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Into the wild for environmental research
Sister volunteers Jill Hawkens (left) and Jackie Sarra (right) assist BGSU sophomore Christine Whorton in recording bat sounds.
Arisca Droog (left) supports the GPS device while (left to right) graduate student Jacob Meier, undergraduate Stephanie Kuck, Dr. Helen Michaels and graduate student Mike Plenzler identify and record area vegetation.
Close-up of the non-native, invasive flowering rush found in the waters of the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.
22 BGSU Magazine
On a hot June night last summer, a group of volunteers, wearing headlamps with red lights and well sprayed with mosquito repellent, set out through Toledo’s Wildwood Metropark carrying Anabat acoustic monitoring devices. Led by Jessica Sewald, a graduate student in biological sciences, these “citizen scientists” were recording bat sounds for later analysis, and would repeat the exercise in different metroparks every other week through August. Overseen by Dr. Karen Root, a faculty member in biological sciences, Sewald’s research will provide data on the types of bats in the area, their populations, flight patterns and foraging habits. This information is crucial to determining land management and where to place wind turbines, since any significant decrease in the number of bats would spell trouble for farmers, who rely on the creatures to eat agricultural pests. Sewald has a dissertation improvement grant from the National Science Foundation to support her study. Meanwhile, a group of graduate and undergraduate students led by BGSU biologist Dr. Helen Michaels was braving the high heat and humidity to find and map invasive flowering rush in the waters of the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge along the Lake Erie coastline. Heading out in the early morning, going by canoe or in high waders where the growth is too dense to navigate by boat, they located and noted patches of the plant. Funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the interdisciplinary team was developing a method of identifying the invader from satellite images in order to predict where it might go next. Arisca Droog, a second-year master’s student in geology, is participating in the research project for her master’s thesis. In yet another project, geology graduate assistant Katheryn Coode and Dr. Enrique Gomezdelcampo, environmental programs, were conducting tests of the water levels in Toledo’s Oak Openings region as part of an effort to restore the area’s wet prairies, which are key to the health of the Maumee River watershed. With funding from the EPA’s Great Lakes Research Initiative Fund and The Nature Conservancy, Coode and Gomezdelcampo were participating in the first analysis of the local hydrology, an important step in understanding how to address the problem. “On a personal level, I’ve always been interested in the environment,” Sewald said. “Being able to go out and do the research and contribute to the larger field, even if it’s a small part, is a lifelong dream come true. Knowing that I’m making an impact and that sharing my research will help people know more about bats is very rewarding.”