Month: March 2015

Climate change scientist Michael Mann visits Virginia Tech

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 27, 2015

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[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Michael Mann, a climate scientist and central figure in the political debate over climate change, visited Virginia Tech on March 20, 2015.

His 4 p.m. lecture at the Lyric Theatre was followed by a brief question and answer session and signing of his book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.”

The free event was sponsored by the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech and the Interfaces of Global Change Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program.

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View the full lecture here

Michael Mann is a distinguished professor of meteorology at Penn State University, with joint appointments in the departments of geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand earth’s climate system.

During his visit, Mann also co-lead a science communication workshop for doctoral students with Susan Hassol, director of Climate Communication and a leading expert on effective techniques for communicating science.

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Mann to Virginia Tech,” said William Hopkins, director of the Global Change Center and professor of fish and wildlife conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment. “A major part of the Global Change Center’s mission is to provide unique training opportunities to Virginia Tech faculty and graduate students. The all-day workshop led by Mann and Sue Hassol will allow the students to learn effective techniques for communicating science to the public and policy makers, and will enable them to spend intimate time learning from leading authorities on climate change and science communication.”

Mann has received a number of honors and awards including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) outstanding publication award in 2002, and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2012 and the National Conservation Achievement Award for science by the National Wildlife Federation in 2013.

Mann made Bloomberg News’ list of fifty most influential people in 2013. In 2014, he was named a Highly Cited Researcher by the Institute for Scientific Information and received the Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education. He is a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.

“Dr. Mann’s visit to campus is an exciting opportunity to learn from a world-renowned scientist at the front line of both research and public engagement,” said Quinn Thomas, an assistant professor of forest resources and environmental conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, who teaches courses in climate science on campus. “Through his peer-reviewed research, which provides historical context for recent temperature changes, and his writings, which are more geared toward a general audience, Dr. Mann’s work challenges us to think critically about our changing planet while not losing sight of the larger picture.”

Chartered earlier this year, the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech seeks to raise awareness about climate change and other global problems such as pollution and invasive species that threaten the environment and society.

Story by Lindsay Taylor Key, Communications Officer at Fralin Life Science Institute[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Disease June Newsletter Research

Lisa Belden’s research on Bd reveals new information about amphibian disease resistance

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 26, 2015

From VT News

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 26, 2015 – A team of scientists including Virginia Tech researchers is one step closer to understanding how bacteria on a frog’s skin affects its likelihood of contracting disease.

A frog-killing fungus known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, has already led to the decline of more than 200 amphibian species including the now extinct-in-the-wild Panamanian golden frog.

In a recent study, the research team attempted to apply beneficial bacteria found on the skin of various Bd-resistant wild Panamanian frog species to Panamanian golden frogs in captivity, to see if this would stimulate a defense against the disease.

They found that while the treatment with beneficial bacteria was not successful due to its inability to stick to the skin, there were some frogs that survived exposure to the fungus. These survivors actually had unique bacterial communities on their skin before the experiments started. The results were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The next step is to explore these new bacterial communities.

“We were disappointed that the treatment didn’t work, but glad to have discovered new information about the relationship between these symbiotic microbial communities and amphibian disease resistance,” said Lisa Belden, an associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science, Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate, and a faculty member with the new Global Change Center at Virginia Tech. “Every bit of information gets us closer to getting these frogs back into nature.”

Studying the microbial communities of Panamanian golden frogs was the dissertation focus of Belden’s former graduate student Matthew Becker, who graduated with a Ph.D. in biological sciences from Virginia Tech in 2014 and is now a fellow at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

“Anything that can help us predict resistance to this disease is very useful because the ultimate goal of this research is to establish healthy populations of golden frogs in their native habitat,” Becker told Smithsonian Science News. “I think identifying alternative probiotic treatment methods that optimize dosages and exposure times will be key for moving forward with the use of probiotics to mitigate chytridiomycosis.”

