Grice Graduate Student Publishes Journal Article on Sea Turtles

Vanessa Bezy has conducted extensive research on  sea turtles, spending much time doing so in Costa Rica. While at Grice, she worked with Graduate Program Director, Craig Plante, starting in Fall of 2011 and graduating in Spring of 2014.  Below you can read her original journal article from PLOS ONE based on her Masters thesis research , as well as a summary article that she wrote summarizing the study.  Vanessa is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Her thesis there will be investigating the sensory and behavioral cues associated with the mass nesting behavior in Olive Ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) at Ostional, Costa Rica.  For more information about Vanessa, please visit her personal website (http://www.vanessabezy.com/Vanessa_Bezy/Home.html) or LinkedIn profile (www.linkedin.com/in/vanessabezy)

Article:  http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0118579

Summary:  http://theconversation.com/baby-sea-turtles-starved-of-oxygen-by-beach-microbes-38015

 

New Grice Bog and Wetland Garden

A new and exciting project will be underway at Grice this month.  Groundbreaking will begin on a new wetland and bog garden located on the Southeast corner of the building.  This project was spearheaded by graduate students Rebecca Balazs and Sharleen Johnson, with assistance from Lab Manager Greg Townsley.  Rebecca and Sharleen wrote a proposal and received a small grant from the ECOllective Fund from CofC’s Office of Sustainability.  The Garden will utilize condensation runoff from the HVAC chiller on Grice’s roof.  This water will be piped to a small pond, then distributed to a couple of wetland container gardens, including one which will be an acidic bog where native carnivorous plants will reside.  The large amount of condensate water was originally pooling on the east side of Grice, which could potentially damage the building.  Construction will begin February 14, 2015.  You can view the layout below.

 

Bog Garden Drawing 2.3.15