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Patuxent 75th Anniversary
No full textThis is Part 4 of 4 transcripts from the Patuxent Science Symposium, 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Science Center. It includes speakers who talk about their time at working at Patuxent and some of the work they did. This transcript includes the following speakers and moderators: Judd Howell (moderator), Dr. Robert Reynolds, Dr. Donald Cahoon, Brad Knudsen, Glenn Olsen1
Patuxent Science Symposium
75th Anniversary
October 13-14, 2011
This transcript is Part 4 of 4 and features the speakers listed below for the 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Research Center. They talk about their work and experiences while working at Patuxent.
Page
Speaker Judd Howell-Moderator
2-8
Dr. Robert Reynolds 8-18 Dr. Donald Cahoon
18-30
Brad Knudsen 30-37 Glenn Olsen 2
Patuxent Science Symposium
Friday
Session Moderator: Judd Howell
Judd Howell introductory: Dr. Robert Reynolds
Judd Howell:
The last day and a half has really been a celebration of Patuxent's history and where we've been and how we've gotten here. And this afternoon is going to be about what we are doing... Okay, about what we are doing and what we want to do, what our future will be.
And in that vein, since we have paid homage to the area when we were in the Fish and Wildlife Service. Now you see it? Now you don't. We're stepping more into the era of those of us who have served not only at Patuxent, but served our tenure under the auspices of the U.S. Geological Survey, hence the shirt.
Our first speaker, though, is going to talk to us about an organization that has been transcendent beyond the vagaries of this reorganization, that reorganization, or every other reorganization that's taken place since 1887, I believe.
Our speaker is Dr. Robert Reynolds. And you know, Bob, I didn't realize that the pay freeze has affected your haircut budget, but I would like you, I would like to invite you to the podium to tell us about the Biological Survey Unit at the Smithsonian and its august history, and welcome.
Dr. Robert Reynolds:
Thank you Judd, I'm actually surprised that you noticed my hair, so.
I'd like to give you a review of the history and current activities of the Biological Survey Unit. Biological Survey Unit is a field station of Patuxent that's located at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
The United States has a long history of working on wildlife species, and an equally long history of building and maintaining museum collections.
The Biological Survey traces its roots back to 1885 in the Department of Agriculture. And in 1889, a formal partnership was created with the United States National Museum for the deposition of scientific specimens that were collected during the activities of the Biological Survey. 3
The focus at that time was to collect animals and plants from throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico for the purpose of documenting, species identifications, occurrence, and distribution, and also for preserving scientific specimens for deposit in the National Museum.
Part of this agreement also stipulated that Biological Survey staff would be permanently housed in the National Museum to conduct systematic research on the specimens they collected, as well as to care and manage the North American collections of terrestrial vertebrates at the museum.
The first chief of the Biological Survey was C. Hart Merriam. Merriam was also the first president of the American Society of Mammalogist and Merriam was clearly a biogeographic pioneer, and actually coined the term 'biogeography.'
Here we have a impressive array of early bioge..., Biological Survey employees, including Ira Gabrielson, Frederick Lincoln, Alexander Wetmore, Edward Nelson, C. Hart Merriam, Edward Goldman, A. K. Fisher, and others. And the one thing I'd like you to notice about these individuals is the very serious look on their face, and the obvious formal dress that was required at that time. I will contrast that shortly with our current employees.
The Biological Survey has a long history of bio..., biodiversity research. We are involved in vertebrate systematics. And systematics is the study of evolutionary relationships among species as well as the identity, the identification of species, the naming of species, and the classification of species.
Some famous work that was done by early Biological Survey Investigators is... one example is Biological Investigations in Mexico that was published in 1951 by Edward A. Goldman. But Edward Nelson and Edward Goldman literally covered the entire country of Mexico making biological collections, all of which ended up at the National Museum and remain there today.
Faunal surveys continue to this day, although as you can see on the right in this picture that the mode of transportation has changed somewhat. This is a trip that we were making in Peru, and actually had the military helicopter helping us.
And in 2005, a recent example of our compilation of the survey work was a publication on the terrestrial vertebrates of the Guiana Shields.
We currently have 12 employees and one American scientist in the Biological Survey. They're stationed in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology in the Divisions of Birds, 4
Mammals, and Amphibians and Reptiles. And in this photo gallery we have Mercedes Foster, Dick Banks, Terry Chesser, Claudia Angle, and Roger Clapp in the Division of Birds; Bob Fisher, Suzy Peurach, Al Gardner, and Neal Woodman in the Division of Mammals; and Steve Gotte, James Poindexter, Roy McDiarmid, and myself in the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles.
Note, in this series of photographs our staff are actually smiling, and also note that the mode of dress has markedly improved over that from our predecessors.
What does museum work involve? This is unfortunately the classic image that many people have, of old decrepit scientists studying old decrepit dead animals. In fact, museum science is very exciting and it entails lots and lots of things. We work on exhibits, collection management, research on the collections, various kinds of training, and provide much service based on the collections that we maintain.
A big part of our job is acquiring specimens, either through active fieldwork of our own or also getting collections from researchers from around the world, to preserve and manage those scientific collections at the museum. These collections are critical for documenting the science that's being conducted by the people working on these specimens. They have to have the materials deposited in a safe and secure museum.
Major research areas that we're working on are collection-based research, evolutionary systematics and the naming of organisms.
As I mentioned earlier, a major effort that we continue to do to this day is going out and collecting animals and increasing our knowledge about biodiversity. And documenting through museum specimens at the museum.
We have, our current staff have named a very impressive array of new animals. Al Gardner, Neal Woodman, and Dick Banks have identified and described a total of 33 mammal species, which include rodents, bats, voles, and possums. Roy McDiarmid, Steve Gotte, Mercedes Foster, and I have described a total of five snakes, three lizards, 14 frogs and toads. And Mercedes has actually described one species of lizard and three species of plants.
A description that I had the most fun with was a new species of frog from Bolivia that Mercedes and I coauthored. The genus of the frog was, is Colostethus, and the name we chose for it was mcdiarmidi in honor of Roy McDiarmid. And the fun part about this is that Roy McDiarmid had no idea that we were naming this frog for him, and he didn't find about it until he opened his copy of the Journal when it arrived.
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However, whoops, however, that's the end of my talk. However, the most recent animal to be described by one of our staff is this striking short-tailed python, python kyaiktiyo, by Steve Gotte that just appeared on the front cover of the August, 2011 Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Most important is that this photograph is of the animal when it was still alive. But I can assure you that the animal is preserved, and is now a thing of beauty and a joy forever in the type collection at the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles.
Our unit has curatorial responsibility for nearly one million North American amphibian, reptile, bird, and mammal museum specimens.
Other major areas that our staff are involved with is comparative anatomy and development, distribution, biogeography, ethnozoology, ethnobotony, ecology, evolution, conservation, population genetics, and paleontology.
We are all very much involved in training of postdocs, predocs, graduate and undergraduate students, interns and participating in workshops, both nationally and internationally. And here is Suzy Peurach in the Division of Mammals, providing instruction to workshop participants and interns.
Along with other forms of training that we do is the books that were produced for measuring and monitoring biological diversity on amphibians and reptiles and mammals. And this is to standardize efforts throughout the world to, so that researchers all try and do the same sorts of measuring and monitoring of biodiversity.
We provide to federal agencies, state agencies, universities, researchers, NGOs primarily information about the collections that we manage as well as information about the animals that we are experts on.
Another service that we provide is to accept collections from researchers from around the world in order to voucher their research and maintain their databases and maintain the research collections.
Our unit has authored an impressive array of systematic and biodiversity resources for use by wildlife and conservation managers. And here are examples for amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds which are used by the scientific community around the world. And many cases are the standard by which all systematic research is compared.
Two of the most recent books by Biological Survey Unit staff are the Mammals of South America, edited by Alfred Gardner. And more recently, Reptile Biodiversity Standard Methods for Inventory and Monitoring, edited by Roy McDiarmid and Mercedes Foster. 6
Historically, the systematic work that we did was based primarily on morphology of the museum specimens.
Molecular genetics is becoming an increasingly important tool in museum systematic work. And our unit became involved in systematics when we thankfully hired Terry Chesser as a curator of Ornithology in 2005.
Some examples of our current and future research includes work on the AOU (American Ornithologists Union) Check-list of Birds by Terry Chesser and Dick Banks. Mercedes Foster and Terry Chesser are working on systematics and evolution of Neotropical birds. Terry continues work on the seasonal and geographic distribution of South American austral migrants; this is an extension of his dissertation work. Roger Clapp is working on the breeding birds of Virginia. And Mercedes continues studies on Neotropical studies of avian frugivores and characteristics of fruit resources. And Claudia Angle is primarily responsible for managing the scientific collections for use by scientists as well as for arranging for visitor use of the collections, and she handles visitors from all around the world that come to the museum just to study these birds.