Read the full article:

Composition of symbiotic bacteria predicts survival in Panamanian golden frogs infected with a lethal fungus

Matthew H. Becker, Jenifer B. Walke, Shawna Cikanek, Anna E. Savage, Nichole Mattheus, Celina N. Santiago, Kevin P. C. Minbiole, Reid N. Harris, Lisa K. Belden, Brian Gratwicke

Story by Lindsay Key, Communications Officer at Fralin Life Science Institute

Photo Credit: Panamanian Golden Frog: By Brian Gratwicke via Wikimedia Commons

Climate Change Global Change Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Science Communication Seminars, Workshops, Lectures Special Events

IGC Science Communication Workshop is led by Susan Hassol and Michael Mann

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 25, 2015

A major part of the mission of the Interfaces of Global Change Ph.D. program (IGC) at Virginia Tech is to help graduate students identify the different positive roles that they can play in society. Effective communication of scientific information to audiences with diverse backgrounds will be central to their success, regardless of what role they pursue. By developing the skills to make accurate science accessible to broader audiences, the students can help citizens make informed decisions that affect their own health, the environment, and society.

In keeping with these goals, IGC students recently attended a science communication workshop led by Susan Hassol, Director of Climate Communication, and Michael E. Mann, Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University. The day-long workshop addressed framing and messaging, scientists and social media, and media training.

The IGC students had this to say about the workshop:

“The tweeting and interviewing exercises had the biggest impact on me. Its not easy to condense big ideas into a few words!”

“I appreciated the discussion of how to prepare for and conduct media interviews. Although I found the practice session uncomfortable, it was invaluable!”

“I enjoyed the opportunity to practice some of the communication techniques we talked about and to receive feedback on delivery, messaging, etc. Sue provided helpful examples, both theoretical and real-life, to get her points across. I wish we could have had more time–maybe a weekend retreat next time?”

“The co-teaching was great. Susan and Mike complimented each other well.”

“Thanks for a thought-provoking day! I enjoyed how you promoted the use of different social media tactics and also the discussion of the need to tailor language use to appeal to different audiences.”

“The size of this workshop was ideal. It really facilitated participant interaction. I also appreciated the open and accessible natures of Sue and Mike–I immediately felt comfortable participating in the workshop. My only complaint: I would have liked more time to explore and practice these topics!”

“In the IGC program, we talk a lot about what role we want to play as scientists in public dialogue about climate change. Do we want to be the scientists behind closed doors? Do we want to advocate for change? Or do we want to provide information without advocating for any particular solutions? There are many different options for scientists, so we have a lot to think about. Meanwhile, workshops like this give us the tools we’ll need to play our chosen roles effectively.”

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Practicing the art of the Tweet:

Better science communication: connect on values/craft simple messages/avoid jargon/use metaphors & be an IGC Fellow! pic.twitter.com/7H018lAMn2

— Global Change Center (@globalchangevt) March 23, 2015

View Susan Hassol’s recent Ted Talk about climate communication here.

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Student Spotlight

Research by IGC Fellow Cordie Diggins featured on PBS blog

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 17, 2015

Cordie Diggins is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech. She is co-author on a paper that was published in Endangered Species Research and featured this week in the Rundown, the news blog for the PBS Newshour.

Can a new mapping model save the endangered flying squirrel?

By Carey Reed, The RUNDOWN

Scientists hope a new mapping model published this week that pinpoints where the endangered Carolina northern flying squirrel lives will help conservationists better focus efforts to protect it and its equally threatened habitat, the Appalachians’ red spruce forests.

“The strength of our modeling is that it allows resource managers and other researchers to account for Carolina northern flying squirrels without having to catch them in traps or artificial nest-boxes, activities that are time-consuming and logistically difficult to undertake,” said W. Mark Ford, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist and lead author of the study published in the Endangered Species Research journal.

“Our findings can be used by resource managers to prioritize forest areas that are habitat for this sub-species,” said Ford.

By studying almost two decades worth of information on nesting behaviors, scientists were able to put together a clearer picture of where the endangered nocturnal rodent resides.

The destruction of Southern Appalachian red spruce-Fraser fir forests due to logging, fires, exotic insects and home construction for decades, has been a main contributor to the classification of the bulging-eyed species as endangered. The squirrels have been forced to live on isolated mountaintops or “sky-islands” at heights of 4,500 feet, mostly in the Great Smoky Mountains.

