Students go to conferences to give talks?

Apparently. And I was under the distinct impression it was to drink entirely too many free pitchers and party grad-student style - all kidding aside, I just got back from OEEC 2009. If there's anything I know about science, it's that it LOVES acronyms.

OEEC is the Ontario Ecology and Ethology Colloquium, which was held at Queens University in Kingston this year. Students from universities from all over Ontario come together to give talks about their research or to show their research proposals. The subjects included sexual selection, climate change, population biology, environmental contamination, animal behaviour... the list goes on.

As with every conference, there were some good and some bad. Some of the interesting talks included one about nest morphologies in the yellow warbler by Vanya Rohwer at Queens University (supervisor: Paul Martin - what an unfortunate name to get stuck with). Yellow warblers make thicker and warmer nests up north than they do further south. He tested the temperature differences in these nests and found the thicker ones (which incorporated feathers and fluffy plant material) to be warmer. The thinner southern nests are more appropriate for warmer, wetter weather, which you find in southern Ontario. Whether they are locally adapted or showing plasticity remains to be seen.

Another interesting talk was about male seismic (vibration) signaling in jumping spiders by Sen Sivalinghem at University of Toronto (supervisor: Maydianne Andrade). I had no idea jumping spiders did mating dances to attract females, nor that they actually vibrated when they did them. First he classified different frequencies of vibrations, from courtship to aggressive courtship to male rivalry. Then he looked at virgin females and mated females and which behaviour the spiders exhibited to them. The males were more likely to make courtship vibrations for virgin females and aggressive courtship vibrations for mated females.

My talk went well. It was titled "Thermal properties of tree cavities in winter and implications for flying squirrels". The fact that I study flying squirrels usually helps take the edge off, and keeps people's attention (at least a little bit). Of course I spent the two days before the conference putting in 12 hour days trying to prep my talk, after assuming that the last talk I gave was "good enough". It didn't take me long to realize that I had to develop some new ways to display data when I looked at some slides that stated findings with no depictions of the results :S

Of course, I hadn't booked time with my supervisor to go over my presentation, and by the time I realized how much work I needed to do, it was Friday afternoon. And I was home. I sent my supervisor several garbled emails (to which he replied he did not understand) looking for stats explanations. Finally I broke down and called the PhD student, nearly begging for help. He walked me through my graphical dilema like a pro and I had a list of steps to create some nice depictions in no time :) Andrea:1 Procrastination: 0

Overall, the conference was interesting and good practice for the CSEE (Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution) conference in May.

Flirting with my dream job

A couple of weeks ago The Daily Planet was at Trent University filming a segment of "Science in the City" with Alan Nursall for an upcoming episode. It was announced through a university news portal and on the morning of I went through extra preparations (and got up extra early): nice outfit, extra makeup, straightened my hair... I caught the bus and showed up in Gzowski (where they were filming). The photo above was taken by a Trent University publicist and was included in all their news items about the filming and subsequent broadcast of the segment.

There was a group already filming the experiment (which was putting together powerless MP3 player speakers), so I sat down and watched. The atmosphere was humming with energy, and I really hoped they would film it more than once. In fact, they did! After they took the mics off the group filming, a guy with a clip board approached us and asked if we wanted to be next - we said of course! After signing away all of our rights, we were given mics and the sound guy let us listen to each other talking in a big set of headphones.

Then we crowded around the table and started the experiment. If you said something particularly witty or well explained, they would ask you to repeat it. Overall, the experience was very exciting! I'm just mad at myself for not sticking around to chat with Allan about his transition from science to journalism. Being a science broadcaster on the Discovery Channel is definitely my dream job!

The anticipation of the last three weeks, waiting to see if I made the cut, was almost unbearable... It aired last night, and I made it!!! I've posted the link here - I'm the girl with the blonde hair (you'll recognize me from my display pic) and he calls me by my name, Andrea. Enjoy!

How to find the needle in the haystack, that is if you've deployed it with a radio collar

I've always wanted to radio-track an animal, ever since seeing it on National Geographic or some other Discovery Channel program when I was a kid. We've all seen it, a scientist holding a huge antenna (or maybe it's mounted on the back of a truck), tracking tigers or mountain lions or bears - something big and ferocious (and far-ranging).