Continuing with mammals; Al Gardner is working on a third volume of the Mammals of South America. Neal Woodman is working with the State of California on the taxonomic status of the California shrew. Neal is also continuing work on the fore foot anatomy of tree shrews. Both Al and Neal are involved in various new..., descriptions of new species of bats, voles, and shrews from Middle America. Suzy Peurach continues her long-term studies on bat hair identification that she gets from aircraft strikes with United States Air Force planes. And I guess bats will never learn that they are no match for fighter jets or any other aircraft.
Bob Fisher has just, within the last couple of weeks, finished a catalogue of the Mammal Type Specimens at the National Museum, and has submitted it for publication in the Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology. And has now begun work on the second volume of the Mammal Type Specimens at the museum.
And last but not least, and arguably the most interesting, is the work being done in the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles.
I'm currently working on a book with coauthors from the American Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum on the amphibians and reptiles of Guyana, where we are compiling information on all 320 species of amphibians and reptiles.
Roy is working on Volumes II and III of the Snakes Species of the World, which will 7
complement the first volume that's already been published.
Steve Gotte is finishing up a synonymy of the snake genus Leptophis.
Roy is also working on the history of herpetology and herpetologists in the Department of the Interior.
I'm working with a Smithsonian colleague on the descriptions of two new blind snakes from the eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia.
Roy is working with Ron Alton of Mississippi State University on a handbook of larval amphibians.
And Steve Gotte and I are continuing a study on the effects of formalin vs. alcohol preservation for larval amphibians.
And James Poindexter is primarily responsible for taking digital photography of preserved amphibians and reptiles in our collection for use by researchers, both at the museum as well as around the world. And James's photographs of dead animals are appearing in journals all around the world.
Thank you very much.
Judd Howell:
Thanks, Bob.
Dr. Robert Reynolds:
You bet.
Judd Howell:
But don't go away. We actually have a few minutes for questions. And let's see if we can get this thing to work again. It does work so.
Audience Member:
I don't want to be the first to ask questions in all of these august scientists here, but this has been so inspiring. I would like to ask the speaker what one, just to put a name on the new snakes as a herpetologist; you said five and I had one final (unclear: 21:26) just so we know. I assume it was not a subspecies or species of poisonous, or we would have heard of it in some way. Do you have the name?
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Dr. Robert Reynolds:
That new snake?
Audience Member:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Reynolds:
Was Python kyaiktiyo; that new snake that was on the cover of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington was named Python kyaiktiyo. And the way we choose, and I'm speaking for Steve Gotte who's in the audience, but I can tell you that the way we chose the name is typically something to do with the morphology of an animal or with the location where the animal was collected. And actually that name kyaiktiyo was named for kyaiktiyo pagoda in Burma, where the snake was captured, and it translates to golden rock. And I know this because I just read the paper.
Audience Member:
And the other one was, and you gave maybe one of the best answers, you know, such as Roxie Laybourne, who had such great contributions to. Maybe I'm just throwing this out; somebody tonight will have a story about Roxie. I know Bob Hines had many, but I'd be glad to hear something.
Dr. Robert Reynolds:
Yeah, Roxie, of course, is a legend in the museum. If you have the opportunity to talk to Claudia Angle, Claudia probably, and Mercedes Foster; Claudia and Mercedes were personal friends of Roxie and knew her very, very well.
Judd Howell:
Great, thank you Bob.
Patuxent Science Symposium
Friday
Session Moderator: Judd Howell
Judd Howell introductory: Dr. Donald Cahoon
Judd Howell:
Okay, our next speaker is Dr. Donald Cahoon. And Don, I can probably guarantee that in his family there is a haircut budget because I'm pretty sure Elizabeth makes sure he gets his hair cut.
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Don's going to talk to us about his global climate change research and his work on the marsh vegetation and accumulation, vertical rise and fall and all those kinds of things.
So, thank you, Don.
Dr. Donald Cahoon:
Well, good afternoon. I don't normally use notes, but I decided I had to do some notes because the last day and a half we've seen some really fabulous talks about the history of this place. And so I thought, "Okay, when and how did the Coastal Ecosystems Group come into effect?" And, "What is its history?" So I asked a lot of people last night over wine and cheese, and these are a few of the facts, I think, that we can come up with.
There was general consensus that the Coastal Ecosystems Group came into being about 1995, and it would seem like there's probably three factors, could be more, could be less. That the confluence of these three factors led to the development of this group of researchers here.
The first one being, of course, money; in 1990 was when the climate change program funding became available. So you always got to have money. But that money was, of course, designated for climate-related research, which is..., could also be more process-based, more ecosystem level-based.
The second factor was probably the creation of the National Biological Survey, because a lot of people from other agencies outside Fish and Wildlife Service ended up here at Patuxent. Most notably, the Park Service's Coastal Lab in Rhode Island. And there was some process-based researchers there; Charlie Roman in Wetland Ecology, Jim Allen in Coastal Geomorphology. So there was the germ of some new process-based ecosystem level researchers arriving here.
And then I think probably it's safe to say that when Jim Kushlan arrived in 1995, he put a push on this ecosystem level process-based kind of research through hiring several new scientists; Jan Keough, Glenn Guntenspergen, and Hilary Neckles, and myself.
And during that time there was also a realignment of some people that were already here, including Mike Erwin and Mary Freeman.
So you see here a list of people that are currently in the Coastal Group, but that's not everybody that's ever been in the Coastal Group here. Let me just read you a quick list of names, that would be Charlie Roman, Paul Buckley from the Coastal Lab in Rhode Island, Jim Allen from that lab in Rhode Island who, after his passing, was replaced my Cheryl Hapke, Howie Ginsberg, Janet Keough, Glenn Guntenspergen and Hilary 10
Neckles, Mike Erwin, Mary Freeman, and myself.
So, as best as we can tell, that's the history of the Coastal Eco..., the history of the evolution and creation of the Coastal Ecosystems Group here.
If I left anybody out I'm sorry, I apologize right now. If anybody has more information to correct what I just said, please say so.
Alright, let me just run though this real quick. Who does what? Mike Erwin, of course, you know, you heard his talk yesterday; Mary Freeman works on streams in Georgia; Glen is a landscape ecologist, and works in coastal wetland systems as well; Matt Kirwan is a former post doc of Glen and mine; Glen is also a modeler and Matt is a modeler; and Hilary Neckles works mainly in sea grasses.
Alright, the Department of the Interior’s Mission Statement according to the most recent GPRA Strategic Plan is something that we all work in response to. 'The U.S. Department of the Interior protects and manages the Nation's natural resources and cultural heritage, and provides scientific and other information about those resources.’ And we just listened to a day and a half of some really fabulous information about the science and information that's been collected here at Patuxent.
But today, what I'm going to talk about now is more ecosystem level process-based kind of research that our group is doing. And this is a list of our goals from the U.S., from the Patuxent Strategic Science Plan, latest edition being 2008:
First of all, we are trying to develop scientifically based methods for understanding ecosystem changes in coastal and freshwater ecosystems. And develop tools for forecasting future conditions under different scenarios.
Secondly, we're developing the scientific bases for regional comparisons of coastal and freshwater systems, and the ability to generalize at greater spatial and temporal scales.
Thirdly, we are developing the scientific bases for monitoring programs capable of detecting and predicting changes, forecasting changes maybe, in the status of coastal and freshwater ecosystems.
And lastly, improve the scientific bases for restoration and mitigation of impaired or altered freshwater and coastal ecosystems.
The research focus for our group focuses on three main areas; environmental monitoring, ecological forecasting, and wetland restoration through integrated and multidisciplinary science addressing global change effects. 11
Now this graphic is adaptive from a Park Service Vital Sign's Monitoring Plan for the Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network. Basically, what you see across the top are threats to coastal ecosystems. And they stem from indirect human impacts of land use in the surrounding watershed, direct impacts, direct human impacts in the form of physical habitat alterations, and long-term impacts of a changing global climate.
The effects of human activities can be exacerbated by natural disturbances including severe weather and biotic, geomorphic, and climatic processes.
So collectively, these anthropogenic and natural disturbances produce a multitude, and you see the stressors, a multitude of stressors in the center portion of this cartoon, with far-reaching consequences. Ranging from (across the bottom) degraded habitat structure to major shifts in ecosystem function. In many cases, the long term and cumulative effects of multiple stressors on the structure function and sustainability of coastal habitats are unknown, and this is the motivation for a lot of our research.
Another poi
Patuxent 75th Anniversary
No full textThis is Part 1 of 4 transcripts from the Patuxent Science Symposium, 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Science Center. It includes speakers who talk about their time at working at Patuxent and some of the work they did. This transcript includes the following speakers and moderators: Brad Knudsen, Dr. Greg Smith, Dr. David Trauger (moderator), Dr. Matthew Perry, Dr. Chandler Robbins, Dr. Russell Hall, Dr. Michael Erwin, Dr. John Sauer, and John Tautin.1
Patuxent Science Symposium
75th Anniversary
October 13-14, 2011
This transcript is Part 1 of 4 and features the speakers listed below for the 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Research Center. They talk about their work and experiences while working at Patuxent.
