Field research class helps save frogs and potential North Carolina OLF site

Students in Dr. John Bartlett’s five-week, full field Coastal Wetlands and Ecology class wouldn’t trade anything for the experience of wading into murky swamp waters at night, braving daily 100- plus temperatures or having their tents raided by hungry raccoons.The term “full field” means 24 hours a day, five days a week for five weeks (Bartlett gave them the weekend off to do their laundry). It’s the first course of its kind to be offered by Campbell University or any other university the biology professor is aware of.One of the objectives of the research was to look for evidence in North Carolina’s swamps and waterways of the deadly fungus attacking the world’s frog population, Chytrid Fungus. Another was to help save an endangered wetland from the federal Outlying Land Field project or OLF.For some time the federal government has had plans to build a major landing field in northeast coastal North Carolina’s 30,000 acres of prime wildlife habitat. The 8,000-foot landing field will be used by Navy pilots to practice carrier takeoff and landing maneuvers. According to project guidelines, some 31,000 F/A-18 fighter practice takeoffs and landings are scheduled to occur annually, day and night. The impact on the wildlife habitat as well as the local population will be significant, Bartlett believes. Gates County is one of the potential landing field sites under consideration by the OLF project; therefore the NO-OLF Gates County Committee approached Bartlett’s class to help save the site by surveying and documenting it as an official EPA wetland.Bartlett explained the difficulty of the research.”Keep in mind we had to survey the location in the pitch-black of night, using some of the students as lookouts for cottonmouth snakes, to catch the frogs to test for fungus,” Bartlett said. “We also had to look for unusual wild life that could be used to classify the site as an environmental wetland.”One of our team members, Deborah Ayers, had more than her share of hardships,” Bartlett said. “She found a snake coiled in her tent on the first night, all of her gear got drenched by a rain storm and she was raided by raccoons that had somehow learned to unzip her tent and steal her food.”While surveying the site, the students found a bull frog measuring approximately eight-to-10 inches long, a possible world record that could be the salvation of the Gates County location.”We don’t have official confirmation that the bullfrog is a world record, but it will be close either way,” Bartlett said. “If the frog’s size does turn out to be a record, I don’t think the Navy will come in and disturb the site.”The students also found no evidence of Chytrid Fungus in the Great Dismal Swamp where the Gates County site is located. They found no evidence of Chytrid at any of the sites they surveyed.”Our task was to catch as many frogs as possible, rub their bellies with cotton swabs and take the swabs back to Campbell for DNA analysis,” Bartlett said. “We were delighted when no fungus was discovered.”Although the research was exciting and meaningful, one of its greatest outcomes was the hands-on experience.”I find that one of the most difficult things about teaching is keeping the students focused,” Bartlett said. “There’s no doubt that by combining the concepts of full immersion and experiential learning the students definitely stay on task.”The surveys were conducted in Woods Bay State Natural Area in Florence, S.C.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Merchants Millpond State Park, N.C.; Green Swamp, N.C.; and Atlantic Beach/Morehead City, N.C.Students who participated in the class were David Cox, Amber Williams, Sam Dail, Pheng Vue, Olivia Mak, Deborah Ayers, Jonathan Lazenby, Lauren Phillips, Lauren Blackburn, Jamie McCann, Kristin Myers (Iraq war veteran and mother of one-year-old Jayden who spent the entire five weeks with the class), Jesse Norris and Hannah Roller.-30-Photo Copy: Dr. John Bartlett of Campbell University conducts research on North Carolina wetlands during a five-week, full field ecology class he taught this summer.

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