从田野到青蛙

人际关系和青蛙迁徙

这一切都始于挂在亚历克斯和李·乔治大厅的一张海报.

“你对青蛙的研究感兴趣吗?? 给我发邮件.’

“所以我照做了，”大四学生麦琪·凯勒说.

现在，她在实验室为卡莉·约克(Carly York)博士工作的第四年.D.他研究入侵的非洲爪蛙.

伟大的户外

凯勒进入大学时就知道她想从事环境方面的工作. 但在学习了一段时间的环境科学专业之后, she switched to biology and looked for opportunities to get her hands dirty.

“如果我不在外面，我就感觉不到与任何事物的联系或灵感, and I want to know how everything works because I’m such an innately curious person. I have all these questions,” said Keller, a Charlotte, North Carolina native.

So it only makes sense that it was a foggy, misty day in Hickory when she first toured campus.

“老实说，天气糟透了，”她一边回忆一边笑着说.

But despite the gloomy appearance of the day ­— Keller was keeping a mental checklist of everything LR had to offer — and as the tour wrapped up, 她检查了每一个盒子.

大四那年, she has molded her degree and time at LR to include her passions ­— visual arts and environmental stewardship.

从兰花到蕨类植物，从蜜蜂到青蛙, Keller draws biological illustrations that she uses to complement her research and also distributes them to the public through her job at a local frame shop.

“I am tailoring my education to what I want to do post-graduation because I get such an intimate experience with my professors,凯勒说.

其中一位教授是约克, 是生物系的助理教授，也是凯勒的导师之一.

“Maggie is a tenacious student who has grown so much during her time as an undergraduate,约克分享道. “She brings the creative side into her research by way of her illustrations and has woven them into some of her conference presentations.”

Those conferences include the virtual international research conference for the Animal Behavioral Society and the regional conference for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

Her work with environmental stewardship spans multiple facets across campus. 作为大学生态教育战略分会的主席, 多样性和可持续性(SEEDS), Keller is working with other students toward providing engaging experiences involving ecological and environmental sustainability education and helping to provide opportunities for minorities in STEM.

通过她在SEEDS的时间, she also joined the environmental stewardship committee that spans Lenoir-Rhyne’s three campuses and became the first undergraduate student fellow with the Reese Institute.

“I’m going to leave here knowing that I did something, and I changed something,” Keller said. “This school is not going to be the same as it was when I first walked in as a freshman.”

把青蛙带来

这是她在老道明大学博士研究的一部分, York investigated how squids evade predators using an array of sensory modalities and a jet propulsive escape response.

当她加入劳氏学院时, York took this research and began applying it to the African clawed frog (scientific name: Xenopus laevis). She is investigating how the lateral line system — a system for an animal to help them feel movement in the water — contributes to prey acquisition throughout ontogeny and how their sensory physiology plays a role in the ecology.

对生态学很感兴趣, Keller joined York’s research group and is now in her fourth year working with a colony of African clawed frogs.

“老实说，我只是觉得两栖动物很酷, 我想翻翻日志，发现新的东西，告诉别人,凯勒说。.

但是为什么要进行这种形式的研究，为什么要研究非洲爪蛙?

“The lateral line systems have been mostly studied in cephalopods — squids and a lot of fish — but in these frogs, they’ve only been looked at a lot while they’re tadpoles and not specifically with how that affects how they get their food,凯勒分享道。. “It’s important to look into because [the African clawed frog] are invasive on almost every continent. So understanding how they get their food is useful in understanding how they’re impacting all of these environments that they’ve invaded.”

特别针对凯勒, she is testing the hypothesis of whether or not the lateral line system actually plays a role for these frogs? 例如，这是否有助于它们捕捉猎物?

“Some preliminary findings have supported that the lateral line system is the main method of pre-acquisition behavior,”她说。. “But there is more work to be done and data analysis to help with next steps.”

多亏了10美元,国家科学基金教师科研经费, the LR lab purchased an infrared camera to examine further how these frogs are searching for food.

“通过关灯和使用相机, we can see if they [the frogs] are using their eyes or the lateral line system in their search for food,约克分享道。. “它让全球网赌十大网站深入了解这些遭遇发生了什么.”

前进, York and Keller will work through the analyzing stage of their data collection and see how these frogs are using multi-sensory modalities to find their prey.

These findings will be presented on campus at the annual Symposium of University 研究 and Creative Expression as well as the North Carolina Academy of Science meeting this spring.

跨入未来

凯勒准备这学期毕业, she is confident in her work thus far and her connections with faculty members.

“当我想到学校的时候, 我想起了那些激励我、帮助我茁壮成长的人们的面孔. 我认为这是全球网赌十大网站最宝贵的资产之一。. “除了专业以外，我认为这一切都是值得的.”

凯勒接下来要做什么?

“The dream job scenario is to be able to play in the woods all day,凯勒说. “所以，我打算去读蝾螈生态学的研究生. 我想做一些实地调查, and I’d like to use my master’s experience to then decide if I want to pursue a Ph.D. and do the more research-based route and work at a university in a lab or do something a little more nontraditional such as fieldwork.”