Page
Speaker 2 Brad Knudsen introducing Dr. Greg Smith
3-6
Dr. Greg Smith Dr. David Trauger Moderator
6-15
Dr. Matthew Perry 16-21 Dr. Chandler Robbins
22-28
Dr. Russell Hall 28 Questions for Robbins and Hall
29-35
Dr. Michael Erwin 35-43 Dr. John Sauer
43-52
John Tautin 2
Patuxent Science Symposium
Thursday Brad Knudsen introductory: Greg Smith
Brad Knudsen:
Welcome to Patuxent Research Refuge, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. My name is Brad Knudsen; I'm the refuge manager here. And I have the honor of getting to say the first few words before I turn it over to Greg Smith, and then our moderator for the day, Dave Trauger. So with that, I'll just get started on a few words.
I always believed it's a privilege to be working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and in particular the National Wildlife Refuge System. Upon arriving at Patuxent Research Refuge 11 years ago, that privilege quickly became an honor as refuge manager of one of the refuge system’s 553 units, totaling over 150 million acres, the largest network of lands anywhere in the world dedicated to wildlife conservation.
To work at the only refuge whose defining purpose is to support wildlife research, and to have that research delivered by the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, one of the premier wildlife research entities in the world, indeed makes Patuxent a very special place; a very special place with a very special history.
Over the next two days we will be celebrating, learning, and reminiscing about that history, and the many significant contributions Patuxent has made to the world of wildlife science in the past 75 years.
Just as importantly, on Saturday our celebration culminates in our annual joint wildlife festival, where we will share our history and our passion for wildlife, natural resources, and the great outdoors with the public. And by the way, a sincere thanks to all of you who are offering your services, expertise, and time for that public event on Saturday as well.
I've already had so much fun this morning, I've decided that this is the first annual 75th anniversary celebration and we're going to do this again next year!
With that, I want to introduce my counterpart, Greg Smith, Center Director for Patuxent Wildlife Research Center; Greg.
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Patuxent Science Symposium
Thursday
Gregory Smith introductory: Dr. David Trauger
Gregory Smith:
The stock market is falling, millions are unemployed, the mood of the country is at a historic low. Now these could be the quotes from today's New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, but they're not.
In 1936, Americans were seven years into the Great Depression. There was 21% unemployment, low profits, deflation, poverty, and a complete loss of personal economic growth. Yet, conservation visionaries like Jay Norwood, "Ding" Darling and Ira Gabrielson persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt to convene the first North American Wildlife Conference, thus launching a new era of wildlife conservation.
At a time when America was hurting the most, these leaders created a movement, a movement that was driven by the wisdom to invest in our nation's natural heritage.
They passed legislation, they created parks, they created wildlife refuges, and they created Patuxent. Now, 75 years later, they serve as our inspiration.
While the news networks run daily features of a failing economy, and the federal workforce is being reduced, and programs are being cut, we can all look to those leaders of 1936 for inspiration, inspiration in conserving our nation's wildlife and wild spaces.
Patuxent has, and continues to have, a very special role in developing the science needed to drive conservation.
Today, Patuxent scientists are developing innovative solutions to wildlife and conservation challenges.
And this morning we are very honored to have so many Patuxent alumni with us, and to share with us their memories of the past. And I'm very confident that these will help inspire us, just like "Ding" Darling and Ira Gabrielson did before us.
So today we're looking for inspiration, and I know that we will develop the optimism, the optimism needed to continue our critical mission into the future.
Now this morning I'd like to thank the Friends of Patuxent, our hosts and sponsor, and Emy Holdridge, who's the chair of the board. I'm not sure Emy is here this morning, but if there are board members of the Friends, would you please stand up, or if you're in the 4
back holding a camera, wave your hand. Thank you very much; [Applause].
I also have a very special thanks to Matt Perry, who's organized this symposium and who's chaired our anniversary committee that has been made up of both refuge and center personnel. Matt, thank you so much. And could we have you and the anniversary committee please stand to be recognized; [Applause].
A lot of people have put a lot of time into this, this very special time here at Patuxent. And I want to thank everyone at the center and at the refuge for really rising to the occasion and making the next three days a very wonderful and special event.
But before we get on with this morning’s program I would like to have (some of you won't be surprised) Marilyn Whitehead come down with Nell Baldacchino, Shannon Beliew, and Kinard Boone. Please join Brad and me up here in front; [Applause].
[Presentation of gifts and applause].
Brad Knudsen: Tremendous energy from the whole committee, and they were really the (heck, one of Greg's notes: 8:46) called these folks the super heroes of the committee, and it really is so true. So much energy and time, and they're thrilled to know they're going to be doing it all again next year! Thanks so much; [Applause].
Gregory Smith:
Thank you again. And Brad was just kidding, it won't be next year. On December 16th is actually our official anniversary.
Audience:
What!
Gregory Smith:
So read the executive order! So this is a good prelude, and a good lead up to our anniversary. So, let's keep those four on staff here!
We have a few other special folks that I'd like to recognize. Some of you may remember the ninth director of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Judd Howell, Judd; [Applause]. And again, we'll continue our dialogue about all those things you left in my desk!
Dr. Susan Haseltine is a retired associate director for biology, USGS; Sue, good to see 5
you; [Applause].
Oddly enough, we have another person in the audience who left things in his desk that I had to deal with, Robert Stewart. Bob, you and (Roma: 10:21) came all the way up from Lafayette, Louisiana; former director of National Wetlands Research Center. Thank you for coming; [Applause]. Bob will also be leading our Patuxent Reflections Session when we have the campfire tomorrow evening. So, that's wonderful.
Have I missed any other folks that have been directors at Patuxent?
Audience Response:
Jim.
Gregory Smith:
Jim? Where's Jim?
Jim:
I'm hiding.
Gregory Smith:
Jim Kushlan, Jim, Dr. James Kushlan; [Applause]. Good to see you again Jim.
Jim:
I have five years hiding in there!
Gregory Smith:
I think you left things in that desk that Judd left, that.., never mind, we'll go into that later!
Well again, this is a wonderful time of inspiration and optimism; a time that we certainly need given the mood and the tenor of the economy and all things that press on the American public.
But I couldn't think of a better thing to do, to continue the important work of the science, the research, the conservation efforts than to recognize those in the past that created programs that built this center.
We're going to hear from someone who was here, I wouldn't say at the creation, because 6
Dr. Chandler Robbins was here before the creation! And we're going to have some great stories tonight. But let's recognize "Chan" for 68 years of service; [Applause].
I have to tell you that Chan serves as my inspiration every day when I see him come in, and it's fabulous. Thank you, Chan.
So, without further adieu, it's my great pleasure to introduce the sixth director of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, our moderator for today's session, Dr. David Trauger; [Applause].
Patuxent Science Symposium
Thursday
Session Moderator: David Trauger
David Trauger introductory: Dr. Matthew Perry
David Trauger:
Good morning, everyone. It's a real honor to be here today to help celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.
I was the director when we had the 50th celebration. And I really want to be one of the first to thank Greg and Brad and Matt and Marilyn and everybody else who's had a big role in making this happen. This is really wonderful, and it's great to see so many friends here.
It was, I guess..., part of my relationship with Patuxent is that I'm kind of one of these 'tween people. And I have known and worked with many of the early Patuxent researchers, Bob Stewart, Paul Springer, Chan, and others, and then to be involved with recruiting the next generation to follow. And now there's several more generations of scientists who've come here.
And Patuxent has had a, as Greg has already stated, a fantastic contribution to wildlife, science, and conservation biology over its history. And it's really wonderful to be a part of this. It's a fantastic legacy and I am looking forward to hearing all the presentations of the speakers today, to learn again some of the outstanding things that are going on here.
I'm going to play the role of moderator. And one of my tasks as moderator is I've got to help keep us on track, and so that's one of the reasons why my comments are going to be limited today. We've got a tight agenda. The speakers have been told they have 15 7
minutes to make their presentation. We'd like to preserve five minutes or so for each talk, for questions or comments or discussion. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to time the talks and when 15 minutes comes up I'm going to come over here and I'm going to make sure we keep on track so everyone has a fair opportunity to do..., participate in the discussion.
So moving right along here, our first speaker is Dr. Matthew Perry. And Matt is going to talk to us about the formative years of Patuxent, and the construction of the buildings and the research areas that took place.
And Matt has worked at Patuxent from 1971 through today, and has played a major role in many of the migratory bird research programs here as well as contributed to the history of this, recording the history of the center.
