Sciences academy elects U. biologist

Phyllis D. "Lissy" Coley, a University of Utah biologist who has worked in rain forests prospecting for valuable plant compounds, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Also named was Mark T. Keating, a former University of Utah researcher now with Harvard Medical School, according to the U.

They are among 175 new fellows and 20 new foreign honorary members of the academy announced this past week. Elected this year were former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and a host of notable inventors, researchers, authors and others.

The academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and fellow "scholar-patriots," according to the group. Members include "the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation."

Besides her teaching schedule, Coley, a biology professor, works on the project concerning defenses that plants use to protect themselves from damage by herbivores and disease, according to her Web site.

"More recently I have been exploring how the third trophic level may regulate herbivore populations, and how plant traits may influence this interaction," the site adds. She examines plants in tropical rain forests because there, a high diversity of life allows comparisons among species and interactions play a strong role in shaping tropical communities, it says.

Studies in Africa, Southeast Asia and Panama "show that any given species only invests in a subset of the possible defenses," Coley wrote, citing a paper by herself and Thomas Kursar, associate professor of biology.

In 1989, Coley was chosen for a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation award. The new members and honorary members of the academy are to be inducted Oct. 7 at the academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

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