Conservation

Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

Picture This: Salamander Safety 101

Lauren Reuscher — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 13:23:28 +0000

Picture This: Salamander Safety 101 Lauren Reuscher Thu, 06/06/2024 - 09:23

Three in hats. Two in t-shirts, two in rain jackets. Two wearing glasses. But what's one thing that all of these ��AV students are wearing? Well-fitted, sterile, hypoallergenic, slightly moistened gloves.

Photo by Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation

Some creatures like salamanders absorb oxygen through their skin. Even small amounts of oils on our bare hands, as well as chemicals present in soaps, lotions, hand sanitizers, and first-aid supplies, can harm the delicate salamander.

Photo by Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation

These students participated in the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation’s two-week course CONS 440/540 Field Skills in Ecology course in Front Royal, Virginia, where they practiced ecological research techniques like habitat evaluation, sampling, and identifying wildlife populations.

Photo by Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation

Another must-do for salamander safety: If you must pick one up, put it back exactly where you found it!

Photo by Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation

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Conservation students tag monarch butterflies to help save the endangered species

Mariam Aburdeineh — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:05:52 +0000

Conservation students tag monarch butterflies to help save the endangered species Mariam Aburdeineh Mon, 12/05/2022 - 12:05

Monarch butterflies in Michoacan, Mexico. Photo by Getty Images.

Many creatures migrate to warmer habitats for the winter, but no insect does so quite as uniquely and spectacularly as the monarch butterfly.

From the United States and Canada, tens of millions of monarchs fly each year to a place they—and the previous butterfly generation before them—have never been before: tall trees found in a few mountain forests in central Mexico. Their tiny wings can take them on a roughly 2,500-mile transcontinental journey to these beautiful butterfly sanctuaries.

Protecting an Endangered Species

In late September, 18 undergraduates from the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation‘s (SMSC) Wildlife Ecology and Conservation program tagged monarch butterflies on their journey south to help researchers better understand their grand migration.

“It’s important to track [their movement] because monarchs are listed as an endangered species as of this summer [by the International Union for Conservation of Nature],” said senior environmental and sustainability studies major Nadia Gray.

Gray, who said she previously volunteered with the Norfolk Botanical Garden as a butterfly docent, is attending her second semester at SMSC. The Virginia Beach native said monarchs are facing threats including habitat loss, air pollution, and climate change.

“[Tagging] allows us to hopefully track some of them along the way south, but also to see what proportion of the tagged butterflies end up in central Mexico,” said Assistant Professor of Conservation Science Joshua Davis.

According to the nonprofit citizen-science program Monarch Watch, tagging also helps answer questions about the origins of monarchs that reach Mexico, the timing and pace of their migration, factors that impact their survival rates, and more.

SMSC student Spencer Harman (left) holds a monarch butterfly for tagging with guidance from Professor Joshua Davis. Photo by Mariam Aburdeineh.

Elusive Flyers

Using aerial nets with a delicate fabric to protect the butterflies, the students spent two afternoons in the fields at SMSC’s Front Royal campus to capture the fluttering insects.

On the second afternoon, the students caught three monarchs and placed sticker-like tags with serial codes on the butterflies’ hind wings.

SMSC student Nadia Gray using an aerial net to catch butterflies in the field. Photo by Cristian Torres.

“It is no small feat to catch these butterflies,” said Davis, who purchased the tags from Monarch Watch and has participated in the program with SMSC students since 2018. “If they’re going to survive this many thousands, many hundreds of miles journey south, they have to be pretty robust fliers.”

Even with many people, catching monarchs can be difficult. On the group’s first afternoon in the field, they were slightly ahead of most monarchs’ migration. The very few monarchs they did see were too swift to catch.

Still, the group learned more about butterflies and caught, identified, and released nine other butterfly species, including whites and sulfurs, and the common buckeye.

Information being recorded on one of the tagged monarch butterflies. Photo by Mariam Aburdeineh.

On the second day in the field, the butterflies were also difficult to catch because of the wind, but students like senior environmental science major Spencer Harman were determined to succeed. That kind of determination is central to the Mason experience, which challenges us to show up ready to work that much harder in our quest to solve problems through critical actions and research.

“More likely than not, [the monarchs] were actually in the trees,” said Harman, who caught one that dropped out of a tree in front of him.

The Place for Aspiring Conservationists

Being in the field for experiential learning is one of the highlights of Harman’s SMSC experience, he said.

“I’ve been interested in SMSC since high school and now that I’m here, it’s really interesting how specific we can get into the field of conservation,” said Harman, who grew up in Gainesville, Virginia.

