Month: September 2023

2023 has been a busy and eventful year thus far!

In the lab, we’ve continued work on Gambusia, killifish, snails, and now wood frogs. Each of these projects are focused on how organisms respond to environmental change. Several students and I look forward to presenting the findings of these projects at conferences in the coming months. We’re also gearing up for several research projects that are set to begin in the coming weeks.

Over the summer I had the opportunity to teach two field courses, one through University of Colorado Boulder (EBIO 4200 – Marine Ecological Research) offered at CARMABI Field Station in Curaçao, and another through Millersville University (BIOL 396 – Ichthyology) offered at Chincoteague Bay Field Station in Virginia.

In Curaçao, I had the opportunity to mentor a group of students on their research project focused on territory defense in Stegastes damselfish. The students managed to collect a lot of interesting data on the relationship between “neighborhood” size and individual participation in defense, and I hope to visit CARMABI again soon to build on their work.

At CBFS, Ichthyology was another great course with a fun group of students. We got to sample a wide range of habitats and learn about many different fish species. One of my favorite parts of the course is the Fishes of the Mid-Atlantic Art Show. Students intently study the morphology of a fish of their choice over the first two weeks of the class as they create their artistic depiction of the fish. They then prepare a presentation on that fish for the show. Students highlight the relationship between morphological features and the fish’s niche, evolutionary history, and behavior. The whole station comes out for this event and enjoys learning about local fish species.