So when I took on my project, I was really excited to track my first flying squirrel. Luckily, the antennas are much smaller (because squirrels don't move nearly as far as larger mammals) and the larger the antenna, the further away it can detect a signal. Especially since we don't drive around in a truck, we hike through the forest to find the squirrel's tree.

Since I was interested in squirrel nest trees (and more specifically, the cavities they used), I would trap squirrels at night, attach a radio collar and let them go. Flying squirrels are nocturnal, which means they are active at night, so we would leave and come back in the day when they were asleep in their nests. That way I could find the cavities they used.

To find them, you just follow the beep. Whichever direction is the strongest sounding beep on your received is the direction they are in. Every now and then a rock face or hill can throw you off, but you soon discover your error as soon as you get to the top, and the reception is clearer. The trickiest part is when you get down to two or three trees that are close together. Squirrels tend to nest high in the trees, so it's not as simple as pointing the antenna at the tree at face height. You have to angle and twist and turn to make sure you have the right tree.

Looking for cavities always helps... if there are two trees, and one has several obvious cavities and the other has none, they are more likely in the one with the cavities. You still need to double check though. My favorite way is to hit the tree with a stick - if the cavity isn't really deep, a squirrel will poke its face out of the cavity to see what's hitting its tree (which doesn't seem like a great survival strategy I know). Years ago this was actually how biologists caught flying squirrels, by netting them out of their cavity holes (it seems like such a cowboy tactic - squirrel wrangling).

All in all, it's like playing hide and seek with such an advantage that the seeker always wins. And finding a squirrel's cavity is very satisfying (especially if you can get an impromptu glide out of a squirrel by banging on the tree)!

Winter gear: Just mush

The field site where I measured cavity temperatures was at a research property owned by Trent University. It is an old farm property complete with mature sugar maple forest. There is a gate and dirt road in the summer, but in the winter this gets snowed in, so you have to walk into (and around) the property.

To set up temperature loggers in the cavities I outfitted them with microchip detectors (to detect any flying squirrels that went into the cavity) and used a "treetop peeper" (camera on an extension pole) to check the cavities for any other small creatures that could be using them. This was to make sure the cavities were empty when I recorded temperatures, so that I was getting the insulating effect of the wood, not any heating effects of animals sitting on my temperature logger.

The microchip detectors had to be attached to large batteries, and the treetop peeper was stored in a large waterproof case, so getting gear in and out of the site was no easy task. Instead of carrying it all, the PhD student had the brilliant idea of taking a snowmobile sled, loading it with the gear and attaching the tree lanyard as a harness. Now getting all the gear in and out was a breeze... unless the snow was wet and sticky, which in that case it was still pretty difficult to pull the sled. BUT once you broke a trail, it was smooth sailing all the way back out.

Not to mention my legs were in excellent shape by the end of the winter!

Learning to climb

My research requires both inserting temperature loggers
into cavities and measuring the internal dimensions of cavities. Many of these cavities are out of a ladder's reach, which means we have to climb trees to measure them.

Yes, climb - not the free-climbing of your childhood, when you had not yet realized your own mortailty. This is the safety equipment riddled, muscle aching, uncomfortable climbing of adulthood - complete with spurs, harness, lanyards, helmet and rope.

I was taught to climb by two male students in my lab. Now I am dedicated to equality of the sexes, especially being a female graduate researcher and all, but they just make it look easy. The upper body strength of a rugby player versus my upper body strength (where my workout is carrying groceries home from the store) does not even compare. It's hard work, and I'm glad I did it in the winter (when you can never get too warm and there are no biting flies!).

That aside, it's pretty fun! And getting that high in a tree
offers a great view of the surrounding countryside! Once
you get comfortable and lean back, it's actually quite relaxing
(until you have to start climbing back down).

The scariest part is if you lose your footing. The lanyard and harness are there to slow your fall out of the tree, and turn it into more of a slide, but a very uncomfortable one at that. I know a person with scars going up his stomach from sliding down a large portion of a tree with the lanyard and harness attached.