“You get to have lots of hands-on experiences and then you get to meet with conservation professionals—it’s a really whole experience for anyone who wants to be, or is interested in, being a conservationist.”

Gray agreed.

“It’s just a good place to come if you need to get your foot in the door in the world of conservation, or if you want to make those connections with people that are working for, say, the Smithsonian or Virginia Working Landscapes.”

It’s a rewarding experience for professors, too.

“The thing I enjoy most about being here at SMSC is just the unique opportunities we have from an educational perspective,” Davis said.

“The student engagement is really fantastic,” he added. “It’s a self-selected group, and they’re really, really interested in this sort of thing. It makes teaching a lot of fun.”

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Students go batty with their capstone project

Colleen Rich — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 16:44:19 +0000

Students go batty with their capstone project Colleen Rich Wed, 11/02/2022 - 12:44

Mason seniors Bryan Childers, Emma Kendrick and Amanda Tisdale organized the bat box-building workshop as the capstone project for their Sustainability in Action class. Photo by Cristian Torres/Strategic Communications

Bats. We think about them around Halloween, and your mind invariably conjures creepy images of a blood-thirsty companion for witches and vampires.

But Amanda Tisdale, a ��AV senior majoring in environmental and sustainable studies, sees something different.

“They’re mainly neglected when aerial organisms are spoken about,” she said before ticking off the positive characteristics of the winged, bug-eating, pollinating machines. “They’re actually a big part of the community.”

That’s why Tisdale and her teammates—seniors Emma Kendrick (environmental and sustainability studies) and Bryan Childers (environmental science)—decided to build bat boxes for a capstone project in their EVPP 480 Sustainability in Action class.

Students were able to paint and decorate the bat box they created. Photo by Cristian Torres/Strategic Communications

They went a step further, too, staging a bat box building event on October 28 next to Wilkins Plaza on the Fairfax Campus, where anyone could grab a hammer and start building to a soundtrack that included Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Childers, general manager of WGMU Radio, and his deejays publicized the event on the air. Email blasts were sent out and signs were hung around campus. Childers, who called bats “interesting” and “lesser-appreciated creatures,” said about 25 people showed up to build bat boxes they took home.

A Mason Impact grant paid for the supplies that included wood and mesh that the bats will grab when they roost, keeping them safe and warm.

“The goal is to make global problems local,” said Jennifer Sklarew, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy who teaches the class. “The students study all these big global problems, but they don’t necessarily have a way to apply local solutions where they can be hands on and engage and develop solutions. This class gives them an opportunity to bring it down to a local level where they can actually engage.”

“It’s forcing us to go out there and take action,” Kendrick said of the project. “Planning the project has been helpful, and the research we’ve put into this learning about bats, about how to approach conservation that’s best for the local area. Those are awesome skills I’ve gained from doing this that I’ll take away with me.”

Mason professor Jennifer Sklarew (right), who teaches the Sustainability in Action course, participated in the workshop. Photo by Cristian Torres/Strategic Communications

It's the kind of problem solving and community engagement that thrives at Mason, which challenges us to solve problems and meet opportunities with inquisitiveness, new ideas and energy.

More than 200 bat species in 60 countries are considered threatened, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. And Bat World reports that the fungal disease white nose syndrome has wiped out 90% of little brown bats in the northeast.

The consequences could be dire. Bats eat copious amounts of bugs, pollinate a wide array of plants, and their guano is a suitable fertilizer for plants and lawns.

“So I’m advising people,” Tisdale said, “that if they have a home garden, put the box above the garden and you’ll have free fertilizer.”

The team also is conducting research on the possibility of installing bat boxes on the Fairfax Campus.

“It will mean a lot to me,” Tisdale said. “It’s like leaving a lasting mark on this school and this campus. I want to impact Mason sustainably in a good way that will last for many years to come.”

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The basking shark receives protected status thanks to the work of a Mason PhD student

Colleen Rich — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 19:19:28 +0000

The basking shark receives protected status thanks to the work of a Mason PhD student Colleen Rich Tue, 10/04/2022 - 15:19

The basking shark is now a "protected wild animal" under new legislation that came into effect in Ireland this week. It is now an offense to hunt or injure them or to willfully interfere with their breeding or resting places, thanks to an international collaboration between United States, United Kingdom and Irish researchers, including ��AV alum and current doctoral candidate Chelsea Gray.

Photo by the Irish Basking Shark Group

This legislation was heavily supported by the Irish Basking Shark Group (ISBG), an international network of researchers, educators, and community representatives founded in 2009. In 2021, this group organized an international consortium of scientists and conservation organizations to sign an open letter to the Irish government, calling for legal protection of basking sharks in Ireland. Simultaneously, the IBSG also ran a “Save Our Sharks” campaign, resulting in 12,000 signatures in support of this new policy.