The Carolina northern flying squirrel does not actually fly, but rather glides thanks to extra flaps of skin that stretch from its wrists to ankles. According to the National Wildlife Federation, it can travel nearly 150 feet in a single bound.

Skydivers and basejumpers enamored with the glide ability of the squirrels have developed special suits mimicking the squirrel’s flying flaps. The suits allow jumpers to slow their descent, as well as perform additional mid-air maneuvers.

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Disease Global Change Interfaces of Global Change IGEP

Laura Schoenle’s research featured on Virginia Water Radio

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 15, 2015

From Virginia Water Radio for the week of March 30, 2015.

Transcript:

“This week, we feature a mystery sound mix. Have a listen for about 15 seconds, and see if you can guess what water-related bird disease is the focus of research related to these sounds.

If you guessed avian malaria, you’re right! You heard Red-winged Blackbirds, a mosquito’s buzz, and the buzz of an electric-power station. All relate to aspects of research by Virginia Tech Biological Sciences graduate student Laura Schoenle on avian malaria in Red-winged Blackbirds, an abundant species often seen near water in Virginia and all of North America. Ms. Schoenle’s work tackles some of the challenging complexity of connections among living organisms, their environments, and human activities, including human energy use. Let’s consider some of those connections.

Malaria, named after an Italian phrase for “bad air,” is caused by single-celled parasites transmitted by blood-feeding mosquitoes. Several parasite species can cause avian malaria, but these species are different from several others that cause human malaria. Ms. Schoenle’s research focuses on how Red-wings’ physiology responds to the stress of a malaria infection, particularly the birds’ immune response and the levels of glucocorticoids, which are hormones in humans, birds, and other animals that regulate stress responses. Ms. Schoenle is also investigating whether that stress response may be affected by mercury in the birds’ food, which in summer is largely aquatic insects and other organisms in aquatic food webs. Nationwide, air emissions from coal- and oil-fired electric power plants are a significant source of atmospheric mercury, which can travel hundreds of miles, eventually be deposited into water bodies, and potentially enter aquatic food webs.

Parasites, mosquitoes, birds, aquatic insects, human energy use, air, water, mercury…if this weren’t already complicated enough, stress-response hormones in birds—as well as in you and me—affect not only immune systems but many interconnected organs and functions, such as the brain, circulation, and blood-sugar levels.”

Climate Change Drinking water News

Booming population, looming drought and the worsening effects of climate change

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 13, 2015

By Richard Parker

From the New York Times Opinion Page

WIMBERLEY, Tex. — “WE don’t want you here,” warned the county commissioner, pointing an accusatory finger at the drilling company executives as 600 local residents rose to their feet. “We want you to leave Hays County.”

Normally, my small town is a placid place nestled in the Texas Hill Country, far from controversy, a peaceful hour’s drive west of Austin. Pop. 2,582, Wimberley was founded as a mill town on a creek. Today it’s part artist colony, part cowboy town known for its natural beauty and its cool, clear springs and rivers that wind through soaring cypress trees.

But these are not normal times. The suburbs of Austin close in every year. Recently, the suburb of Buda and developers enlisted a company from faraway Houston to drain part of the Trinity Aquifer, the source of the Hill Country’s water. An old-fashioned, Western-style water war has erupted.

Across Texas and the Southwest, the scene is repeated in the face of a triple threat: booming population, looming drought and the worsening effects of climate change.

And it is a story that has played out before. It was in the Southwest that complex human cultures in the United States first arose. Around A.D. 800, the people called the “Ancient Ones” — the Mimbres, Mogollon, Chaco and other Native American cultures — flourished in what was then a green, if not lush, region. They channeled water into fields and built cities on the mesas and into the cliffs, fashioning societies, rituals and art.

Then around 1200 they all disappeared. Or so the legend goes. In reality, these cultures were slowly and painfully extinguished. The rivers dried. The fields died. The cities were unsustainable as drought stretched from years to decades, becoming what scientists today call a megadrought. Parts of these cultures were absorbed by the Pueblo and Navajo people; parts were simply stamped out.

