Landon Schuster participated in research on salamanders at University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station. Photo courtesy of Landon Schuster.
Think lab work, field research, seminars, faculty mentorship, bonding with peers and exploring new cities.
These opportunities are made possible thanks to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, which provides funding for students to spend the summer collaborating on research projects at institutions across the country.
===================================================
Click here to read other UTC REU stories.
===================================================
Senior Landon Schuster is an environmental science major and environmental studies minor from Signal Mountain, Tennessee. He is also an Innovations in Honors student in the UTC Honors College.
Schuster spent his summer at the University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station, participating in field research on salamanders.
He explained what his research entailed and what it meant to him.
Can you explain your research?
“The project was broadly called Salamander Movement and Behavior. I’ve always been interested in how animals react to climate change. Salamanders don’t experience climate the same way we do. We notice air temperature and humidity, but they live under logs and underground, so it’s more about microclimate than macroclimate.
“We had cover board sites—grids of wooden boards we set up. We’d flip the boards, check for salamanders, then measure the temperature and soil moisture underneath. We did that at four sites, twice a day, and ended up with about 45 sampling rounds. We were looking at when salamanders are active, whether males and females behave differently, and if activity varied across sites.”
What did you discover?
“There were a few surprises. We expected to find more salamanders at the cooler, shadier sites since they’re amphibians and like it moist and cool. But our hottest, most exposed site actually had the most salamanders. Most of those were juveniles, so that might explain it. It’s looking like juveniles might be more active at higher temperatures.
“Within the sites, they did seem to be choosing the cooler, wetter boards, which made sense. Males and females seemed about the same, but we’re still working on the analysis. I’m hoping to get more of it done in the next few months.”
What sparked your interest in salamanders?
“I’ve taken a few herpetology-related classes here with Dr. (Thomas) Wilson, and last semester I took amphibian ecology. Appalachia is probably the best place in the world to study salamanders and we have incredible diversity here; a lot of people don’t know that. I like telling people about it because it’s such a cool fact about our region.”
What did a typical day look like for you?
“Once we got into the rhythm, we’d do a morning field survey, come back for lunch, then head out for a second site in the afternoon. After that I’d enter all the data into a spreadsheet, which is a huge spreadsheet now. Toward the end, a lot of the afternoons were spent learning R. I’d never used it before, and it’s what biologists use for data analysis and making graphs.”
What was it like living at the station? Did you get to explore the area at all?
“We stayed up at Mountain Lake Biological Station, which is just a collection of cabins, a big lab and a dining hall. It’s on top of a mountain, so we were pretty isolated, but all the research sites were on the property, which made things easy. You could stay up there the whole time if you wanted to, but we definitely made time to go into town.
“It was about a 45-minute drive down to Blacksburg, where Virginia Tech University is. We’d usually go on weekends. It’s a really fun little college town with good restaurants and stuff. We appreciated that a lot because the food at the station wasn’t the best.”
How did the experience shape your goals?
“I’ve always wanted to go to grad school, and these programs are really designed for that. A lot of the application questions even asked if you plan to go to grad school. While I was there, I got to network with current grad students and learn how they applied and found programs.
“For my Honors College thesis, I’m planning to write about the effectiveness of nature documentaries as scientific communication, and I want to film my own documentary about salamander diversity. We have so many salamanders here that most people don’t know about because they live under logs and underground. I want to show people just how cool they are.
“Long term, I want to be a researcher. I really enjoy doing fieldwork and hands-on stuff, so this whole experience was a great step toward that.”
What did the experience mean to you?
“It was just so great to be able to do it. You only learn so much in the classroom. Being able to get out there and hands-on, learn about the research you might normally just read to write a paper for a class—but actually go and do it yourself—is really cool.”
Learn more
Landon Schuster
