The color, brightness, and stability of a fluorescent protein are dictated by its amino acid sequence. Attempts to alter the physical properties of fluorescent proteins have focused on random amino acid changes directed at positions known to be a part of or near the fluorophore in the protein. In this study TagBFP and TagRFP, which differ by 13 amino acid mutations, are compared to understand which amino acids are critical for the fluorophore's color. Several site-directed mutants were created, and the in vivo fluorescence of the 17 different mutant proteins were evaluated. The fluorescence of the proteins was measured in vivo, skipping the time-consuming step of protein purification since the fluorescence was not affected by purification. Nearly all mutants exhibit blue fluorescence. The color conversion from blue to red required the mutation of a full set of six amino acids that contact the fluorophore.

The Dingus Natural Area is a 69.4 ha, forest-dominated tract located in extreme east-central Kansas. It is passively managed for scientific research. A floristic inventory of the site revealed 351 species of vascular plants, 91% of which were native. The five largest families (Asteraceae, Poaceae, Fabaceae, Cyperaceae, and Rosaceae) contained 45% of the species. Hemicryptophytes made up 41% of the species, and 12% of the species were conservative or highly conservative based on coefficients of conservatism. Populations of 13 state-rare species were documented at the site, including one species known in Kansas only from Dingus Natural Area. Six primary vegetation types occurred on the site: oak-hickory forest, mesic forest, glades, sparse vegetation communities, seep communities, and ruderal. Forests accounted for 57% of species occurrences at the site. Glades, while limited in area compared to forests, accounted for 26% of species occurrences.

Sand prairies experience relatively high rates of small-scale disturbance, feature a high complement of annual plant species, and are fairly dynamic in terms of year-to-year micro-scale species composition. In summer 2011, an underground natural gas pipeline was installed across Sand Prairie Natural History Reservation 19 km west of North Newton, KS. The resulting excavation left a strip 560 m long and 24 m wide devoid of aboveground vegetation. From August 2012 to 2021, I monitored vegetation composition in 60 0.75 × 0.75 m² quadrats along six parallel transect lines: three lines along the center of the excavated area and three placed 20 m away in prairie unaffected by earth-moving vehicles. Quadrat species richness was higher in the undisturbed reference area in the first year, but higher in the pipeline area in four later years. There were no consistent area differences in species evenness. Annual species richness was higher within the pipeline area every year. In contrast, perennial species richness was higher in the reference area during the first seven years. Coverage by annuals was higher every year within the pipeline area, whereas coverage by perennials was consistently higher in the reference area. Bray-Curtis Similarity for the two areas ranged from 29.2 to 55.8% across years, but was not trending upward with time. Twenty-one species were restricted to the pipeline area; several other species were beginning to move from the reference area to the pipeline area. Both Floristic Quality Index and modified FQI were consistently higher for the reference area than for the pipeline area. It is too early to project the time frame for the pipeline area to recover a species composition indistinguishable from the undisturbed reference site, but clearly a period longer than ten years will be required.

The glaciation of northeastern Kansas has attracted scientific attention since the mid-19^th century and has played a conspicuous role for glacial stratigraphy and chronology. Since the 1990s, many studies have been conducted in Kansas, other mid-western states, and elsewhere around the world that shed additional light on the glaciation of Kansas as well as its global role. All glacial and glacially related deposits in northeastern Kansas are designated as the Independence Formation with an age range in the interval approximately 810,000 to 640,000 years ago corresponding to MIS 20-16 (latest Matuyama - early Brunhes chrons).

The Independence Glaciation took place as two, large ice lobes - Minnesota and Dakota, which are interpreted as low-profile ice masses that were quite thin at their margins and advanced by surging over thawed or deformable beds. The Independence Glaciation corresponds in part with the Don Glaciation in Europe and to MIS 16, which is appropriately one of the greatest glacial phases in the entire Pleistocene Epoch. The Independence and Don glaciations represent the farthest southward expansions into their respective continental interiors.

A new fossil bee species, Liotrigona (Tapheiotrigona) aethiopica Engel, new subgenus and species, was described and figured from a worker preserved in Miocene amber from Ethiopia. The species represents the first fossil bee from Africa, predating the many subfossil occurrences otherwise known from Holocene copal and Defaunation resins. The new species is distinguished from its congeners and placed in a new subgenus based on differences in malar space length, wing venation, keirotrichia of the metatibia, and structure of the mesoscutellum and propodeum.

Recent fieldwork in eastern Kansas resulted in the discovery to two species of vascular plants previously unreported in the state (Aphanes australis, Mazus miquelii) and new collections of six species previously documented by historical collections or few recent collections (Cerastium dubium, Crepis capillaris, Geranium dissectum, Ranunculus parviflorus, Torilis nodosa, Trifolium resupinatum). All species reported here are considered non-native in Kansas.

The Juana Lopez Member of the Carlile Shale is a calcarenite rock that became deposited within the Western Interior Seaway of North America during the Late Cretaceous approximately 90 million years ago (early late Turonian). In this study, rock samples collected from a Juana Lopez Member locality in southeastern Colorado, USA, were dissolved with a weak acid to examine the taxonomic composition of vertebrate fossils. Although almost all of the specimens are represented by isolated bones and teeth that are microscopic, the paleofauna was found to be taxonomically diverse. The vertebrate assemblage includes at least 14 chondrichthyans, 20 osteichthyans, and five tetrapods. Some noteworthy occurrences include teeth of Protolamna sp., a pliosaurid plesiosaur, and possible avians. Although teeth of Enchodus spp. are the most abundant vertebrate remains collected, our study clearly indicates the existence of a diverse vertebrate assemblage in a shallow marine environment in southeastern Colorado when the Juana Lopez Member was deposited.

The following abstracts of papers and posters were accepted for presentation at the 154^th Annual Meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science