How is it almost Halloween?! So much news!

Irene passes her qualifying exams!

Field work in the Locust Fork for the Dimensions project (pictured left to right: Carla Atkinson, Garrett Hopper, Irene Sanchez Gonzalez, & Jamie Bucholz)!

Carla, Delaney Peterson, Michelle Wolford and Chelsea Smith placing sensors during field work in the Paint Rock watershed for AIMS!

Garrett assisting with outreach showing folks the mussel game during homecoming 2021!

​The summer completely flew by and it is already the end of October and so much has happened! 

Lab news - Dr. Shannon Speir joined the AIMS project early this summer coming from Dr. Jennifer Tank's lab at Notre Dame. Chelsea Smith (M.S. Georgia) joined the lab this August as a PhD student working alongside the AIMS project to study stream invertebrate communities and secondary production. Also, Irene passed her qualifying exams!

Field work - It was a challenging summer for fieldwork with the excessive rain we have had this past year. However, we have all the sensors in the three southeastern watersheds for the AIMS project. We have also managed to get on the Buttahatchee River for mussel surveys on a Section 6 project and do a little hole fill sampling on the Locust Fork for the Dimensions of Biodiversity project.

Outreach - The Alabama Mussel and Aquatic Biodiversity exhibit (stay tuned for the online component!) is nearly complete at the Alabama Natual History Museum which has enabled some amazing outreach opportunities! This week as part of the Haunting at the Museum, extinct mussels of Alabama are being highlighted to generate more public awareness about the imperlied status of many freshwater animals. Additionally, some lab members interacted with the public by particpating in the College of Arts & Sciences homecoming tent this past weekend!