science in April.