U.S. representatives Alexandra McInturf, co-coordinator of the IBSG and a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University, and Gray have been working alongside their Irish and UK partners to conduct vital research for basking shark conservation.

“This is a great example of the importance of diversifying research methods and collaborating with as many people as possible,” said Gray, who is working on a PhD in environmental science and public policy at Mason. Her research on social attitudes helped demonstrate strong public support for basking shark conservation.

Chelsea Gray on the beach in Donegal, Ireland in 2018. Photo provided

McInturf has been conducting field studies on basking sharks in Ireland and recently published a study on the basking shark population along the U.S. West Coast. She believes international collaboration is critical to ensuring the persistence of this species worldwide.

“Basking sharks are highly mobile, capable of moving across entire ocean basins. In doing so, they pass through the jurisdiction of many different countries,” said McInturf, who also sits on the scientific steering committee for the SeaMonitor Project, an international research initiative designed to study basking sharks and other marine species. “It is estimated that Irish waters host 10-20% of the global population of this shark species year-round. Their presence in Ireland also appears relatively steady. This suggests that Ireland offers important habitat for the species.”

While shark tourism is popular worldwide, protections for sharks are often considered controversial because of perceived impacts to fisheries. In her research, Gray wanted to find out if there was any interest in basking shark tourism and if that impacted support for legal protections. In July 2018, Gray traveled to Donegal, Ireland, to interview local residents and tourists about their perspective on sharks and shark conservation.

Although basking sharks grow up to 7.9 meters (26 feet) in length, these slow swimming plankton eaters are generally harmless to humans. Gray said their docile nature and habit of feeding at the surface of the water make basking sharks an ideal candidate for shark-viewing, as they can be viewed from land or a boat, and many ocean-goers have had peaceful encounters with this type of shark.

Chelsea Gray diving with blue sharks off the coast of South Africa. Photo provided

Gray’s findings, which were the basis for her 2019 master’s thesis, showed that basking sharks are a potentially untapped tourism market and that there was widespread support for legal protections for basking sharks in Ireland. And her article, “Basking shark tourism in Donegal, Ireland—A case study of public interest and support for shark conservation,” was published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems at an ideal time, as a member of the Irish Parliament had just introduced the legislation to protect the sharks.

“The IBSG has provided me the opportunity to take an active role in shark conservation and has shown me the challenge and reward of achieving conservation legislation,” said Gray, whose appreciation for sharks began in early childhood. “This new law is a major step forward in basking shark conservation, but this is only the beginning of a long road to crafting comprehensive, science-based marine policy. I am honored to be part of a group that continues to build key relationships and push for important changes.”

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Bee vision: Shedding light on a conservation challenge

Kristin Heydt — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 20:35:58 +0000

Bee vision: Shedding light on a conservation challenge Kristin Heydt Mon, 06/13/2022 - 16:35

Bees see the world in vibrant color…but that may be changing. Smithsonian-Mason team researches the impact with bee vision.

When a bee sees a flower, it knows where to land thanks to its ability to see ultraviolet (UV) color patterns on the petals. Many factors have caused those colors to dull, and now a team at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC), funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society, is helping reveal what pollinators see, and why it matters for the future of conservation.

“Bees and pollinators are such an integral part of the ecosystem,” said junior environmental and sustainability studies major Anna Siegle. “We’re looking at the floral color diversity of wildflowers in Virginia and how bees and insects are perceiving them.”

Anna Siegle compares a flower to color standards in visual light. The image on the left shows approximate human perception, and the image on the right depicts the bee-perceived color. Photo provided by Siegle.

Pollinators and Color

Honeybees help pollinate plants that produce food; they also help maintain biodiversity. That’s part of why understanding how they interact with plants matters.

Mason professor Daniel Hanley and undergraduate Anna Siegle are researching floral color diversity of wildflowers and how bees are perceiving them. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

“Pollinators make really important decisions about colors all the time—and those colors are changing [due to climate change, changing pH levels and changing temperatures],” said Daniel Hanley, a ��AV professor and National Geographic Explorer who is Siegle’s research mentor.

The research findings could also help the team uncover which flowers may be beneficial for pollinators to have around, or what could be done to ensure wildflowers aren’t being impacted further, Siegle said.

Among the Flowers

Exploring how pollinators perceive color requires precision and technology, as UV colors are invisible to the human eye.

