The red-backed salamander (RBS, Plethodon cinereus) is increasingly recognized as a model organism for a variety of biological subdisciplines, in part due to its ubiquity and abundance throughout northeastern North America (Fisher-Reid et al. 2021). These salamanders can be used for both field- and lab-based work as they are human-tolerant (Arenas et al. 2015). Some of the biological fields using RBS as a model organism include terrestrial ecology, amphibian ecology, evolutionary biology, regeneration, ecotoxicology, and animal behavior (Fisher-Reid et al. 2021). These salamanders are ecologically influential in forest ecosystems, where their biomass in some locations exceeds that of birds during peak breeding season and may be equal to that of all small mammals combined (Burton & Likens 1975). Of the eight most studied salamanders RBS is the only Plethodontid salamander; RBS is an important inclusion considering that more than half of all salamander species are part of the family Plethodontidae and many of the species are declining (Fisher-Reid et al. 2021). Because RBS are highly philopatric and abundant, studies of its population genetics have been used to ask biogeographic questions at a variety of spatial and temporal scale (Fisher-Reid et al. 2013, Cameron et al. 2017). In ecotoxicology, RBS have been used to study how military waste products and pesticides enter and affect terrestrial food webs (Johnson et al. 2004, 2007, 2010; Bazar et al. 2008, 2009, 2010). In animal behavior, RBS has been used to describe changes in territorial behavior based on food availability (Jaeger et al. 2016). Considering that amphibians are the most threatened vertebrate class due anthropogenic changes to their habitat, it is important that more amphibian model organisms are included in research so that we may understand them better with the aim to conserve them. This master’s research and thesis focuses on two ways in which we can use RBS as a model organism. Chapter 1 assesses the efficacy of marking RBS with Visual Implant Elastomer (VIE) for mark-recapture surveys. Understanding and implementing best practices for marking RBS or other small, terrestrial animals, can allow researchers to ask and more effectively test ecological questions which require accurate tracking of individuals over time. Chapter 2 describes how RBS tail regeneration can be impacted by different proportions of their tail being autotomized and the implications for a lengthy wound healing process.

American shad (Alosa sapidissima) are native to the east coast of North America from the St. Johns River, Florida, to the St. Lawrence River region in Canada. Since the 1800s, dams have reduced access to spawning habitat. To assess the impact of dams, we estimated the historically accessed spawning habitat in coastal rivers (485,618 river segments with 21,113 current dams) based on (i) width, (ii) distance from seawater, and (iii) slope (to exclude natural barriers to migration) combined with local knowledge. Estimated habitat available prior to dam construction (2,752 km2) was 41% greater than current fully accessible habitat (1,639 km2). River-specific population models were developed using habitat estimates and latitudinally appropriate life history parameters (e.g., size at age, maturity, iteroparity). Estimated coast-wide annual production potential was 69.1 million spawners compared with a dammed scenario (41.8 million spawners). Even with optimistic fish passage performance assumed for all dams (even if passage is completely absent), the dam-imposed deficit was alleviated by fewer than 3 million spawners. We estimate that in rivers modeled without dams, 98,000 metric tons of marine sourced biomass and nutrients were annually delivered, 60% of which was retained through carcasses, gametes and metabolic waste. Damming is estimated to have reduced this by more than one third. Based on our results, dams represent a significant and acute constraint to the population and, with other human impacts, reduce the fishery potential and ecological services attributed to the species.

Fisheries managers and ecologists use statistical models to estimate population-level relations and demographic rates (e.g., length-maturity curves, growth curves, and mortality rates). These relations and rates provide insight into populations and inputs for other models. For example, growth curves may vary across lakes showing fish populations differ due to management actions or underlying environmental conditions. A fisheries manager could use this information to set lake-specific harvest limits or an ecologist could use this information to test scientific hypotheses about fish populations. The above example also demonstrates how populations exist within hierarchical structures where sub-populations may be nested within a meta-population. More generally, these hierarchical structures may be both biological (e.g., different lakes or river pools) and statistical (e.g., correlated error structures). Currently, limited options exist for fitting these hierarchical models and people seeking to use them often must program their own implementations. Furthermore, many fisheries managers and researchers may not have Bayesian programming skills, but many can use interactive languages such as R. Additionally, programs such as JAGS often require long run times (e.g., hours if not days) to fit hierarchical models and programs such as Stan can be more difficult to program because it is a compiled language. We created fishStan to share hierarchical models for fisheries and ecology in an easy-to-use R package.