You try your hardest to get a good footing, and stick the spurs in deep. There's no kicking involved, just stepping straight down on them and letting your body weight do the work. But every now and then a piece of tree flakes off (the piece with your spur in it) or the tree is just too frozen/hard to get your spurs in very deep. That's often when you slip. It's not that I'm afraid of heights, but I certainly am afraid of falling. There were a couple of times last winter that my spur slipped and my heart skipped a couple of beats (and it kinda felt like it left my chest and made a new home in my throat).

All in all, climbing is an interesting and challenging skill to have, and I am glad I learned it. Will I climb just for fun? Probably not... I still get the rugby player to climb "tough" trees for me :)

Trapping is an art best left for tall men

To trap flying squirrels, I mount brackets on trees and place tomahawk traps on top of the bracket. The higher the trap is on a tree, the more capture success it will have. Now picture your 6' co-worker setting traps as high as he can reach, and then sending me (5'4) to set them.

See the problem? I spent half of my winter trying to scramble up trees with traps totally out of my reach. And to put the bait in the trap (peanut butter on the little peddle that shuts the door once its stepped on), I need to be "face and eyes" into the trap.

After about the 6th time climbing a pine's dead lower branches and then sliding down the tree, getting stabbed by the nub left by the branch when it broke off on the way down, I decided I needed a step of some sort - and I choose a milk crate for that purpose, because it was light and sturdy. The milk crate was my sidekick all winter, giving me the extra height needed to set traps with ease.

Spring is here - leeks are sprouting!

Yesterday I was in the field collecting the last of my winter cavity data when we noticed wild leek sprouts. I was ecstatic! The PhD student I work with, Colin (I will likely mention him a lot), and I picked as many shoots as we could... which equalled out to be just enough for each of us to sprinkle on a salad (or in my case, left over Pad Thai).

There was a big patch of "untouchables" - why? As Colin was leaning in to pick some, he noticed how there was much less snow in that patch than elsewhere... and then he noticed the hair... apparently deer do not have the profound respect for leeks that I do and have no problem bedding down on them the previous night.

If you've never had leeks before, their flavor is in the middle between garlic and onions... if you have, you know how delicious they are! I have posted a picture of the sprouts I took - it was exciting because I have a new macro lens that I haven't had much practice with yet... needless to say after lying on the ground for 10 minutes in my cargo pants I was feeling the effects of melting snow (luckily it was 10oC and the day was almost over).

My Project (the dry stuff)

First things first, what do I research?

I'm looking at two species of flying squirrels (Glaucomys) in Ontario. Southern flying squirrels (G. volans) are moving north with climate change, and that could have impacts on the populations of northern flying squirrels (G. sabrinus) that live further north.

What are my objectives?

I'm interested in the possibility that these two species could be competing for nest trees (cavities) when they live in the same area. As well, southern flying squirrels could be passing a parasite to northern flying squirrels that northerns are not adapted to. Both of these interactions could put negative pressure on northern flying squirrels.

How will I test my objectives?

Nest cavities would be most critical in winter, when temperatures are low. I will record tree cavity temperatures during that time, and model which cavities are warmest using measurements from inside the cavities.

I want to know if southern flying squirrels are nesting in the warmest cavities, so I will also measure known flying squirrels nest cavities to see where they fit in the model. I think that in sites where they are only one species, both northerns and southerns would use the warmest cavities. In areas where there are both species, I think that southerns would use the warmest cavities (they have been shown to be more aggresive than northerns in defending nest boxes).

I will also test both species for the parasite Strongyloides robustus. It lives in the intestine and has no measureable effect on southerns, but causes harm to northerns. To test for the parasite, I will collect scat samples on a north-south gradient in Ontario, to see if it is moving north with southerns.

So that's the gist of it - my Coles Notes version :) Now onto the interesting part, field work - the good, the bad, and the ugly... stay tuned

I just want to introduce myself...

Here I go. I'm new to the blogging scene, but have followed the travel blogs of several friends. And since I'm not going anywhere exotic anytime soon, I figure instead I will write about what I do every day = scientific research.

Now, before you go cross-eyed and leave, bear with me. I believe science can be both fun and interesting - and that's what I intend to show in this blog :) First I will discuss my graduate research, which is on flying squirrels in Ontario, and then from there, who knows? New research, field work I help with, etc. etc. The possibilities are endless!

I don't take myself too seriously, and I hope you enjoy my light hearted look at biology, field work, and whatever else science has to offer :)