Faculty advisor, Research project and a Design study

I have begun the process of trying to connect with a member of the faculty who will be the best fit as an advisor. I have an appointment next week to discuss this with a faculty member who does turtle research. Before I chose him, I checked the university website and carefully read his page. I then did a little bit of Googling and found that he had co-authored a book on the biology of snapping turtles and was also able to get copies of a few of his research papers to read over. Am I over-doing it? I don't think so but then I am flying by the seat of my pants on this one. I also sought out students who have worked with this professor and/or had him as an instructor. All this preliminary work took up probably two hours of my time. I meet with him next Wednesday and the emails that we have exchanged sound promising.

 I'm working out the things that will be needed to conduct an observational study on turtle basking near the river trail in North Little Rock. The idea came from reading the paper "Basking Behavior of Emydid Turtles (Chysemys picta, Graptemys geographica, and Trachemys scripta) in an Urban Landscape"
 William E. Peterman1 and Travis J. Ryan2
The scientist's goal as explained in the above paper was to determine, among other things, the affect of highly managed habitat on turtle basking along canals in central Indianapolis. I intend to study how turtle basking is affected by the specific distance of a basking location is from this multi-use river trail that runs along side the Arkansas River. As I have been jotting down notes on possible research questions, how to obtain specific data, what kind of data I should collect, what tools I need and attempting to formulate a hypothesis; I am both excited and overwhelmed. The only thing I can do is jump right in. Hopefully I'm still in the shallow end of the pool.

statistic and excel

For the career I have chosen it is important to understand how to use, interpret, and manipulate the data that is collected. So where and how am I going to learn? I think I have found a variety of ways to up my knowledge.

On Wednesday I went to a post-doctoral presentation of a fellow student who did work over the summer on the effects of temperature and bacterial infection on the hatching's of several different song bird species. On Thursday I went to a chalk talk in which four doctoral students presented finding of research they had completed. On student (computer science) spoke on how, over the summer, she developed new algorithms that discerned whether a lesion was melanoma or not. Math to find cancer. Who knew. Then a math student talked about the algorithm he used to encrypt computer data. The final two were biology students who studied the phenomena of female mantids eating the head off of the male mantid during mating along with the fact that mating appears to be continuing even thought the male has no head. This experiment was a complicated, multi-step process that involved growing mantids and their food for a period of months. And now they are planning on replicating the experiment trying to remove the bias that was created when it came to be that the home grown mantids were tame creatures and exhibited behavior that was quite different from a wild mantid. An example: they could be fed by hand (via tweezers) whereas a wild mantid exhibits a fighting stance when approached with tweezers.

Of course all the students included their statistical data in the presentation. As they would show the data, they were careful to explain each graph, what it represented, how the calculations were made (to be honest the math and computer science people did not do this, it would have been way to complicated for the audience to understand) and what they were able to extrapolate from the data. For me it was a mini-lesson in data analysis. A big thank you to all those students.

Yesterday in Ecology class the lab groups presented the results of our Simple Ecological Study and there were detailed discussions after each presentation. This again was something that added to my knowledge of what I can do with statistics. I may at some time even come to understand statistics. Does anyone understand statistics? Every exposure in context, like discussions following a presentation, I get one more tiny little itty-bitty piece of statistics. Each opportunity to play with an excel program provides more insight into how to present my data and what that data really means. At this rate I should know what I'm doing in graduate school.

Possible research project

            Every day on my way to school I drive a section of I-40 that has woods growing in the median for several miles. Last week on a Thursday morning there was a dead fox (roadkill) and from it's position it appeared that it was leaving the north side of the freeway and attempting to travel into the median. (the previously mentioned wooded area) That is what got me to thinking about what kind of ecosystem was thriving, growing, persisting, maybe just barely hanging on inside this miles long strip. Is there a research project for me hiding in the median? How scary would it be to park on the side of the freeway in order to do the research. There is one area in which the inside shoulder of the freeway lanes is two lanes wide. I guess it's for future expansion. I think it would be safe to park there and it is sufficient in length to allow me to get up to speed and get back into traffic.
          A lot of other questions went through my mind. What would I focus my research on? Plant or animal? Who would I get permission from? The state or the feds? Does this area contain any sink populations? Is it a source population for any species? I suppose it could be both for bird species. I suppose it could be for plant species. What about that fox? I noticed today that there are a number of culverts that drain either into or away from the median into the opposite side of the freeway, which is for the most part also wooded. These could allow immigration and emigration.  Are there any turtles in there? How would I find them?

