Lab in action at Yellowstone

Lab in action at Yellowstone National Park

Beth, Maddy, and Hannah at the north entrance to Yellowstone in Gardiner -- weeks after the 2022 floods (and moments after meeting a Prairie Rattlesnake at the Arch)!

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It feels good to have more of the lab getting back into the swing of fieldwork after the worst years of the early pandemic! The lab has always maintained some field activity throughout the pandemic. Ezequiel Vanderhoeven had been working remote from field sites across Argentina; Robert Ang'ila and Peter Lokeny had been keeping active at Mpala in Kenya; Colin Donihue had led  the lizard team in field and lab studies across New England; Amanda Lyons led the terrapin conservation genomics team around the northeastern United States. But a lot of us had to cut back or go it alone more than we would have liked. The tide finally began to turn in 2022, though!

In the summer of 2022, we have had a group led by Bethan Littleford-Coluqhoun (postdoc), Hannah Hoff (incoming grad student), and Maddy Florida (UTRA student) at Yellowstone -- collecting dung, surveying plants, coordinating with collaborators -- with support from our scientific partners at the National Park Service and the Brown University Herbarium. Amidst the ongoing recovery from disastrous flooding along the Yellowstone River, we were able to get out into the field together to advance a number of priority projects for the lab. 

We are super grateful to funders: NSF (CAREER & EPSCoR award), Department of Interior (Cooperative Agreement), Brown University (UTRA & IBES).