On a sunny spring day, Brian Aukema walks through Mullins Woods like a hunter tracking deer. But Aukema is tracking much smaller creatures — the insects that eat trees and can kill them in the process.

Chengyan Yue, an assistant professor whose position spans two departments—horticulture and applied economics—is leading research in the emerging intersection of these fields and its potential impact on plant, human, and economic health. This ground-breaking work is what led Yue to be named a McKnight Land-Grant Professor for 2011-13.

Computer science and engineering faculty member Chad Myers, center, works with graduate students Raamesh Deshpande, left, and Elizabeth Koch, right, and postdoctoral researcher Jeremy Bellay, foreground, on analyzing the yeast genetic-interaction network. As cells go, yeast is modest. You can see it under a microscope. It plays a role in many old and familiar processes, [...]

Salamanders aren’t that common in Minnesota—you’d have to comb the whole state to find four species, according to researcher Ken Kozak. Mountains are home to most of the world’s 580 living species of salamanders, with the highest concentrations in southern Appalachia and the Mexico-to-Panama highlands. What’s more, salamanders are so common in high-elevation forests that [...]