And Matt, it's a great honor to introduce you this morning; [Applause].
Dr. Matthew Perry:
Thanks a lot Dave, I appreciate that. And God's going to help me get this all set up.
I'm going to talk about the early years, following up on what Greg said about why Patuxent was created. I want to go way back in time and talk about those formative years and why Patuxent was so important, not only to the whole Fish and Wildlife Service, but to the whole world in establishing the good science that goes into wildlife management.
So, when you think about all the refuges in the country, all of them do wildlife management, but this area was set up as a wildlife management research area. So it's important to think about our history in that regard.
Of course, we know that a lot of what formed this was the drought in the Dust Bowl era. We went through some very hard times in this country that was coupled with the Great Depression, misuse of the land, and wetland drainage that was extensive throughout the country.
It was these kinds of activities that got everybody so concerned in the 1930's with the conservation effort throughout the country.
Here in the east it wasn't as bad as the west. This is a picture of back in the Snowden days, before Patuxent was formed, with Frank and Bill Hobbs out getting hay on the field right in front of Gabrielson. These are relatives of Marilyn Whitehead and Rose Whitehead, who's going to be here tonight, and, of course, a lot of you remember Tom 8
Hobbs back in the good old days. But these are some of the people that were working on the land before Patuxent was formed. That's looking out from Gabrielson. At that time John Snowden was a resident here, he was the last of the Snowden's, he died in 1928, and his land went into misuse for a while until the government took it over and created the refuge that we know today.
This is the largest building that was on the area when the government took it over, Snowden Hall, how it looked back in the early days before the additions were put on both sides.
But the important thing at that time was what happened on December 16, 1936. This is when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 7514, that transferred land that they had gotten through the Resettlement Act, to USDA to effectuate further the purposes of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act. So you can see where our roots were closely tied in with migratory bird work.
Greg mentioned Ding Darling; Ding Darling was a cartoonist from Iowa that Roosevelt brought to head up the Biological Survey and to get things moving in trying to get some conservation activities going on.
His close friend and associate was Ira Noel Gabrielson (the Gabrielson Lab is named for). He was considered the founder of Patuxent Refuge along with Ding Darling. He also became the Chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey after Ding Darling resigned, and then later became the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service when that was formed in 1940.
Our first superintendent, which later became known as the director (the reason he was called superintendent is because he wasn't heading up research at that time, research was being headed up in Washington) was Dr. Leland Morley.
He was a veterinarian by profession, but he was the man that's mainly responsible for all of the road construction, a lot of impoundment construction, and most of the early building construction.
And he served for 12 years, which is sort of a long time; no director has come up to that level yet, so. Maybe it's related to the fact that he wasn't supervising researchers, that maybe he could last a little longer!
Our dedication didn't take place until 1939, June 3rd, in front of Snowden Hall, which a lot of times we consider the back because we come in the front, which is actually the 9
back, which is a little confusing. But the road originally went on the other side of Snowden.
But some of the key people that were involved with this, of course, were Ira Gabrielson, who's right in the center here, and then also Henry Wallace, who gave the address that day, he was Secretary of Agriculture. We had already been transferred to Interior. But Agriculture, because of their big influence on our history, he gave the major address that day.
This is what our entrance road looked like. We've got an automatic gate now and a guard house and we also have a red stop sign, so some things have changed. The sign that you're seeing over on the front was one of the first signs we had here, and you can see the flying goose, showing us one of the refuges.
The Bureau of Biological Survey was transferred to the Department of Interior in 1939. And the important thing there was that we were reflecting the change in the country. Where people were less concerned about what problems wildlife was causing to people, but we were more concerned about the problems people were causing to wildlife. So it's a major change, going from Agriculture to Interior.
And then the name changed to the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1940. And it wasn't until 1956, where Congress actually established the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and established two bureaus under that.
And this is our entrance road. There was a lot of early concern about how we looked. That has changed over the years back and forth, whether we should be managing the place for wildlife or appearance for the public.
This is a picture of some of the buildings that were created in 1939 and '41; Merriam Lab, Henshaw Lab, and Nelson. They were named for the first three chiefs of the Biological Survey.
This picture was taken in the 1950's. Snowden Pond wasn't built when the buildings were built, but it was built after by the Conscientious Objectors that were stationed here during the war.
So after the construction was completed, World War II broke out, of course, in '41, so we lost a lot of our staff. The Conscientious workers and the Public Service Program stayed on and built Snowden Pond. And that was originally built for firefighting for the buildings because we didn't have water at that time. And the old pump house was right 10
there on the edge of Snowden Pond. Snowden Pond was a major facility and it was used for fishing in the early days also.
The Public Service Program ran throughout the war years, from '42 to 47. It was involved with a lot of conservation programs we had here.
Here's an early picture in 1956 that shows you some of the buildings. And interestingly, you can see where the road comes down behind Nelson Lab. It came down and came in between Henshaw and Merriam Lab at that time; sort of an interesting, a change that took place over the years.
The early people established a grid system on our land, which is still here today. And it's one of the great things. That someday, if the satellites ever fall out of the air and we don't have GPS anymore, people could go back to using these more.
But this is a beautiful hundred meter system that is established throughout our area. Many people like Chan Robbins and other people have extensively used them for bird surveys. But the whole early section of our facility, the 2600 acres, was gridded. And then since that, it was also gridded again to the additional land.
Neil Hotchkiss was a Royal Botanist, and one of the people responsible for a lot of the new, the vegetation work that was done in the early days.
Frances Uhler was one of our early biologists that came from Washington, The Biological Survey. He moved out here in 1940, and retired in 1985. Forty-five years of service here, and living on the center all those years. He was heavily involved with a lot of reptile work. Also during World War II, because he was older than a lot of the other people that were drafted, he stayed on and was involved with fur research. And a lot of this research was tied in with our service men that were in the Arctic areas. We were trying to find insulative materials that could help them out during the war years.
Chan Robbins was here in the early years, and also Durward Allen. We had what was known as the Farm Game Program, which was actively trying to find better ways that farmers could help wildlife on their land. They established hedgerows, buffers, and exotic species.
And a lot of this area wasn't the most scientific work that was done in those days based on what we think of today, but there was a lot of great work that came out of that. And a publication that Durward Allen wrote, called The Farmer and Wildlife, was printed ten times, and it shows the great use that was gotten. Wildlife Management is who printed 11
this because they thought how important it was to get this word out to the farmers on how to help wildlife on their land.
Some of these studies actually conducted harvest studies on our property, where they actually went out and shot rabbits and quail. And then they were also doing tagging surveys, some of the early tagging surveys that were done with ear tags in tranquilized animals that Leonard Llewellyn did.
There was a lot of emphasis to clear the land early because most of it was forested. So some of the old equipment like those chainsaws that were used by two men, some of the real antiques, they cleared a lot of land. They used dynamite to blow up the stumps because they didn't have good bulldozers at that time. And there's still existing on our property, a dynamite shed, which is a good distance from the other buildings. But then there were also some of the early bulldozers that were used to cultivate the land.
They spread lime on the area because early on they realized that our ponds were acidic. This was before the term "acid precipitation" came along. But because of the tannins from the forest and all, our areas were fairly acid. And Fran Uhler, when I first came here, told me how important it is to keep that liming up on the land.
We also had animals here that were used; a mule and horses that were used to help the farming. A lot of corn was planted and harvested along with the wheat. And a lot of this went into feeding wildlife, which we did in the early years, but also using it to plant for the next year.
One of the reasons that we were so concerned about migratory birds is because the wood duck was the only species that was native on the land at that time. And it was mainly because we were forested and we had the forest river going through our property.
So we had a lot of work going in an island creation in the impoundments. This is Bill Henson, who was operating the tractor, creating an island. They took clay from the area right near Blue Gill Pond to line the dikes in the early years. They made these controlled structures on each o
Patuxent 75th Anniversary
No full textThis is Part 3 of 4 transcripts from the Patuxent Science Symposium, 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Science Center. It includes speakers who talk about their time at working at Patuxent and some of the work they did. This transcript includes the following speakers and moderators: David Trauger (moderator), Dr. Donald Sparling, Dr. Glenn Smart, Roddy Gabel presentation by Kathy O'Malley, Ray Erickson's daughter, Dr. Noel Snyder, Dr. James Wiley, Dr. Michael Scott, Matt Perry for Dr. David Mech, Dr. Greg Smith sharing stories about Dave Mech, and a slide presentation by Dr. Glenn Smart.1
Patuxent Science Symposium
75th Anniversary
October 13-14, 2011
This transcript is Part 3 of 4 and features the speakers listed below for the 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Research Center. They talk about their work and experiences while working at Patuxent.
