Unfortunately the end of the term study craze precluded any updates. Stone Lab is a great experience for field science, but it is also very academically rigorous. There's basically no reason to not attend Stone Lab if you can manage it.
That said, two Fridays we managed to catch some birds on South Bass Island. Including a cardinal. Unfortunately we didn't catch enough red-winged blackbirds off of Gibraltar, and only one cardinal in total so our experiment was basically a bust. This is part of the nature of Stone Lab, each year the labs are different and sometimes won't go as planned.
Regardless of the success of your labs you will still get to travel across Lake Erie to visit many of the islands.
You can see the photos from the trip to South Bass (including photos of the bird banding tools we used) here. Look for a few youtube videos in the next few days as I recap the entire experience now that I've had time to think on it.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Salamanders at Kelleys Island
Apologies for the lack of updates. We've been having on-and-off internet (and power!) at Gibraltar recently, but that's life on an island. I've got a big backlog of things to work through, including videos of the fireworks on the 4th viewed from the island (one of the best views available on the lake).
For now, here are some pictures of salamanders you can find on Kelleys Island.
These things are pretty much all over the place. Turning over five or six big, flat rocks can easily uncover an equal number of salamanders. To people familiar with them, this may seem unusual. Salamanders typically begin to burrow to conserve moisture when the summer months come in, but the islands on Lake Erie are basically solid dolomite with a thin layer of soil over it. They can't burrow very deep.
This makes the islands a great place to study salamanders and this particular population has some interesting features. The marbled and red/lead-backed salamanders are fairly typical, neat to look at and play with, but what's really fascinating is the species of salamander from the genus Ambystoma. These salamanders are unisexual (that is, they have gender, but reproduction is possible without gametic combination).
Males deposit sperm and females collect the piles to expose to their eggs. It is not yet understood how, but some eggs combine with sperm in the typical sexual reproductive fashion, others are simply initiated by sperm into growth and development (with no transfer of genetic information). Still others seem capable of "stealing" genetic information of sperm from males of other species, effectively permitting the female to acquire a fully-adapted genome for her offspring within one generation.
While out in the field we collected about twenty individuals to study (along with several red/lead-back salamanders and marbled salamanders who we were not scientifically interested in). Each individual was marked by clipping toes and the clipped tissues were collected and frozen for genetic sequencing. Study of these salamanders may provide insights into various aspects of sexual reproduction, speciation and genetics.
Unfortunately my camera was dying while out in the field and I forgot to bring replacement batteries. Otherwise there would be more photographs of all the salamanders we caught and collected samples from, along with the species we weren't there to sample.
For now, here are some pictures of salamanders you can find on Kelleys Island.
These things are pretty much all over the place. Turning over five or six big, flat rocks can easily uncover an equal number of salamanders. To people familiar with them, this may seem unusual. Salamanders typically begin to burrow to conserve moisture when the summer months come in, but the islands on Lake Erie are basically solid dolomite with a thin layer of soil over it. They can't burrow very deep.
This makes the islands a great place to study salamanders and this particular population has some interesting features. The marbled and red/lead-backed salamanders are fairly typical, neat to look at and play with, but what's really fascinating is the species of salamander from the genus Ambystoma. These salamanders are unisexual (that is, they have gender, but reproduction is possible without gametic combination).
Males deposit sperm and females collect the piles to expose to their eggs. It is not yet understood how, but some eggs combine with sperm in the typical sexual reproductive fashion, others are simply initiated by sperm into growth and development (with no transfer of genetic information). Still others seem capable of "stealing" genetic information of sperm from males of other species, effectively permitting the female to acquire a fully-adapted genome for her offspring within one generation.
While out in the field we collected about twenty individuals to study (along with several red/lead-back salamanders and marbled salamanders who we were not scientifically interested in). Each individual was marked by clipping toes and the clipped tissues were collected and frozen for genetic sequencing. Study of these salamanders may provide insights into various aspects of sexual reproduction, speciation and genetics.
Unfortunately my camera was dying while out in the field and I forgot to bring replacement batteries. Otherwise there would be more photographs of all the salamanders we caught and collected samples from, along with the species we weren't there to sample.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Kelleys Island Bird Banding
Back to Kelleys Island we went on Friday. This time our goal was to capture, band and release several birds for our primary lab exercise this quarter.
Unfortunately, we captured two birds. And I only had my camera ready to take a picture for one of them. And neither bird was a red-winged blackbird or a cardinal. Our study may be in peril.
Fortunately, there were several nesting boxes for purple martins nearby, each with several families of newly-hatched birds waiting to be banded and photographed. Contrary to what your first grade teacher may have told you, handling hatchlings and eggs won't make the mother abandon them. In fact, many of the adults waited patiently with food in their mouths while we banded their offspring, after which the parents quickly entered their nests to put food in their babies' mouths.
You can see the album of this trip here.
Unfortunately, we captured two birds. And I only had my camera ready to take a picture for one of them. And neither bird was a red-winged blackbird or a cardinal. Our study may be in peril.
Fortunately, there were several nesting boxes for purple martins nearby, each with several families of newly-hatched birds waiting to be banded and photographed. Contrary to what your first grade teacher may have told you, handling hatchlings and eggs won't make the mother abandon them. In fact, many of the adults waited patiently with food in their mouths while we banded their offspring, after which the parents quickly entered their nests to put food in their babies' mouths.
You can see the album of this trip here.
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