Siegle’s work begins with photographing, recording, and measuring flowers. She uses a multi-spectral camera that films both UV and visual light, and calibrates the camera for color precision and accuracy using color and white standards.

Using a spectrometer and spectroradiometer, Siegle also measures the reflectance of each flower and the color of the light. Later, she brings these data to the lab for analysis and processing. With the help of Python computer code, the photos are transformed into images of what a honeybee would see.

Colors Lead to Answers

Anna Siegle photographing flowers. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

Hanley described his lab’s focus as primarily gathering information about how pollinators see and how perceived color diversity is quantified.

“This eventually will help us address why colors might be changing over time and how,” Hanley said. “It also helps us understand what the bees are actually paying attention to, and how it helps them with their interaction with the flower, which is critical for pollination.”

Siegle’s research is expected to have ripple effects.

“We’ll be able to see how bees are orienting to those visual signals in a way we hadn’t really been able to do before,” Hanley said. “That can be used for answering all sorts of other questions not just for pollinators, but all sorts of organisms that are using color.”

The imagery Siegle creates for the project will also be used to help bring the science to life with multimedia, including documentaries and films, she said.

Hands-on Conservation

Mason was the only school Siegle said she applied to, and SMSC was her top reason for applying.

“I have been waiting for a few years to attend SMSC,” said Siegle, who aspires to work in elephant conservation.

“It’s been amazing,” she said. “The classes have been really interesting, I’ve learned a lot, had a lot of hands-on experience, and made a lot of connections with the professors, other conservationists and guest speakers.”

It’s likewise rewarding for the mentors.

“It’s been really cool to be able to work with a student for weeks at a time to really dig into a problem,” Hanley said. “[At SMSC] you can invest in yourself and your development as a scientist in a way that other students really may nothave the chance to.”

Mason student Anna Siegle uses a spectrophotometer on a flower she photographed in the field at the Science and Technology Campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

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Road salt gets rid of ice, snow…and ecosystems? New student research addresses community-based solutions.

Mariam Aburdeineh — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 15:47:36 +0000

Road salt gets rid of ice, snow…and ecosystems? New student research addresses community-based solutions. Mariam Aburdeineh Thu, 04/28/2022 - 11:47

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Road salt has been touted as a lifesaver when it comes to combatting icy roads. Yet using this snow-melting mineral has a dark side once it enters waterways. Graduating senior Maggie Walker, through the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC), is gathering data at local streams to influence change.

“When excessive road salts get into streams, they can have devastating effects on the ecosystems in the streams,” said Julia Sargent, director of programs at Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. “The salts impact vegetation and very small river life, and that in turn can have effects on larger life, like fish, and in high concentrations, those salts may not be filtered out by our water treatment plants.”

Maggie Walker, Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation student, collects water samples in Strasburg, Virginia to measure road water pollution. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services/��AV

The Impact of Road Salts

Chloride pollution, which mainly comes from road salt, can also lead to corrosion, changed soil compositions, fish die-offs, algae blooms, and more, said Walker, who is partnering with Sargent’s organization for her SMSC practicum. “For people that need to be on low salt diets, they can actually exceed their daily salt requirement just from their drinking water, so that can end up being a health concern.”

Walker’s research is assessing the scope and impact of road salts locally.

Walker, an Honors College student studying biology, selected four streams near urban land cover, including sidewalks, parking lots, and cities, that are likely to be vulnerable to chloride pollution. For five weeks this semester, she has been heading to those streams to record the water temperature and collecting samples of stream water to measure chloride levels.

“It’s important that we establish what are the baseline levels of chloride in our waterways,” Walker said. “That way we can test it throughout the years, throughout the seasons, see when levels fluctuate, when they’re highest, how road salting events impact the water quality.”

Walker measures the chloride levels using a QuanTab strip. Photo by Evan Cantwell.

Engaging the Community

There’s also a community aspect to the project that Sargent said Walker helped inspire.

“I’m creating a survey about people’s attitudes and behaviors toward road salt and road salt usage,” said Walker, which aligns with her interest in the intersection of conservation, human well-being, and community involvement. “We’re hoping to disseminate it to people who live in the North Fork… and then ultimately, using the data, determine one behavior to target for change.”

Though changing behavior and reducing road salt usage is outside the scope of this semester, Walker said the research is an important first step.

Walker, who is originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she chose ��AV because she wanted to attend a school with excellent research opportunities, like SMSC.

“This program is helping me develop a lot of skills in a wide variety of areas within conservation that I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Walker said. “My experience at SMSC has been really awesome.”

“Getting to hear from and work with so many different conservation professionals is really inspiring,” Walker said, adding that they actively engage with students.