Page
Speaker David Trauger-Moderator
2-10
Dr. Donald Sparling 10-17 Dr. Glenn Smart
17-20
Roddy-Gabel presentation by Kathy O’Malley 20 Ray Erickson’s daughter
21-22
Dr. Noel Snyder 23-30 Dr. James Wiley
30-37
Dr. Michael Scott Judd Howell Moderator
38-43
Matt Perry for Dr. David Mech 44-46 Dr. Greg Smith sharing stories about Dave Mech
46-53
Slide presentation by Dr. Glenn Smart 2
Patuxent Wildlife Symposium
Thursday
Session Moderator: David Trauger
David Trauger introductory: Dr. Donald Sparling
David Trauger:
Our last speaker this afternoon is going to be Dr. Donald Sparling.
Don has studied at Patuxent from 1987 through 2004, where he worked on amphibians. And this resulted in national awareness on the sensitivity of thin-skinned water obligate species.
Don, you know, left Patuxent and is now at Southern Illinois University. Don.
Dr. Donald Sparling:
Thank you. You've heard a lot of talks today about studies that go back many,
many years; some of them going back 75 years, other going back to World War II.
With regards to amphibian ecotoxicology, it's a relatively new science. There's been studies that go back to the late '70s, and that's about where it begins. And it wasn't really until about the mid-1990s that it really became important, as people became aware that populations of amphibians were truly declining around the world.
So we don't have quite as much of a history as some of the other areas that have been presented today.
This is something you should never do, give a slide that's filled as this one is, but I wanted to do this for a purpose. This is what I would guess..., I guess I would call the early publications of Patuxent dealing with amphibian toxicology. And this goes back before the period where it really became..., oh, widely used and interesting to folks back in the mid-1990s.
The interesting thing about this is not so much the titles of the papers, but if you look at a couple of things that are highlighted you see that there's been several names that have been raised. But there's one person whose name comes up much more often than others, and that's Russ Hall.
Russ truly was an early pioneer in the area of working with contaminants on amphibians.
3
But some of the things that were (unclear: 06:30) early, just in the yellow; various types of tests, looking at the effects of these compounds including lead and parathion, toxaphene, some of the organophosphorous pesticides and so forth.
So there's again, it's the... the literature is not extensive, but the important thing here is that Patuxent was an early start with regards to toxicology studies, and especially the affects of contaminants on wildlife, on amphibians.
The same type of thing can be... Okay, seeing even more publications with reptiles. And that's even interesting, because if we take a look at the history of publications of amphibians and reptiles, reptiles by far are greatly under numbered or under represented as far as toxicology is concerned. And yet again, Patuxent comes up as an early pioneer, looking at the, not the effects so much, but on residues of, of persistent organic compounds.
One name that comes up here quite often is Steve Fritz. Steve was also the Section Leader for the Endangered Species Program when I started here at Patuxent. But his early work was on oil and gas. Again, Russ Hall shows up and Gary Heinz shows up; so going all the way back, again to the 1980s.
In the mid-1990s to 2005, which would be my period, and some of the stuff that Paula has presented, I'm just going to touch bases on just a few studies that we have done over the years.
I think probably the one that's been most persistent, the area that has at least for me been most persistent, is the effects of contaminants, particularly pesticides, on amphibians in the Sierra Nevadas and California.
Several species of frogs and toads are experiencing severe population declines in California, and have been for several years. The populations most severely impacted are in pristine national parks like Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park. And most of these areas lie downwind of the San Joaquin Valley of California, one of the most extensive and heavily agricultural sites in the country; they have year-round crops there and lots and lots of pesticides are applied. These pesticides volatize and have been shown to go up into the air and eventually get up into the mountains, where they come down as either wet or dry precipitation.
Here are just some of the species that are, in fact, have severely declined over the years. Some of these guys are just remnant populations now like, for example, the Mountain 4
Red-legged frog in Southern California is just about gone. And it's considered to be a federally endangered species.
There are several other species which have been proposed for listing, but we've got a problem here in California, and because there are so many species of concern that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Office there can't keep pace with listing. And then various non-government organizations sue them for not listing in time. And the amount of money they're spending defending in courts could go to the listing process, but it's being spent on lawyers instead. So, it's kind of a catch-22 out there.
The critter that we've worked with a lot is the Pacific Tree Frog (Pseudacris regilla), and it is one species which is still fairly abundant out there, which is why we've been using it. It spends, of all the ones that we've seen in the (unclear: 11:13) before that, tree frogs spend the least amount of time in water. It spends most of its adult life in trees, and maybe that's why it’s still around.
During early on we did a study where on California where we collected a number of frogs in water. And at that time Pseudacris was called Hyla. Someone was mentioning about the change in toxonomy for birds, you should be an amphibian person if you really want to get some toxonomy changes.
Well, we did find that, especially in the Yosemite and Sequoia, certain compounds like chlorpyrifos, diazinon, malathion, and later endosulfan were much more, had a much higher concentration than other sites that we sampled.
This led to both laboratory studies and to field studies, particularly Deborah Kelemen, who was here for a few years around 2000-2001, and conducted her doctoral studies out there in the national parks.
Some of the lab studies we found were that lethal concentrations of endosulfan were incredibly low, at least in the Foothills Yellow-Legged frog 3.3 part per billion was the LC50. The concentrations of the LC50s for a couple of other species of frogs were around 16 parts per billion. But less than one part per billion wiped out more than half of the frogs that we tested. Every one that died had concentrations greater than .8 part per billion.
Lethal concentrations of chloripyrifos, the most commonly used pesticide out there, were quite higher, quite a bit higher. But there were many sublethal effects seen, including reduced growth and development, severe malformations with endosulfan, and cholinesterase suppression with chlorphyrifos. 5
In the field they were pulling basically the same types of studies, things that we'd been finding in the laboratory.
We did determine that a given tadpole could have up to ten different pesticides in its body at one time. We found 18 different pesticides in tissues of amphibians in some survey work that we did.
Sequoia, mortality at Sequoia National Park was up to 96% of frogs that we had in enclosures. Whereas mortality was only 23% to maybe 50% at last time in the Yosemite National Parks.
Substantial sublethal effects included depressed cholinesterace, reduced growth, delayed development, malformations, the same types of things that we were seeing in the laboratory.
Another study that we've done with the effects of perchlorate; this is using Grey Tree Frogs. And this was under commission with the, oh..., Department of Air Force.
Oh, I wanted to mention; Sue had asked about taking home messages. The studies that we’ve done in California accomplished at least two different things. Endosulfan has been banned and the manufacturer, Bayer, has an agreement with EPA, about the same time said, "Well, we're going to go ahead and take it off the market.
Our data has been, we know, was useful in banning that particular pesticide.
And the other thing is that our studies have been cited as one of the causes for the decline of the Mountain Yellow-legged Frog when it was officially listed as an endangered species.
So, having some effects.
So anyway, perchlorate is a potent oxidizer that's been used in jet and rocket fuels. And it's because it has very similar molecular size and weight to iodine it is a very potent thyroid inhibitor, it's taken up instead of iodine and prevents the formation of thyroxine.
We did a study where we took a look at the effects of perchlorate on amphibians, and percent metamorphin declined sharply at concentrations above 2.2 parts per million. Environmental concentrations go up to about 3.5 parts per million.
If you add iodine we found, hey listen, you get a lot metamorphosis. Great, maybe we 6
can go ahead and use it in areas that are contaminated by perchlorate around military bases, maybe we can go ahead and add iodine to the waters and prevent them in having normal metamorphosis. Not, it doesn't work, they all die.
So another study, we talked about lead poisoning with regards to waterfowl earlier, we did a study with Sherry Krest with the Fish and Wildlife Service, looking at the effects of lead.
Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware was founded in 1962. At about the same time a gun club on the borders of the refuge was also founded. And after 40 years of shooting into, across the refuge border into a wetland, they found concentrations of lead shot as high 5700 parts per million.
Sherry also found that there were adult frogs there but she, after two years, could find no single tadpole of any species in this wetland.
The whiteness that you see here, that's not sunlight, that's lead.
We looked, again exposed into laboratory concentrations, and we found that the rate of malformations greatly accelerated in concentrations above 120 parts per, actually above 360 parts per million.
So the concentrations in the sediment were as high as 50..., 700 parts. We had no survivals above 3,200; 3,240 parts per million. So, that's why she wasn't finding any tadpoles.
I've had a little bit of arthritis, but I've got to tell you that when I look at these pictures I don't have any problems with my arthritis.
This is a normal frog with normal skeletal structures. This guy is at 120 parts per million, and you're beginning to see some problems with the digits and some scoliosis. This guy is at 1,080 parts per million, and you can really see some severe malformations in the skeleton and the legs and so forth.
And if you've got arthritis think about this poor little guy, how he must've felt, okay, at 3,280 parts per million.
This is what this guy looks, looked like with his skin still on. So, they definitely had some severe malformations with lead.
7
Mortality increased in concentrations above 120 parts per million.