Graduation is in sight

I figured out a possible schedule for spring 2012 and realized that I will be graduating in spring of 2013.

Oh Dear. I will be graduating in 2013!

 So now I have to in no particular order; take the GRE, find a grad school, design a unique research project, get a job as a research assistant, get my research project approved, get more scholarship money, apply to grad school, bring my GPA up, sell my house. Wow.  

Maybe Hydro-electric power isn't so clean after all.

I am reading the book "Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water In The West" by James Lawrence Powell. Though not with this book, water rights was a topic in my Environmental Policy class that I took last year. With only 20 pages left to read I've been quite surprised by what I learned.

 Maybe hydro-electric power isn't so clean after all. The lakes behind dams slowly (or quickly depending on a number of factors) fill up with sediment which causes the reservoirs to hold less and less water. Eventually the silt deposits get high enough at the bottom of the reservoirs that the generators are blocked and there is no power generated at all. The water released during generation comes from the bottom of the lake which causes the river to be colder that normal in the summer and warmer than normal in the winter. This directly affects the type of flora and fauna found downstream. These issues I was previously aware of however I did not know that the salinity of the water is also affected. With each dam that river water has to pass through, salinity in ppm increases. This knowledge adds a new parameter that I will use in my research.

Reading a book about the politics and ecology of the convoluted water rights system in the U.S. may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you like that sort of thing, I highly recommend this book.

On a lighter note, the link below takes you to a blog from a scientist that has discovered greater diversity than expected.

http://deepseanews.com/2011/09/behind-the-veil/

The Naked Scientist Podcast

During my run I listened to "The Naked Scientists" podcast which talked about a new program in which the flora and fauna of the worlds oceans was going to be cataloged. I was quiet surprised that it had not already been cataloged.
As a class assignment I read a paper from 1922 (written by Stephen A Forbes for which you have to have access to JStore or Nature to read) entitled "The Humanizing of Ecology". The paper discusses the need for a holistic approach to science in that pure science and material science need to work together to the benefit of mankind. This debate still occurs today although I believe it takes the form of material science being where the money is (both income for the scientist and research dollars handed out) and pure science is often misunderstood by the general public. There is a group of scientists and science journalists trying to remedy this issue and bring pure science to the public. Bill Nye the Science Guy. The Mythbusters. Top Gear. The Naked Scientists. There are dozens more TV shows and podcasts but is it enough? How can I help?
By the end of the semester my Ecology professor wants us to be able to provide and answer to the question of "Is a shrimp on a treadmill a waste of taxpayer money?" Hopefully by the end of the semester I'll have answers.

I love TED because...

Something captures my imagination.
I laugh.
I cry.
I am made to think.
I am exposed to new ideas.
My opinions are tested.
I see greatness.
I see courage.
I am taught by passionate teachers.
I am compelled to act.

Turtle tracks

On Monday my daughter and I went to watch the sunrise (such as it was) at the Emerald Isle beach. The background of the blog is one of the pictures from that day. We came across some turtle tracks moving out of the surf onto the beach, the nest was laid, and the tracks returned to the ocean. (See photo below) A fisherman came over and asked what it was and my limited undergrad biology student explanation probably left him with more questions than answers. You can get a general idea of the size of the turtle from the human foot prints next to the trail. My daughter and I continued our walk to the pier. When we made our way back to the nest we saw that the local authorities had marked the nest with a large circle. Of course we wanted to show off our find so later in the day when the family went to the ocean to swim we tried to locate the nest. It had been moved to the dunes where it was roped off with orange tape and a sign posted.

On Tuesday I visited the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/marinelab/to get first hand information about their grad school program. While there I asked about the turtle nest. My guide, Lauren, said that the locals are pretty well educated about conservation and that the nest would not be disturbed. Local authorities would monitor the nest and collect data.