Robert F. Smith - Ecology Research, Outreach, & Education
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News about the Smith Ecology lab

The RFsmith ecology lab presents (virtually) at the 15th river symposium at Bucknell University

12/7/2020

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The 15th Annual River Symposium at Bucknell University was held virtually this year. Two undergrads and my postdoc collaborator gave oral presentations (virtually) at the meeting. Cool thing is that they were recorded, and you can watch them online. Undergraduates Brooke Millisock and Bailey Schwenk and Dr. Leslie Rieck all presented on work related to the College Community Stormwater Partnership project. Brooke's talk was titled: Outreach, education, and curriculum development for an urban stormwater college-community partnership. Bailey's talk was titled: GIS-based prioritization system for MS4 compliance projects. Leslie's talk was titled: Challenges, barriers, and misunderstandings for implementing small-municipality MS4 programs. Everyone did a fantastic job and their research represents great work in urban stream ecology and science communication. I'm also pretty proud of everyone for being able to accomplish this work during a global pandemic!
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The summer that wasn't

8/22/2020

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Normally this time of year, I'm about 2 weeks out from the semester starting reflecting on a fun summer field season with CWI interns. Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic has obliterated normal, including the field season. However, not all was lost. I've worked remotely with 2 talented interns on research related to our project developing a college-community partnership. Bailey Schwenk worked continued to work on his research developing a tool for prioritizing BMP locations for stormwater projects. Brooke Millisock started working on an extension website focused on urban stormwater management as a service to the project partners. We hope to roll out the website some time this fall when she finishes it as part of her environmental practicum course. Brooke is a talented artist as well a a biologist and designed this graphic for our website (as a quick preview). In addition, Jenna Tasker was able to work on identifications for her project examining how daily weather affects adult stream insect activity. Due to distancing guidelines, Jenna came out with me one day, and then the rest were done by myself or (as a treat for me), with my family. I'm excited and nervous about what the fall semester holds.

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Bittersweet end to the semester (without a proper sendoff for my research students)

6/9/2020

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Like most Colleges and Universities, Lycoming College switched to remote instruction in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The end of the semester was bittersweet without being with the students on campus as many finished four years of hard work (and maybe a little fun too). I saw three of my research students move on from Lycoming College. While they'll (hopefully) be back for a fall graduation ceremony, I would have greatly preferred to experience with them the culmination of some pretty awesome research through a traditional end to the semester. Still, I couldn't be more proud of these students.

Ruric Bowman graduates with departmental honors in biology

Ruric successfully defended his honors thesis (just in time) titled "Vertical migration of adult Plecoptera (stoneflies) above forested headwater streams". This was the culmination of a long-term project examining adult stream insects in forest canopies. What's especially impressive is that this wasn't supposed to be Ruric's thesis even though he presented on the topic at several meetings (including the national meeting for the Society for Freshwater Science). Ruric was in the middle of his project examining predator-prey dynamics when campus was closed. Since he couldn't finish that project, he set down that thesis and wrote this one in pretty short order. Ruric is the first students to receive departmental honors working with me. I hope to have an announcement about graduate school plans for Ruric soon!
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Ruric getting ready for an oral presentation in the 'big room' at the Susquehanna River Symposium (top) and then giving said presentation (bottom).

Mikayla Schappert graduates after completing a GIS-based study examining landscape vulnerability to climate change

Mikayla joined my lab fully in her senior year after working for me as the the Teaching Assistant for my Introduction to GIS course. She had an interest in learning to use GIS for research in conservation biology. We collaborated on a study examining the concurrent effects of landscape geometry and urbanization on vulnerability to climate change that Mikalya used as the basis of an independent study in her final semester. She presented the research virtually to the department through a talk titled "Geographic assessment of landscape vulnerability to climate change". Mikayla was able to complete the work while working remotely from home (rather than in my lab). While I was there to support her work, she definitely showed an ability to work independently on this research.
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Mikayla never got to present her independent research, but she had presented on other GIS work previously (top) and had the dual interest in organisms (bottom) and landscapes needed in conservation biology.

Braeden gonales graduates after serving as the cwi chemistry lab manager for the past 2 years.

Braeden wasn't really 'my' research student since he worked with most of the CWI staff and students, but in his final semester I was lucky to have the opportunity to work with him on water chemistry data collected from the Loyalsock Creek and a project examining novel pollutants (personal care products and pharmaceuticals) along a stormwater gradient. The research is in progress (and I hope Braeden continues to work with me on the analysis), and it represents a major step towards important collaborations between the CWI and the Lycoming College Chemistry department. Braeden will continue his work at Bloomsburg University working on an MS with Dr. Steve Rier.
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Braeden presenting his chemistry colloquium (top) and learning that chemists can enjoy biology too (bottom).
Congrats to Ruric, Mikayla, and Braeden (and all graduates)!
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SUSE5 outcomes and NSF support

2/27/2020

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The last few weeks have been an awesomely crazy time helping organize the 5th Symposium on Urbanization and Stream Ecology (www.urbanstreamecology.org). Here are a few of the highlights:

NSF support to increase professional and personal diversity at sUSE5

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With some great mentorship and a wonderful concept developed by a large group of great people, I was able to get funded a $25,550 grant from the National Science Foundation (Award DEB-2012128) to support SUSE5 with a long list of senior personnel. We were able to provide travel support to community organizers, people from disciplines less commonly represented at SUSE meetings (e.g., social scientists, landscape planners, engineers, etc.), people with personal backgrounds often underrepresented in stream ecology, and other individuals with limited financial support to attend SUSE5. I'm excited how the overall support and the ability to support travel for this group helped (I think) greatly improve the meeting and make us better prepared to address the wicked problem that is urban stream management and renovation.