And going on now in some of the studies that Paula has done. Oh, I should say by the way that wetland was in fact covered over. The gun club had to go ahead and pay for remediation of that wetland.
Paula has done, actually I'd like to have, I was thinking about having her come up here but I'll taking responsibility of presenting some of the neat things that she has done.
Relative sensitivity of amphibians to agricultural pesticides; a variety of different pesticides including parathion, with bithion, carbofuran, furadan. I was going to pronounce that one but I wasn't able to do so very quickly. LC50s and the spotted salamander larvae were determined, and then she exposed grey tree frog, American toad, green frog, and bullfrog larvae to the LC50 and found that (let's try this) carbophenothion, okay, it was most toxic with the spotted salamander, it was the most toxic. The spotted salamander was more sensitive than the bullfrog, but less sensitive than the other species.
That's one of the things that's very interesting with toxicology is that you'd expect that pretty much a species would fall into the same ballpark as sensitivity. It doesn't always happen.
Paula was also taking a look at the effects of isogenic chemical in embryotic of diamondback terrapins. She's used PCBs, 17beta-estradiol and ethinol, which is a control at... One of the things about turtles is that they temperature-dependent sex determination. You raise them at one temperature you get all females, you raise them at a slightly lower temperature you get all males. And so she incubated them at male producing temperatures and found out that estradiol 100% of them came out to be female, even though they were raised at male temperatures. And that's pretty much what you accepted. And that would be a positive control.
However, PCBs were also resulting in the expression of many female like structures or development, showing that they do have an endocrine disrupting effect.
Another study that Paula has done was the use of nonviable alligator eggs to monitor mercury levels. This is again one of the things that we found consistent in these, is that if you look at the literature within, and this even goes back to my first slides, literature dealing with reptiles has been very much residue-based rather than effects-based. But this goes along with it. This is not the egg that she used by the way.
8
Eggs collected throughout Florida were analyzed for total mercury. And she found that mercury was higher in the Everglades than northern Florida, but below reported effects levels.
Okay, the other thing we've done in addition to our original research is that we've been fairly productive in publication of major references. Ecotoxicology of Amphibians and Reptiles was published in 2000 through SETAC Press, the second edition of this book came out in 2010.
Working with Greg Linder, Sharry Krest, and some others we developed an Amphibian Decline book, also published by SETAC Press, which was the result of a postint type of conference in Wisconsin.
And then working with ASTM, again with Greg Linder from Oregon, Fish and Wildlife..., excuse me USGS; Multiple Stressor Effects in Relation to Declining Amphibian Populations.
And those books have had some, all three of those books have had a fair amount of impact in getting and encouraging people to do some additional work with amphibians and reptiles.
In no particular order, a whole bunch of people have been involved with the studies since, over the last 10 or 15 years. And I'm not going to go through all of those, but those are some of the people that have cooperated with the work that
we've been able to do.
Any questions?
David Trauger:
Any questions? Here's one.
Audience:
In your sampling of organisms, what was the source of your frogs? And if they were wild source, were they screened for Batrachochytrium?
Dr. Donald Sparling: A very good question. The..., we got eggs, okay, from California. And initially we were, it was before the chytrid situation was really well known. But we feel very comfortable that chytrid was not present because chytrid inhabits or feeds on keratin, and studies have 9
shown repeatedly that eggs don't carry chytrid to any great extent. If we were using tadpoles it would have been a different situation possibly, certainly if we'd been using adults it would have been even different.
We've had other studies when I..., through Southern Illinois University, now a part of Patuxent, where we had a study with Eastern newts. And we had to try, and we got these from commercial vendors, we had to try three different sources before we could find a chytrid-free group that we could work with.
Somebody had a question over here?
Audience:
What is it about lead exactly that causes deformities?
Dr. Donald Sparling:
I don't really know, does anybody know what the? I know that, you know, lead binds with many, interferes with many enzyme reactions. Lead is not divanant like calcium, so it would not be picked up as calcium, I don't think. It would be much heavier. I don't think the body would respond to lead as it would to calcium.
Any of the folks that have been working with waterfowl lead, anybody have any suggestions?
Audience:
The classic reason is that you can treat lead poisoning with calcium versenate.
Dr. Donald Sparling: Can you? Okay, so.
Audience:
In the mechanism of storage the calcium and lead is the same, it all goes to the bone. So it gets it out of the system.
Dr. Donald Sparling:
Okay, so I guess I have to eat my own words here. It is a calcium substitute. Okay.
Audience:
How is remediation conducted in an area that's been contaminated with lead?
10
Dr. Donald Sparling:
The best way is probably if you're going to do it would be with either covering the lead over. The wetland that was over in Prime Hook was eventually just filled in. There are... If you have an area that you want to maintain with water and if there's a variety of different water called geotextiles that you could use, which provides an impervious layer over the lead and eventually the lead will works its way further into the sediment and not be available to organisms. Putting upon the species, if you're working with frogs, you can get it below, a couple of inches below into the mud, away from the surface, that's probably going to be fine. For waterfowl, you'd have to go much deeper because they will feed and sift through the mud. But geotextiles, I mean they're very expensive, so it could only really be used in areas that you really want it to protect.
Thank you.
Patuxent Science Symposium
Friday
Session Moderator: David Trauger
David Trauger introductory: Dr. Glenn Smart
David Trauger:
We are going to continue this morning, looking back at the history and the legacy of Patuxent. And we're going to talk about endangered species this morning, which is very exciting for me because I came into the federal service fulltime during what I call 'An age of enlightenment,' which was 1978. And President Carter had signed an executive order, directing all the federal agencies to survey their lands for endangered species. And somehow they selected me to come to Wyoming and look for bald eagles, and I had to look over my shoulder one more time in my life to figure out was it really me.
But we have this morning three speakers before break, and I would like to introduce Mr. Glenn Smart, our first speaker.
And Glenn was Patuxent's first avian propagator for endangered, the Endangered Species Program from 1965 to 1972. And he worked very closely with Dr. Ray Erickson to establish the captive colonies at Patuxent. Glenn, please.
Glenn Smart:
For many years I've done a little woodcarving as many of you know. Those of you who know me know that I carved birds for probably 40 years now. And I did a bird that I 11
would like to present to the Center. A Whooping Crane [applause]... to use for your office, I guess, in the Center here.
David Trauger:
Thank you, and I'd just like everyone to know this won't be going in my office, as much as I'd like to put it there. But we've now set up some very nice displays in our lobby, our new design, and this will be displayed prominently and with great appreciation. Thank you, Glenn.
Glenn Smart:
Thank you.
In the late '50s and '60s, early '60s, we became more and more aware of the plight of a lot of the species of which we are familiar here. A lot of things were becoming more rare and we were losing a lot of species. Apparently, the rate of extinction skyrocketed during that period and we knew that we had to do something. Congress enacted a number of Endangered Species Acts during the early '60s and on up until the one that we use now in 1971.
With that awareness, the federal government became more and more aware of the need to work on endangered species and do what we could to preserve these things as long as we could.
This was championed in the Washington office by Dr. Ray Erickson. Ray began to talk among his colleagues in Washington and to see if we couldn't put together a program. Ray had in the back of his mind a three-pronged project that would..., for endangered species. And he began to talk this up and all.
Eventually in the early '60s a gift of, or not a gift, $350,000 was awarded by Congress through the offices of the Senator from South Dakota. And it was decided that Center would be housed here at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.
So Dr. Erickson began to put this together and all and he worked with the people here at Patuxent and they agreed on a location for it and began to gather some things together.
Gene Milder, a biologist with Fish and Wildlife stationed at Monte Vista, was working with a captive population of Sandhill Cranes and those cr
Patuxent 75th Anniversary
No full textThis is Part 2 of 4 transcripts from the Patuxent Science Symposium, 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Science Center. It includes speakers who talk about their time at working at Patuxent and some of the work they did. This transcript includes the following speakers: Dr. Susan Haseltine, Jerry Longcore, Dr. Gary Heinz, Dr. Henry Ohlendorf, Dr. Charles Henny, Dr. Elwood Hill, and Dr. Thomas Custer.1
Patuxent Science Symposium
75th Anniversary
October 13-14, 2011
This transcript is Part 2 of 4 and features the speakers listed below for the 75th Anniversary of the Patuxent Research Center. They talk about their work and experiences while working at Patuxent.
Page
Speaker
2-9
Dr. Susan Haseltine 9-22 Jerry Longcore
22-27
Dr. Gary Heinz 28-30 Dr. Henry Ohlendorf
30-40
Dr. Charles Henny 40-45 Dr. Elwood Hill
45-50
Dr. Thomas Custer 2
Patuxent Science Symposium
Thursday
Session Moderator: David Trauger
David Trauger introductory: Dr. Susan Haseltine
David Trauger:
Our first speaker this afternoon is Dr. Susan Haseltine.