By the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, so had, finally, the rain. The American, German and Polish settlers who came to Texas in the 19th century found a rich landscape, flush with water. “I must say as to what I have seen of Texas,” wrote Davy Crockett, “it is the garden spot of the world.” And so it remained, punctuated by only two long droughts.

One, at the dawn of the 20th century, wreaked ecological havoc on the overgrazed Hill Country. The second stretched from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and is still known as the drought of record. When it released its grip, a new era of feverish dam and canal building ensued in Texas, just as it already had in much of the Southwest. A dearth of rainfall, after all, is a fact in the cycle of life here. Rains come when the equatorial current of El Niño appears, and they stay stubbornly away when its twin, La Niña, reverses the course. Those grand dams and canals seemed likely to suffice.

But again, these are not normal times. Arizonans are in their 10th year of drought, despite an uptick in rainfall during last year’s monsoon season because of a single storm on a single day. And while it has been a cool, damp winter here, the clear waters of the Blanco River still look low. Officially, more than half of Texas’ 269,000 square miles are plagued by drought. Conservatively, this would make for the fifth consecutive year of drought in Texas. Meanwhile, today, the average American uses 100 gallons of water a day.

Richard Parker is the author of “Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America.”

Disease Research

Facing my fears, headlamp-on in Panama

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 12, 2015

By Lindsay Key, Fralin Life Science Institute Communications Officer

This is Lindsay Key’s second blog report from Panama. She is traveling over spring break with Angie Estrada and Daniel Medina, who are conducting field research near Gamboa.

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One thing is for sure: field research is messy. Not just in the sense that nature is full of mud and water and bugs, but in terms of logistics. You have to learn to expect the unexpected.

On Wednesday, we leave Gamboa bright and early—around 6 a.m.—and head north to visit a national park site near the Atlantic Ocean recommended to Angie. On the way we discover that the highway is curiously closed so we take the closest exit through a series of towns toward the city of Colon, stopping off at a grocery store to grab snacks.

As we get closer to Colon, traffic gets slower and slower. Finally, it comes to a stop. Daniel calls to a pedestrian who informs us that there is a protest in the middle of Colon that has resulted in the epic traffic jam. Taxi drivers are demanding that their cars be equipped with better security so they are not stolen from.

Panama is currently in a state of political turmoil after its last president was found guilty of stealing money. Now that a new leader is in power, people are feeling more empowered to exercise the right to protest, Angie and Daniel explain. The roads are impassable: we have to turn around and head back to Gamboa.

Angie is bummed. She only has a small amount of time to visit all of her sites in order to get an accurate portrayal of frog populations in the dry season here in Panama. She decides that in no way will the day be wasted. She and Daniel head back to the Pipeline site to lay transects, or measure out the space for frog swabbing for another day.

Around 8:30 p.m. that evening—Frog Prime Time— we embark on another field excursion that is a first time for me: night swabbing.

It takes a great deal of convincing for me to step into my rubber boots, long sleeved shirt, pants, and bucket hat with net (not pictured: massive amounts of Deet-filled mosquito spray). To say that shuffling around an unfamiliar jungle at night is unnerving to me would be an understatement. As a kid I spent a lot of time playing outside in the dark, but adding jaguars and venomous snakes into the equation is a game changer for me.

Nevertheless, I decide to go because this is an important part of the research project that Angie and Daniel want me to see.

We drive about ten minutes out of Gamboa and park on the side of the road in a spot that Angie and Daniel must know by memory, because it all looks the same to me. Angie pulls aside a branch on the side of the road and there it is: Ocelot Pond glimmering in the moonlight. It’s a short but steep trek down to the small pond and the researchers tell me which trees to grab onto and which to avoid (the spiny ones). We are three little headlamps in the night moving towards the water, some of us more gracefully than others. I feel like a water buffalo in my big rain boots on the uneven ground. We have to be sure to shine our lights on any branch we aim to touch or pull for leverage—that’s the nature of a rainforest at night. On the forest floor, we see colonies of leaf-carryings ants hoisting their leaves overhead and marching in the straightest assembly lines: nighttime shift work.