SUSE5 outcomes

The meeting was an intense and amazing 3 days of interdisciplinary science. I think the overall outcomes demonstrated the 'wickedness' of the problem, but also the barriers that exist within and among disciplines in creating common goals and solutions to difficult problems. The case studies we worked on created a very interesting narrative through the meeting demonstrating how the process of interdisciplinary science can and can't work. Not everyone 'had a blast', but I posit that everyone who participated fully learned about urban streams and, possibly more importantly, about how to create effective solutions to managing these systems within the context of the urban communities these streams flow through. Stay tuned to the SUSE5 organizers and participants for more details on the outcomes of the meeting (and we are already talking about SUSE6!).
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2 new papers published in aquatic entomology and stream restoration

11/12/2019

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I'm excited to say that I co-authored 2 pretty cool papers recently that are now both in early view stage. One study shows that stream insects, and specifically certain taxa of stoneflies, prefer to emerge from streams using emergent wood over emergent rocks or other submerged substrates (https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvz106). The other study examined the response of stream insects to a novel restoration on Big Spring Run (Lancaster County: ), which found that the restoration had no effect on the stream insect community, but more interestingly (in our opinion) the approach we used that analyzed several subsets of the data and multiple assessment approaches created a holistic narrative about project outcomes that was more compelling than a simple statistics-based approach (https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3556). What was really exciting is that both of these manuscripts were undergraduate student research projects. The emergence study led by Kristin Cheney who as an undergraduate at UMass when I was a postdoc. Several undergraduates at Millersville University including co-authors Emily Neideigh and Alex Rittle did the heavy lifting during the field and lab stages of the work. Let me know if you need a reprint of these (or any) of my manuscripts.
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Welcome postdoctoral scholar, Leslie Rieck to my lab and the cwi

9/24/2019

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As a result of funding provided by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, my colleagues and I in the CWI were able to hire Leslie Rieck to work at a postdoctoral scholar in the Biology Department at Lycoming College. A recent graduate of the The Ohio State University, Leslie will be a key component of the College-Community Stormwater Project through student mentoring, research, and teaching. Leslie's graduate work examined "potential linkages between urban-induced hydrogeomorphic modification and: (1) fish assemblage compositional changes over time (3-5 years); (2) fish assemblage trophic dynamics; (3) aquatic-to-terrestrial nutritional subsidies to a common riparian consumer (spiders of the family Tetragnathidae); and (4) downstream drift of larval macroinvertebrates in the water column." I am extremely lucky to be able to collaborate with and learn from Leslie, and I'm excited for what the next few years will hold. Welcome Leslie! 

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A little insight into what my Clean water institute colleagues and I and Lycoming Students do for environmental education using streams

7/6/2019

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This video, produced by the PPL Corporation, was done to highlight the PPL Corp's generous support of environmental education performed by the CWI. Professor Emeritus, Mel Zimmerman of the CWI was the PI on the grant that allowed the purchase equipment to expand our ability to perform environmental education activities at the Waterdale Lodge. Environmental education at the Waterdale Lodge is a collaborative initiative between the CWI (and Lycoming College) and the Williamsport Municipal Water Authority. While I was not around when this initiative began, I am excited to support and help expand this ongoing collaboration that benefits school-age children in the area. The main goal is to develop stewardship and an appreciation for maintaining clean water for drinking, recreation, and biodiversity.
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Research student Ruric Bowman: first to sfs in salt lake and then off to an NSF REU at Old Dominion University

6/3/2019

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Ruric Bowman presented his research at the annual meeting of the Society for Freshwater Science in Salt Lake City. He was able to attend after being awarded a $500 travel grant to attend the meeting from SFS in addition to support by the Provost's office at Lycoming College. He was back for 3 days and then was off to participate in an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) program in the Department of Ocean, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Old Dominion University. The REU program is focused on climate change and sea level rise in a coastal metropolitan environment. He'll be missed this summer, but this experience will serve him best in his quest to attend graduate school studying marine ecosystems.
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Congratulations to Brittany Lenze on graduating from Lycoming college and attending graduate school

6/2/2019

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Lab researcher Brittany Lenze graduated from Lycoming College this year. Brittany studied the effects of soil warming on Canada thistle and won the Biology Department service award for her work at a tutor, teaching assistant, and lab assistant in addition to just plain being an awesome student in the Department. She'll be working on a Master of Professional studies degree in Controlled Environmental Agriculture in the School of Integrative Plant Science (Horticulture Section) at Cornell University this Fall. Good luck Brittany!

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CWI receives a grant to develop COLLEGE-COMMUNITY STORMWATER PARTNERSHIP

2/9/2019

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My colleagues and I with the Lycoming College’s Clean Water Institute (CWI) were awarded a $258,000 grant from The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations to develop a college-community stormwater partnership model for small urbanized watersheds. The grant will further the capacity of the CWI to support urban stormwater management initiatives by community partners, expand the College’s environmental science curriculum, and provide new research and training opportunities to prepare students for a high-demand area in natural resource management. Further details can be found in Lycoming's official press release: HERE.

We are hiring a postdoc to help implement the teaching and research components of this grant. We are looking for a
 Ph.D. with expertise in fluvial geomorphology, urban hydrology, stormwater management, or green infrastructure, but candidates with expertise in other areas related to urban stream ecology are encouraged to apply. Details of the position and instructions for how to apply can be found HERE. Please email me if you have any questions about the postdoc position.
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    ​Here you'll find the latest news for the RFSmith ecology lab. Please contact me with any comments, questions, suggestions, or other thoughts about the activities of my lab.
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