Click here to see a video from Spectrum News 1, where Shelby and Courtney take talk about their jobs with the Office of Kentucky State Nature Preserves!
Click here to see a video from WKYT, where Luke is has a few sound bites related to the incidence of rabies in bats!
Lab efforts continue to move along, with bat roost monitoring, pitfall trap visits, establishing a dermestid colony for our small mammal museum efforts, wrapping up camera-trapping efforts for EKU’s REU program, and teaching kiddos about bugs at EKU’s Family Nature Day!
The lab’s been busy, already in the field with some early radiotracking efforts for Indiana bats in the Bluegrass, and installing pitfall traps for small mammal trapping on Pine Mountain.
Courtney and Shelby streamed from Carter Caves State Resort Park to talk about bats!!! Check the Facebook video here –> https://fb.watch/59jIWhUztw/
Michaela Rogers graduated from the lab in 2020, and is Currently Environmental Scientist and a point-person for pollinator/monarch butterfly efforts with Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. She provides an overview of native pollinator plantings in relation to the Kentucky Wild Program!
Reed Crawford graduated from the lab in summer of 2020, and is now pursuing his PhD in the O’Keefe Lab at UIUC! He is hitting the ground running, authoring a piece with Dr. O’Keefe in Conservation Science in Practice entitled “Avoiding a conservation pitfall: Considering the risks of unsuitably hot bat boxes.” It’s a great read, and is jam-packed with practical considerations not only for scientists and stewards, but really for everyone invested in bat conservation!
The grad students have been in high-gear lately… Both Sarah and Shannon presented their intended MS research to their committees (and received the ‘stamp of approval’).
On top of that both lab members also gave a departmental seminar about some of their research activities since joining the lab a little under a year ago. Shannon talks about two years worth of bat colonization of rocket boxes, and Sarah talks about the status of small mammal records in the EKU Mammal Collection! Their seminar materials can be viewed from the EKU BIOS Youtube Channel, and below:
Shelby graduated from the lab with her M.S. in Biology back in 2017, soon thereafter taking a position with the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves as a terrestrial zoologist. Shelby talks a bit about her career to date, and reflects back on her time at EKU in the Feb 2021 Newsletter from EKU’s College of Science. Check it out here!
A big congratulations to Michaela Rogers, who defended her M.S. thesis today! Michaela has done a stellar job over the past couple years, and all the while has held down a full-time position in the Wildlife Diversity Division of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. WOOO, Michaela!
Her exit seminar can be viewed from the EKU BIOS Youtube Channel, and below:
The Dodd Lab at Eastern Kentucky University 