Sue has recently retired from a long and distinguished career that began at Patuxent as a scientist. And included several prestigious positions on the way to becoming the Chief Biologist for USGS and then Assistant Director for Biology at USGS.
I had the opportunity of having Sue work for me at Patuxent, and later I had the opportunity of working for her at USGS. So, you know, on the way up you've got to be careful of the people you're working with, they may end up being your boss. And it certainly came true with us. But we, Sue and I had a great relationship for all these years. And I'm delighted to welcome you to the stage, Sue.
Dr. Susan Haseltine:
Well, thanks Dave. Okay, well the sort of subject that Matt assigned me was the role of contaminants in the general arena. But I very early on in thinking about this topic determined that I was not qualified to do that talk. And so because, you know, I spent a number of years here at Patuxent doing contaminant research, and then went off and did research in other institutions in the Fish and Wildlife Service. And eventually became an ARD for Refuges and Migratory Birds and Private Lands in the Fish and Wildlife Service. And then joined Matt, my research colleagues...,
As we were becoming NBS and in fact, I was hired back into research when NBS had enjoyed a budget increase and the support of the Secretary of Interior and all this stuff. And so I accepted this job as an executive manager in the new agency, thinking I was going to get back to research and we were going to do all these wonderful things. And the next week, Congress cut our budget by 20%. And so, needless to say, and many people have too alluded to it this morning, we really trimmed down a lot of expectations that we had about doing research for conservation.
So, and you know, through all of that I know there were many stresses and strains in the whole organization. But Patuxent has really survived in its original orientation and its 3
programs have remained strong. And to me one of the reasons for that is that Patuxent has always had this connection with an impact and a use of its information that so many people have talked about this morning in migratory birds and in other things. And basically, while Patuxent has been an excellent science institution, it has focused on science that led to efforts in conservation and led to other scientific efforts that helped conservation.
And so I'm..., and that's, you know, that's not an earth shaking revelation since it's always sat within the Department of Interior. And once we skyrocketed the animal damage control people to agriculture, you know, the biological mission in all of the heroes in the Department of Interior has a conservation focus.
And so Patuxent has always been on the science side of developing new information and techniques and efforts in addressing conservation. But it has always had that tight link to conservation and perhaps, as several people mentioned this morning, it was that link to the Migratory Bird Management Office which was such an integral part of the Fish and Wildlife Service effort for many years.
Perhaps it was other things, but this focus on payoff is something that is relatively unique in the research system as we knew it in the old Fish and Wildlife Service, and as we know it in the USGS today.
And so I'd like to kind of talk about how this developed because I think it's very important for not just the survival of science within the Department of Interior establishment, but also the use and influence of science in our society as we move forward into the 21st century.
And in many ways, the development of this science in the early years of Patuxent mirrored the development of the whole wildlife science field. And we were fortunate to have some of the early leaders like Dr. Dustman and Dr. Stickel that focused the effort within a framework of excellent science. And you've already heard presentations this morning and you'll hear many more this afternoon about the individuals who provided such leadership in this area.
But I regard Patuxent more than any other research institution that grew up through the Fish and Wildlife Service and landed in USGS as an engine for both more science and conservation efforts and programs within the service. And I'd like to explore this link a little bit more by talking to you about how Patuxent science has been central really to the development of the ecological sciences, the legal and political systems that we use in conservation across the country, and to wildlife and land conservation itself through the 4
Fish and Wildlife Service and other institutions.
So, starting with ecological sciences; you know instead of taking the focus of after World War II, you know much of wildlife science, much of natural biological science was really natural history based up until that period, very observational, very..., a lot of use of correlations and tradition. And really the evolution of that science, wildlife science and many other biological science towards ecological process and the ecological sciences, which is more a hypothesis and model-based, was mirrored here at Patuxent. And in many fields like environmental contaminants and endangered species and model development in migratory birds and habitat conservation, Patuxent really provided a lot of leadership. And you could say that we even, if you look at it from a whole institution base like I did when I was in USGS, we've gone too far into hypothesis and model-based work. And now we need to develop more things like the phenology network that's more observation-based because we have the tools to use those observations now.
So, but we really focused, while I was here, in moving from that observational base to more hypotheses. That meant we used much of the field research that was observation-based and tried to make it more experimental, we wanted to control experimental techniques. We dealt with the idea of time and space scale, you know, if you did an experiment in Massachusetts and the robins died, or you made that observation as was highlighted from Rachel Carson's book, what could you extrapolate to the rest of the continent? And so we got much more quantitative.
And in doing that, Patuxent really pioneered a lot of technique development and indicative development, and a lot of that's going to be talked about this afternoon in other talks; Woody Hill's going to talk, I'm sure, about some of the standardized testing that was developed.
And in using and in developing these techniques, we quite blatantly stole from many other fields in biology, especially medicine. I'm sure some of you are going to talk about the organophosphate era where we did that.
We made much more use of chemical techniques until a standard wildlife biologist like me got very familiar with terms like lipophilic and organometals and all of that stuff, and used the chemists that we had on staff.
And we really got used to the idea of taking this comprehensive approach; field and laboratory. All types of backgrounds contributing to our knowledge of how contaminants or habitat alteration or hunting, in the case of migratory birds, was having an impact on 5
individuals, on populations, and on continental species ranges.
That was kind of the context that we all worked in.
And so what I would say is that we really took a statistical approach to all of this when I first came to Patuxent. Or I should say when I first started my graduate work at Ohio State the DDT hearings had just gone on. And, you know, Bob Heath was kind of a hero of those DDT hearings. He was on the stand for a long time. And he was the first fulltime statistician that the Fish and Wildlife Service ever hired in the Service. Patuxent pioneered that approach.
And, to me, the trajectory of Patuxent has been, you know, building from that in that we sorted out correlations and cause and effect, geographic scale so that you could figure out if you were doing a study in Maryland, how you could extrapolate to the rest of the world. And really focused in on the population as the center of the information that we should be developing for our conservation colleagues in the refuge system and migratory birds.
So what about wildlife and land conservation? What has Patuxent contributed to that? Well, you know, some of it's really obvious. The whole contaminant program in the Fish and Wildlife Service started at Patuxent, and a little later the Fish-Pesticide Lab in Columbia, Missouri. The Endangered Species Program really grew up at Patuxent, and then became an operational program in the Fish and Wildlife Service.
And in many ways a lot of the urban wildlife stuff that was done here as part of the early efforts at Patuxent became the tenants of the Private Land Program that grew up in the Fish and Wildlife Service.
And so, as research programs and knowledge matured at Patuxent and then at other scientific places, they were made operational, or given a more management focus within the Fish and Wildlife Service.
And as we looked at new impacts that came up with this comprehensive approach out on the landscape, whether it was water (Harry Ohlendorf is going to talk about the drain water story in California) or on landscapes or with smelters (I remember a lot of Nelson Beyer's work on smelters, or dioxins that came up later) we ran those, all of those through the same system, and they too became operational.
And many of the approaches that started in the research arena; captive propagation, especially with endangered species or to look at cause and effects in contaminants became an operational possibility in managing species. 6
Remote sensing, the stories on that are region models; we heard that story this morning a little bit from Mike Erwin. And the monitoring story I don't think has come to fruition or will ever really end because monitoring is one of those things that neither in research nor in management will ever have enough money for, or will be able to decide what the important things are. But we certainly have sparked a lot of interest and effort from Patuxent.
But perhaps the most interesting arena that I think Patuxent had influence in is a legal and political one. And I think part of that, the reason that Patuxent has been so influential; Jerry Longcore and I were talking at lunch about some old lead shot stories, about getting it banned or putting new regulations in for substitute shot, which Patuxent had huge influence in over the years.
I think one of the reasons is that the management and the scientific staff at Patuxent have always remained true to what I call scientific rigor. They reviewed all proposals that came in, and tried to do the thing that was most applicable to the question that the legal and political community had to fill in the knowledge gaps. And when that information was available, have always said that scientists should interpret it first, and that they should be the ones that translate the findings to the legal and political community. And sometimes that's extremely uncomfortable.
And I'm sure almost everybody sitting in the room has their own story about meetings with assistant secretaries or senators or whatever, who are not happy about the facts. But, you know, in the end, those facts led us to the solutions that have stood the test of time. And that tradition at Patuxent I wish was as strong throughout the whole establishment.
And then finally, communication; I don't think that I would say that Patuxent has had a leadership role in that communication and the communication of science to the rest of the world. But it certainly has had people over the years who have had a marvelous opportunity for that. And I think that the tradition at Patuxent has been that if you have something important to say, you must communicate that. And you must communicate it in a way that's true to the scientific method and the scientific validity of your results. But you also must communicate it in ways that other people will understand. And I don't think there's any substitute for that in science. And I hope that all of the young scientists that are coming on at Patuxent have a lot more ability in that regard than we did as we came in, so, because that's one of the hardest efforts of scientists in an institution like Patuxent.