Our first spotting isn’t a frog at all—it’s a Common Basilisk, more commonly known as a Jesus Christ lizard for its ability to run on water. We saw one sprinting over a stream at the Pipeline site, but this one is in no mood for exercise: he has found a comfy spot on a branch partially sunk in the pond. Up close, he is fascinating and bigger than I imagined, about the size of a small iguana. I am struck by the fact that he lets us get within inches of him and Angie tells me it is because he is sleeping.

It’s not long before Daniel is clued into the calls of the frogs—he is an expert at this—and he is able to name the species based on their calls. We continue around the pond, with Daniel and Angie combing branches, leaves, and the pebbly soil for signs of webbed feet.

We are looking for two key species at the pond: the hourglass frog and the glamorous red-eyed tree frog that has long served as a rainforest poster child. These species are important because there is two years’ worth of swabbing data for them, and therefore a strong line of comparison.

Luckily, we find both of these species for swabbing, but not without also finding the grandfather of the frog pond: Leptodactylus savagey (Savage’s thin-toad frog). This frog is HUGE, anything but thin! And also fast. We try to catch him for swabbing but he makes a getaway.

In the back of the truck, Angie and Daniel organize the supplies to ensure a quick and efficient swabbing station. It’s not good to keep the frogs in their sampling bags for too long. Daniel handles each frog with laboratory gloves, turning it so that Angie can swipe its belly, back and legs. The procedure must be exactly the same for each frog.

They sample a total of seven, and this is low, even for the dry season. During the rainy season, the forest is full of frog calls, Daniel explains.

Understanding frog population dynamics during the dry and wet seasons is important to understanding the spread of chytrid fungus in the same way that understanding the behaviors and population dynamics of humans is crucial to understanding how we spread the flu to each other.

Many factors are at play, including frog behavior, biological defenses, and environmental conditions. This is complicated by human-driven changes such as climate change, invasive species, pollution, and habitat degradation.

It will take a team of scientists studying many angles of these factors in order to get a handle on the disease that has caused decline or extinction in more than 200 frog species so far. Scientists have claimed chytrid fungus to be the greatest disease-caused loss of biodiversity in recorded history.

Daniel, Angie, and other scientists studying the disease across the world have their work cut out for them, but we are done for tonight. The frogs are released back into Ocelot Pond and we head back to Gamboa with a cooler full of samples.

Read more at the VT Research Blog

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About the author

Lindsay Key is a lover of words, animals, and all things science. She works as a communications officer for Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech. Previously, she served as research communications specialist for the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and journalist for The Roanoke Times. She holds a B.A. in English and Communications, MFA in Creative Writing, and is currently working on a master’s in natural resources.

Global Change Interfaces of Global Change IGEP News Other Sponsored Lectures Seminars, Workshops, Lectures Special Events

Special IGC/EEB Seminar featuring Dr. Robert Lackey: science in public policy

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 10, 2015

“Science in Public Policy: Maintaining Relevance, Ensuring Accuracy, and Avoiding Advocacy”

The Interfaces of Global Change IGEP at Virginia Tech is pleased to welcome Dr. Robert Lackey for a special EEB Seminar on Thursday, March 5th, 2015.

SAVE THE DATE!
Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 2:00-3:00 p.m. | Fralin Auditorium | Virginia Tech

Abstract

Has science become irrelevant in informing policy debates?

Scientists in environmental science, natural resources, ecology, conservation biology, and similar disciplines are often not trusted by the public and decision-makers to present policy-neutral science. One reason is that scientists advocating personal or organizational positions on ecological policy issues have become widely tolerated and even encouraged by a segment of the scientific community. As a result, the scientific enterprise is collectively slipping into a morass that risks marginalizing the contribution of science to public policy. Public confidence that scientific information is technically accurate, policy relevant, and politically unbiased is central to informed resolution of policy and regulatory issues that are often contentious, divisive, and litigious. Especially, scientists should watch for the often subtle creep of normative science (i.e., information that appears to be policy neutral, but contains an embedded preference for a particular policy or class of policies). Failing to do so risks marginalizing the essential role that science and scientists ought to play in informing decisions on important public policy questions.

