INTEGRATIVE HERPETOLOGY: MOLECULES, MUSCLES, AND MIGRATION

Michael E. Dorcas

Davidson College

Project Summary

The objective of this proposal is to enable the Biology Department at Davidson College to implement its mission and vision statements (Appendix I) by developing a program in herpetology that transcends and unifies scientific disciplines and emphasizes training students to conduct original, high-quality, publishable research. Herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles, will form the core of a teaching/research program that will be utilized by students (including non-majors) taking a variety of courses and involved in various levels of original research. Herpetology is an ideal field for such a program because studies in herpetology easily transcend different disciplines in biology. For example, studies in molecular biology can be combined with landscape-level studies using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to allow students to study the effects of habitat degradation on genetic variation in numerous species of amphibians and reptiles. Herpetology is also an ideal field for such a program because, 1) of the current interest in the biology and conservation of amphibians and reptiles, 2) the diversity of amphibians and reptiles offers an immense variety of natural history characteristics that can be studied, and 3) most species of amphibians and reptiles are easy to work with in the laboratory and field. Development of a herpetology program at Davidson College will require an ongoing teaching- research program based on the development of local study sites, specific mark-recapture studies, modern technological methods (e.g., GIS, GPS, and automated monitoring of animals and the environment), and a computerized, relational-database that will provide the foundation for local studies of amphibians and reptiles. New technology-based courses will be developed using herpetology as a model system and research in herpetology will be incorporated into a variety of established courses. The immediate and long-term impact will be an exciting teaching program that unifies the curriculum and provides students with valuable experience conducting high-quality, original research.