It’s rewarding for mentors, too.

“It’s been inspiring to get to know and work with these young people who are just getting their start along their career paths in conservation,” Sargent said. “Seeing their passions and being a part of that process is a big honor.”

SMSC is not an opportunity to pass up.

“If you are even remotely interested in conservation, you should definitely make every effort you can to come out and enjoy SMSC,” Walker said. “It really sets you up for success in conservation [by] introducing you to all the opportunities and allows you to explore things while you’re still in college.”

“If you’re a conservation-minded person, this is definitely the place to be.”

Maggie Walker collects water samples in Strasburg, Virginia to measure salt water pollution. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services/��AV

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Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off

Colleen Rich — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 16:22:41 +0000

Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off Colleen Rich Fri, 12/17/2021 - 11:22

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Because elephants only sleep three to four hours a night, and frequently wake during that time, their sleep is a precious commodity.

Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation student Eva Noroski (left) works with Mason Alumna and Elephant Trails Keeper Ashley Fortner to research elephant sleep patterns at the National Zoo. Photo by: Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications/��AV

That’s why ��AV senior Eva Noroski has spent a month this semester assisting 2017 Mason alumna and Elephant Trails keeper Ashley Fortner at the National Zoo, researching how these massive mammals can get optimal sleep.

“Sleep is super important for the elephants because they don’t actually do a lot of it,” said Fortner, who studied for a year at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC).

“Eva’s work is actually directly, every day, impacting how we take care of the elephants.”

Noroski has been accessing footage from the Smithsonian’s camera system to monitor the elephants from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m., and logging what she observes. In particular, she’s tracking Kamala, a female elephant who has arthritis, which causes her difficulty in laying down and getting up.

“I’m trying to determine which elephants she sleeps best with, if she sleeps best by herself, if there are any social dynamics that appear during the night that I can let the keepers know about,” said Noroski, an environmental science major and conservation studies minor. “That’s all really significant information because their sleep is important to their health, and if any mammal is losing sleep, they could become more susceptible to illness.”

Noroski’s findings will help management create pairings that offer the best sleep for each of their five elephants, said Fortner, who graduated from Mason with a integrative studies degree and a concentration on applied global conservation.

When Noroski isn’t behind the computer, she can be found performing zookeeping tasks, and shadowing Fortner as she interacts with, trains, and completes wellness checks with the elephants.

“I have made great connections, not only with people here at the zoo, but also with my [SMSC] teachers who are active conservationists,” Noroski said. “They’re super willing to help students find opportunities as well as connect us with other people—that’s a really unique thing you can’t just get in any conservation program.”

That’s exactly why Fortner said she also “fell in love” with the SMSC program.

“It means so much,” Fortner said of being able to mentor students in the same way she was mentored. “Once I found my path, I found that having those practicums and hands-on learning experiences helped me make that decision.”

“For the mentor side of it, it’s giving back to the conservation community,” she said. “It was really important for me to not only take care of elephants and give back to conservation in that way, but to help people that also want to do this see that this is possible.”

Noroski, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said she chose Mason after researching schools with the best conservation programs.

Being at SMSC with a small cohort of students and teachers is one of the most rewarding parts, she and Fortner agreed.

“It’s a great program where you get really personal attention, as well as amazing practical experience that you will not just be able to find anywhere else,” Noroski said. “You are put in a position where you are pretty much handed useful, practical experience in the real working world.

“That’s invaluable when you’re an undergrad and trying to get your foot in the door,” she said.

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Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off

Mariam Aburdeineh — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 19:35:10 +0000

Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off Mariam Aburdeineh Mon, 12/13/2021 - 14:35

Because elephants only sleep three to four hours a night, and frequently wake during that time, their sleep is a precious commodity.

“Sleep is super important for the elephants because they don’t actually do a lot of it,” said Fortner, who studied for a year at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC).

“Eva’s work is actually directly, every day, impacting how we take care of the elephants.”

Noroski’s findings will help management create pairings that offer the best sleep for each of their five elephants, said Fortner, who graduated from Mason with an integrative studies degree and a concentration in applied global conservation.

When Noroski isn’t behind the computer, she can be found performing zookeeping tasks, and shadowing Fortner as she interacts with, trains, and completes wellness checks with the elephants.

That’s exactly why Fortner said she also “fell in love” with the SMSC program.

Noroski, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said she chose Mason after researching schools with the best conservation programs.

Being at SMSC with a small cohort of students and teachers is one of the most rewarding parts, she and Fortner agreed.

“That’s invaluable when you’re an undergrad and trying to get your foot in the door,” she said.

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