About Dr. Lackey

Robert-Lackey-190x180 — Dr. Robert Lackey

Dr. Bob Lackey is a professor of fisheries science at Oregon State University. In 2008 he retired after 27 years with the Environmental Protection Agency’s national research laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, where he served as Deputy Director among other senior science and management jobs. Since his very first fisheries job mucking out raceways in a California trout hatchery, he has worked on an assortment of natural resource issues from various positions in government, academia, and the private sector. His professional assignments involved diverse aspects of natural resource management, but mostly he has operated at the interface between science and policy.

Dr. Lackey has published over 100 articles in scientific journals. He has long been an educator, having taught at five North American universities (including Virginia Tech) and currently teaches a graduate course in ecological policy at Oregon State University. Canadian by birth, he is a U.S.-Canadian dual-citizen living in Corvallis, Oregon.

His primary recent research themes have included: Pacific salmon policy and management; ecosystem management and alternative management paradigms; ecological policy and decision analysis; and the interface between science, scientists, and natural resource policy. These days, his specific research and policy focus is on the three overarching policy realities that will drive natural resource and environmental agencies in the Pacific Northwest through this century:

(1) the dramatic increase in the numbers of humans in the region

(2) a changing climate which will impose different ecological options and constraints on many species and the Endangered Species Act

(3) the ongoing and intensifying collective demand for ecosystem services

Dr. Lackey’s seminar will be titled: “Science in Public Policy: Maintaining Relevance, Ensuring Accuracy, and Avoiding Advocacy”.

This event will be co-sponsored by the Interfaces of Global Change Graduate Student Organization (GSO) as part of the continuing Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Seminar Series.

[tt_vector icon=”fa-cloud-download” size=”fa-3x” border=”false” pull=”” color=”#62707D”] DOWNLOAD the seminar flyer here

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Disease Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Postcards Research

Postcards from the field: traveling with VT graduate student researchers in Soberania National Park

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 10, 2015

We’re going on a frog hunt!

by Lindsay Key, Fralin Life Science Institute Communications Officer

Hello from the extremely bumpy backseat of a white pick-up truck that is barreling down a washed-out pothole-ridden trail known as Pipeline Road (left, below) in Gamboa, Panama. This is a famous road— known for its wildlife viewing capabilities and accessed by thousands of scientists around the world who come to study and work at the nearby Smithsonian facility in the tiny research town of Gamboa.

It is a wild road—the wildest I have ever been on. The forest is green and thick and heavy with moisture and heat. It is home to jaguars, pumas, vipers, anteaters, sloths and a variety of monkeys—including spider, howler, and capuchin varieties. Birders the-world-over come to this spot to see thousands of brightly colored species, including manakins, parrots, and toucans. Today, we are hoping that the forest is full of frogs.

Periodically, we stop to listen to their calls. My companions—Virginia Tech biological sciences Ph.D. students Angie Estrada and Daniel Medina—are pros at this. They grew up in Panama and know these forests well. Now, they work with Virginia Tech researcher Lisa Belden to study the spread of chytrid fungus among frogs, which has globally resulted in mass amphibian extinction.

There’s a lot that can be discovered in a sample from a frog’s skin. Angie is here to gather samples that she can then take back to Blacksburg to analyze. She is comparing incidence of chytrid fungus on various species throughout the seasons. Her hypothesis is that disease spread will be more prevalent in the dry season of the tropics (January-April) when frogs are drawn together in close quarters by scarcer water sources.

Yesterday, we spent most of the day at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City, gathering supplies for frog swabbing—gloves, swabs, plastic bags, and sterile water. We also talked to one of Daniel and Angie’s former professors there—a researcher who has studied frogs for more than thirty years. He gave Angie tips about sites near Gamboa where we might find an abundance of our favorite amphibians.

This is primarily Angie’s research project. Daniel, a second-year Ph.D. student, also studies frogs, but has already gathered samples and is here to serve as first-year Angie’s field assistant. This project is special to Angie and Daniel: this is their home. They have worked and studied in these forests (often times, together) for more than ten years and are passionate about conserving the abundant biodiversity here.

