Establishment of Lab to Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, St. Kitts, West Indies5/3/2020 There will be a lot of exciting changes to this website over the next few months! Immediately before COVID-19 lock-downs started, I relocated to St. Kitts in March. As a result, you will notice massive revamping of this website over the course of the next few months as I establish a lab at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine (RUSVM, website: veterinary.rossu.edu/). While my lab will be physically located in the Caribbean, my research will extend beyond the borders of St. Kitts as my research on North American mainland bats and EcoHealth will continue while I build an equally robust Caribbean based research program. As such, I've temporarily hidden most of the content of this website and will be creating new pages focused on regional research projects.
While I hoped to launch the revamping of this website earlier, due to lockdown orders and permits being temporarily suspended due to COVID-19, there are delays in starting research in St. Kitts and a hold on all Missouri based projects. So please be patient as website content will be updated as soon as possible.
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Bats provide many important ecosystem services, but their populations are rapidly declining. One cause is White-nose Syndrome, a fungal disease which attacks bats during torpor. Hibernation surveys such as the one we helped Missouri Bat Census conduct at Mark Twain Cave Complex help management agencies and researchers to monitor hibernating bat populations.
For more information on this awesome cave visit http://www.marktwaincave.com/
Lights, camera, action!
Three words that are not found in the typical vocabulary of veterinary students... Over winter break, two wonderful veterinary students co-authors helped film a Journal of Video Experimentation (JOVE) video manuscript entitled "Using Deuterium Oxide as a Non-Invasive, Non-Lethal Tool for Assessing Body Composition and Water Consumption in Mammals". We are the first lab to adapt deuterium oxide for assessing body composition in big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) and for using deuterium oxide to assess water consumption in socially housed animals.
We trapped at Montauk State Park for several nights this summer and each night interested park staff members joined us to learn about working with my favorite night time creatures (bats). Copied below is their Facebook post describing what they learned from working with us. And consider checking out the rest of their page to learn more about the park and activities for visitors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copied from: https://www.facebook.com/montaukstateparkofficial/posts/1629639863811798 Montauk State Park added 7 new photos. August 17 at 3:31 PM · Recently, U.S. Forestry Bat Biologists Sybill Amelon, Sarah Hooper, and Alicia Roistacher conducted a survey on the park to assess numbers, types, and health of bats who use our park every night. These creatures are exceptionally difficult to capture and study because they are both nocturnal and fly, requiring the researchers to stay out all night operating specialized equipment. Once captured the researchers record data related to species, maturity, and health, even collecting feces and blood samples to analyze diet, hormones, and cellular health, Among the bat species identified were Gray, eastern red, big brown, evening, tri-colored, and even a rare, Hoary bat. Bats are threatened by habitat loss, cave disturbance, pesticides, an introduced fungus known as “white nose” and a variety of other threats, making Missouri State Parks a safe haven for bats to live and forage for food. By understanding more about these fascinating creatures we hope to find solutions for their continued survival. For more information please talk with one of our knowledgeable park staff at Montauk. Thank you to our U.S. Forestry partners for sharing your expertise and time with us! Summer has been quite busy with field work and working with a variety of undergraduate and veterinary students. This summer has been tremendously fun as the majority of students I am working with have never had a chance to work with wildlife, work on a research project, or work the field. For one student it was "the absolutely the coolest experience in my life" to be able to work with bats, but she also had the "worst experience of her life" having to learn there were no flush toilets in the wilderness.
My research aims at improving knowledge about bat species in an effort to improve conservation efforts for bats. "Improving knowledge" are the key words. Bats are one of the most feared and misunderstood species in the world, and helps explain why we as researchers should make sure to include community outreach and education as a component of our research activities.
On Friday, our lab was invited to help with the Nocturnal Wildlife Encounters at the Missouri Department of Conservation Burr Oak Nature Center. The weather and turnout was great, and kids and adults of all ages were able to use/see bat detectors, transmitters, and other "batty" items and learn how bats are studied and why bats are important to our ecosystem. Follow Burr Oaks events (https://nature.mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/places/burr-oak-woods-ca) and we hope to see you next year! Twice a year Missouri State Park Biologists lead a team of researchers and citizen scientists into Devil's Icebox Cave to monitor the Pink planarian (Macrocotyla glandulosa) population. This particular species has never been found anywhere in the World except in Devil’s Icebox Cave. Pink planarian are in the class Turbellaria (free-living flatworms) in the phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms). Most turbellarians are free-living, and most are carnivores, eating tiny aquatic invertebrates such as rotifers, small crustaceans, and other worms. During our trip we also found other creatures, such as various species of fish (mostly Darter species), approximately 700 gray bats (Myotis grisescens), and fossilized crinoids (marine animals).
More info on Planarians on MDC's website: https://nature.mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/turbellarians-planarians-free-living-flatworms |
AuthorSarah Hooper Archives
May 2020
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