And there certainly are a lot of grand challenges for the future that the kind of 7
comprehensive approach and long-term approach that Patuxent uses will be extremely valuable in. Several people have already mentioned the whole issue of climate change, increasing human population which, of course, affects habitat in its quality and quantity.
And one of the other things is that I think Patuxent perhaps doesn't quite marshal its resources. It has many of them, but doesn't marshal them as well as in other areas as in disease and genetic manipulation. There are just more and more and more issues that are going to affect wildlife communities and populations on the landscape. With these two issues there is a tremendous core at Patuxent to really take a comprehensive approach with those two things.
And I know that the disease efforts, many of them, especially for warm-blooded animals, moved to Madison in the '80s and, you know, we didn't follow up on all of those studies like Barry Tarshis did on leucocytozoonosis in waterfowl and all that stuff.
But, disease and genetics are merging as a field, and I think Patuxent could make a big impact if they took that comprehensive approach.
So, my wish for the future would be that Patuxent continue in the strong science areas it has. And continue to take that comprehensive approach that emphasizes science, partnerships, and communication to bite off some of these big issues in society. And I think this is one of the institutions that will continue to have great value to our society.
Thanks.
David Trauger:
Any questions for Sue? Yes, Brad.
Brad: (Nick: 23:16) gave us some comment regarding communication. I know there's internal elements and there's external elements with congress, you know, multiple types of communication. But I want to go back to about the first conversation I ever had with Greg Smith when he came here two years ago. He said he was so excited, this was his third center I believe, he served at.
David Trauger
Who's counting?
Greg:
Yes! And it was the first one where he had access to a built-in communication center like 8
a visitor's center, like the National Wildlife Visitor's Center where obviously we're hosting this two-day symposium. And that further communication capability to the public, you know, on Saturday many of you are going to be involved, talking to 3-year-olds, 80-year-old people coming here for the festival. And hopefully getting people to care more about the environment issues of the day, planting those conservation seeds that, you know, will maybe take over certain lives if they get turned on just the right way at this facility. So that's one really important way to communicate, at least to the public sector, that I hope you all think about taking as much advantage of it as you can.
David Trauger:
Great.
Dr. Susan Haseltine:
Could I follow up on that a little bit?
David Trauger:
Sure.
Dr. Susan Haseltine:
Just because this was Greg, and when I worked with Greg in Region 3 and in the refuge system as well, and it sort of spared me on this thing of the communication of research and managers, even within the Fish and Wildlife Service. You know, I worked for 15 years in the research establishment in the Fish and Wildlife Service and then I switched to management in Refuges and migratory birds.
And just a couple of quick vignettes if you think it's really, really good that communication partnership. The first week that I was an ARD in the Refuge System, I had to do a refuge inspection. Those are big formal things; they're like white glove things (unclear: 25:21). So I'm on the, I'm chairing the panel, and we go into this refuge and we're sitting there and I sit through the first day. It's like, "Okay, is your flagpole the right height?" And, "I see some paint that's chipping on your garage door." And, you know. And then I sat through the second day, and it’s like, "Okay, you didn't open the gates early enough in the morning." And day three, it's a four-day review; day three, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, somebody says, "And how's your migratory bird populations doing?" Almost at the end of the reviews so, you know, you need... And then the other story that kind of put me in the idea that we need to do better is that first Christmas that I was, I was the..., one of my jobs was the Center Director for Northern Prairie. They always have a big Christmas party. So the first Christmas I offered to host it at my house. So I'm standing in the kitchen and some of the folks from Denver, the operational region were up including the regional director. And the regional director comes in the kitchen, 9
I'm taking the turkey out of the oven, and Galen looks at me and he says, "Dang, you're the first person from Region 8 that ever fed me a meal out of their oven. I'm going to have to pay more attention to research in the future."
So, those are just little vignettes that stick out in your mind. But it was amazing to me the number of issues that people in the refuge system had to deal with before they got to their primary mission.
And research and science is really an engine of change and, you know, change is always hard. So, we need to keep working on it.
David Trauger:
Okay, we move right along, but I can't resist putting another footnote on Sue's talk. I'm glad that she brought up as one of the big challenges of the, grand challenges of the future, increasing human population.
We are within hours, if not days of having the seventh billion inhabitant of planet earth, and on our march to nine billion by 2015. Think about the implications for land and water and wildlife, about that. And I think we, we haven't had enough focus on that, and we really need to focus on that.
I'm really pleased that you brought that up because the future's not what it used to be.
And we're going to be going through very rapid and dramatic change, and it's going to be largely driven by that increasing population.
Patuxent Science Symposium
Thursday
Session Moderator: David Trauger
David Trauger introductory: Jerry Longcore
David Trauger:
Moving right along, Jerry Longcore is our next speaker.
And he's worked with Patuxent for 39 years, both at Laurel, here, and he also was involved as a staff specialist in the Wildlife Division Office in D.C.
He's been the leader of our main field station, and he's done a lot of research on a number 10
of species up there related to waterfowl and other birds. But he's an authority on the American Black Duck, and he's going to focus on that in his talk today. Jerry.
Jerry Longcore:
While we're getting ready to talk about this topic of Black Duck, I just want to make sure that you all are field biologists, you know that. All you have to do is to count the number of ducklings out there, and if you can get the right number, you're on your way.
When Matt asked me to talk at, for this seminar, he wanted me to talk about the lead shot shooting tests and so forth. And I could have done that, because I think I'm the only person in the United States that has shot over 3,000 Mallards, without a permit!
So what I tried to do in this talk was look at some of the literature that came out of Patuxent, and then I want to tell you the person that put a lot of it together for the Black Duck was Ken Reinecke, and it's still available to us on the website.
And I looked at all the papers and who published what; a lot of the names I'm going to show you are people who published works. I know there's a lot of people behind the scenes whose names are not on papers. And as I told all the people down at Fish Pesticide Lab one time when I was a staff specialist and went down there was in their review, I said, "You know, you scientists are up front here, you're giving us all this good information and so forth." But I said, "Who empties your wastebasket?" And it was kind of quiet for a minute. And I said, "Every person at this lab makes this lab work."
So, I think that's the same thing for Patuxent. Every person at the lab, and Lynda Garrett was mentioned earlier. I can say from the field point of view, many, many times I'd send her requests, and she says, "I don't have it here but I'll get it." And she always did get the paper I needed.
So, there's a lot of people behind the scenes who's names you won't see, but they, they contributed to the Black Duck work.
So, let's see if this works here.
I want to, let's talk about history a little bit. So, I had to put a picture in here becau
Cranes: Their Biology, Husbandry, and Conservation
No full textThe Patuxent Wildlife Research Center has placed online this entire (1996) textbook entitled Cranes: Their Biology, Husbandry, and Conservation. Edited by David Ellis, George Gee, and Claire Mirande, the textbook contains thirteen chapters by the world's leading crane experts, covering general biology, husbandry, behavior, artificial insemination, pest management, and conservation, among other topics. In addition to the text, numerous illustrations capture the majesty of these birds. Chapters may be downloaded separately, or browsed online. For anyone interested in cranes and their conservation, this resource is definitely required reading
Author Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures
No full textAuthor Margot Lee Shetterly
MEET THE WOMEN YOU DON'T KNOW, BEHIND THE MISSION YOU DO.
HIDDEN FIGURES
JOIN MARGOT LEE SHETTERLY, author of the book Hidden Figures, now in release as a major motion picture, as she talks about the incredible, often overlooked story of the African American women who powered much of the mathematics behind the race to make spaceflight a reality.
Wednesday, January 25th | 7:30 p.m.
Loeb Playhouse | Stewart Center
Purdue University
Free | Open to the Public
Event sponsors: College of Science, College of Engineering, The Graduate School, Black Cultural Center, the Departments of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics, and the Schools of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Science Business Center
No full textDesign for Science Business Center, Delft. Technopolis areaSBC Science Business CenterSADD ( Strategic Architectural Design Development )Architectur
National Space Science Data Center
No full textNational Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) Home Page The Astronomical Data Center provides astronomical catalogs and journal tables to the scientific community. The site includes nine data categories: astrometric and positional, photometric, spectroscopic, cross identifications, combined and derived, miscellaneous, non stellar and extended objects, radio sources, and high-energy data. Users can search by keyword, author name, and year of publication; or browse by catalog category, journal title, and author name
Science Business Center Delft
No full textThe design of a Science Business Center in the technopolis area of Delft.Strategic Architectural Design DevelopmentMaterialisationArchitectur
Science Business Center
No full textDesign for the Science Business Center located in the new Technopolis area, extention of the TU Campus which is connected by the Mekelpark. A center where people from the TU can meet people from de R&D industry. Learn, see and show what they are doing or looking for. Main functions are conference, expositions and public functions.SaDDMaterialisationArchitectur
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