May 28, 2001 Accolades Donald Potts, Rebecca Jacobs Donald Potts Photo: UCSC Photo Services Donald Potts, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, has been elected vice chair of the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Biological Sciences (USNC/IUBS). This is a committee of the National Academy of Sciences concerned with integrating U.S. scientists and scientific organizations into international programs. The committee promotes collaboration and the exchange of information in the biological sciences. Many of the current activities and projects of the IUBS involve monitoring and conservation of biodiversity. Potts is an expert on the biodiversity and ecology of coral reefs, with long-term projects focusing on the ecology and evolution of reef-building corals and how they respond to environmental change. One of his graduate students, Rebecca Jacobs, has been awarded a $10,000 fellowship to support her research on coral reefs from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Anheuser-Busch under the Budweiser Conservation Scholarship Program. Jacobs is investigating the phenomenon of coral "bleaching," which occurs when tropical corals lose the symbiotic algae that provide them with energy and nutrients. Her project will provide the first comprehensive test of the "adaptive bleaching hypothesis," which suggests that bleaching is not entirely negative but provides an opportunity for the coral to acquire genetically different algae that, after recovery, may lead to a symbiotic combination that is better adapted to environmental changes such as global warming.