The Faculty Fellows (previously called Administrative Fellows) Program is a pilot program in Academic Affairs that addresses faculty leadership, institutional needs, and collaboration. It provides professional development opportunities for those who are considering administrative roles, by developing focused projects. The projects are addressing SUNY Oneonta’s mission critical goals in experiential learning, student engagement and retention, and inclusivity/diversity. The faculty fellows are an interdisciplinary team that strengthen the roles and offices of the academic deans and library director by integrating the academic schools/units. The 2021-2022 cohort includes Brendan Aucoin (Milne Library), Jacqueline (Bruscella) Bishop (Communication and Media), Leigh M. Fall (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences), and Maria Cristina Montoya (Foreign Languages and Literatures). Brendan is working on a series of projects related to highlighting SUNY Oneonta research and scholarship in the Milne Library. Among these are the development of the Library Special Researcher program for students and creating more opportunities to showcase faculty scholarship in the library. Jackie is working on a series of interrelated initiatives centered on experiential learning. Through cross-campus collaborations. Jackie's project seeks to a) increase access to on-campus and local internship opportunities, b) improve student, faculty, and site-supervisor understanding and use of Handshake, and c) strengthen career readiness programming for students, particularly those studying in the liberal arts. Leigh is working on two projects for the School of Sciences. One project is researching mechanisms of how interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary courses and research happens within the school, highlighting potential barriers and opportunities. The other project is researching past and current STEM experiential learning opportunities to help faculty provide productive experiences for students. MC is working on three projects: first the internationalization of the School of EHESS, including a focus on Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) as a platform; second, developing the curricula and partnerships for the Bilingual Education graduate program; third, diverse faculty retention.

The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction is a comprehensive overview of the topics, approaches, and trajectories in the anthropological study of human reproduction. The book—which will be available in print and as an e-book in November 2021—brings together work from across the discipline of anthropology, with contributions by scholars in archaeological, biological, linguistic, and sociocultural anthropology. A significant theme of the Handbook, which is co-edited by Han and Dr. Cecília Tomori (Johns Hopkins University), is the need to engage in conversations across the subdisciplines of anthropology. Featured in the volume are chapters on the bioarchaeology of reproduction (Betsinger), the sociolinguistics of pregnancy (Han), and the culture and biology of human infant sleep (Rudzik).

The academic year 2020/21 presented serious challenges for teaching and learning. One of the major difficulties was to maintain the standards of experiential learning despite the switch to online/dual instruction modalities and the sudden withdrawal of funds that were already allocated, precisely when there was more need of them than ever in order to create alternative experiential learning opportunities. Despite these obstacles the Science Track courses of the Cooperstown Graduate Program managed to continue to provide the experiential learning projects that are part and parcel of their curriculum, with the added value of also maintaining and cultivating the collaborations with external institutions from our surrounding communities for whom these projects are an essential service, at a time when they most needed the support that CGP is well known to provide through service teaching. The projects include the design of activities for the Wings of Eagles Discovery Center in Horseheads, NY; research on public gardens on Otsego county for the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Cooperstown, NY; the creation of an audio guide to historic buildings and sites in Little Falls, NY for the Little Falls Historical Society; and the participation in an international educational collaboration to reproduce the measurement of the circumference of the Earth by the Greek polymath Erathostenes in the 3rd century BC. All these activities could be performed in compliance with all restrictions and limitations that were in effect at any given time; most of them were carried out outdoors. We present a brief summary of these projects and a status report of our plans to make the outputs of Science Track projects like these publicly available through a dedicated public online repository.

When near and far objects in two-dimensional images, are carefully aligned so that they appear to be interacting with each other, misperceived distance can lead to misperception of object size. This technique is usually referred to as forced perspective. We studied the depth perception of a small sample of college students who viewed forced perspective images and were asked to make judgements of size or the distance of objects. Some of the factors we examined included: familiar size, relative size, distance, knowledge of the metric system, binocular vision related symptoms, and the action and reactions in the pictures. Preliminary analysis showed that most participants were able to make accurate judgements of absolute size and distance, but not when asked to make comparisons of the relative size of two objects. Relative size seems to be one of the most compelling cues creating forced perspective images. Future work will include correlational analysis that can capture the relationship and strength of the each of the factors in this study.

In August of 2021, a new weather station was installed on the roof of the Perna Science building at SUNY Oneonta. Daily weather records have been kept at SUNY Oneonta since the early 1980s including high and low temperature, precipitation, snowfall and snow depth. For much of this time we also have records for wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, humidity and solar radiation. The new weather station will help us continue this record well into the 2020s. These data have been used for a variety of student projects in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences as well as other departments across campus. Data are collected every five minutes and archived. At this time, data are updated to an internet dashboard every 10 minutes (hourly during the overnight period to save battery power) and anyone can examine data for the past month through the dashboard. Archived data can be obtained by submitting a request to Dr. Chris Karmosky at christopher.karmosky@oneonta.edu.

Dock de-icers are devices that prevent ice formation around docks and shorelines of lakes via forced circulation or bubbling of water. While banned in some U.S. states, the use of such devices is not regulated in other states including New York State. Various concerns and conflicts related to dock de-icers have been voiced in New York State, including installation of oversized systems, sediment re-suspension, alteration of the lake heat budget, biogeochemistry, food web, and access and safety for recreational activities on frozen lakes. While hydrological models can simulate the effect of lake-wide ice and snow cover loss on lake water temperature under hypothetical scenarios, observed data on how dock de-icers locally affect water column temperature are scarce. We collected pilot data around a forced-circulation de-icer on Otsego Lake, New York, which provided evidence that proximity to the device exacerbated the cooling effects of cold snaps during winter as well as warming in the spring. In conjunction with the more extreme weather patterns anticipated in the future, more detailed study of the ecological effect of lake de-icers is warranted.