Today is mostly an exploratory trip to scout out good frogging sites so we can come back and swab. We drive about six kilometers along the road, into Soberania National Park. We hike down to a small stream, scouring the rich soil and pebbles. It is literally hopping with frogs! Angie and Daniel locate nine separate species along this stream alone, including a glass frog (pictured below, right) which is a unique find because it is primarily nocturnal and it is only about 10 a.m. now. Glass frogs are really cool because some species have translucent bellies, allowing us to see their hearts and other internal organs through their skin!

While wading in the river, we hear a commotion in the trees—branches break and a flurry of leaves flutter to the forest floor. At first, Daniel thinks it might be a monkey but as we get closer and climb the stream embankment, we find that it is an anteater, making his way along the canopy. While in the forest we also encounter an agouti, a native rodent about the size of a house cat who is sniffing along the forest floor. He seems interestingly unphased by us, and comes pretty close!

Angie decides that this is definitely a good field site and that we will come back later. We head back about a kilometer towards the park entrance and stop at a second site, also by a stream. This one is not as good for frogs—Angie and Daniel find only about four species here, and the deeper stream makes it harder to locate amphibians. With the sun now high in the sky, most of the animals are resting and hiding, doing whatever they can to stay cool in the intense humidity and heat.

We jump into the truck and head back to Gamboa, confident that we’ve found at least one good site and that we’ll be back soon.

– Follow Lindsay’s spring break trip to Panama at: VT Research Blog

-Read more about amphibian conservation efforts: Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation

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a&dwithfrog_400 — Virginia Tech Ph.D. students Daniel Medina (left) and Angie Estrada, both of Panama City, Panama, search for frogs off Pipeline Road in Soberania National Park in Gamboa, Panama.

Daniel Medina (left) and Angie Estrada are fellows in the Interfaces of Global Change interdisciplinary graduate program at Virginia Tech. The students are working with Lisa Belden, an associate professor of biological sciences, to study the spread of chytrid fungus among tropical frog species.

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About the author:

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Accolades News

Four Global Change Center faculty receive New Investigator Award

Post author By jcoker
Post date March 10, 2015

Four Virginia Tech life science researchers have received Fralin’s New Investigator Award, which recognizes promising first-time tenure-track faculty who have joined Virginia Tech within the last two years. This year the recipients each received $10,000 to advance their research efforts as they see fit.

“We are delighted to provide some unrestricted funds to help several of our new investigators within the life sciences,” said Dr. Dennis Dean, the director of the Fralin Life Science Institute.

“These funds come from the Fralin endowment and can be used to support any activity within the research program of the investigator. Such unrestricted funds are particularly useful for new investigators because they provide a flexibility that might not be possible with other start funds. This is the sort of support Horace Fralin had in mind when he established the endowment, and we are extremely grateful for his generosity.”

Congratulations to the following faculty, all of whom are also members of the new Global Change Center at Virginia Tech:

Jacob Barney is an assistant professor of plant pathology, physiology, and weed science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a faculty member of the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech.

His research focuses on identifying and evaluating the processes and consequences of invasive plant species on natural and managed ecosystems, and studies how invasive plants respond to evolving climate-related scenarios.

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Cayelan Carey is an assistant professor of biological sciences specializing in freshwater ecosystem ecology in the College of Science and a faculty member of the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech.

Her research integrates population, community, and ecosystem ecology to examine how natural and human-induced influences affect fresh water ecosystems.

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Megan O’Rourke is an assistant professor of horticulture in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Her research examines the environmental and societal impacts of different types of food systems, and addresses links between agriculture and climate change, ecological pest management, genetically modified crops, the emerging local food movement, and agricultural policy.

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Kendra Sewall is an assistant professor of biological sciences specializing in animal behavior and neurobiology in the College of Science at Virginia Tech.

Her research seeks to understand how neural and behavioral processes — and the environmental and developmental factors that impact those processes — contribute to animal survival and reproductive success.

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