A Murray State biology professor and his Georgia counterpart will use a nearly a half of a million dollar grant to examine the predator ecology of salamanders over the next five years.
The National Science Foundation is granting more than $459,000 dollars to fund research conducted by MSU biological sciences professor Dr. Howard Whiteman and Dr. Cy Mott of Valdosta State University.
Whiteman says the four year, multi-state study will examine how the size of a predator species affects interactions with the aquatic community. For example, a larger salamander is more likely to eat other salamanders, and that could be the cause of population changes in the prey species in the food web. Whiteman says the same could also be true for Kentucky Lake's fish species.
“And those predators that have that kind of size variation, for instance fish in Kentucky Lake, may be influencing the dynamics of the species that are below them in the community," said Whiteman. "The salamanders that we’re using as the predators are really nice because they typically are top predators, they do cannibalize and the systems are easier to manipulate in experiments than we might see with many fish species.”
He says salamanders provide an excellent representation of the structure system needed in the study also noting that he’s worked with them in his lab at MSU for over 20 years.
"I've pretty much been working with salamanders my entire academic career," said Whiteman.
Whiteman says the multi-state project will involve a mix of observation and experimental studies splitting time between working in his lab at MSU and in the field at the Hancock Biological Station at Kentucky Lake and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado.
“[In Colorado] I study a different species of salamander, the data of which have really helped drive our ability to get the current grant," said Whiteman. "And so basically we’ll be doing and having students work in Kentucky and Colorado over the next few summers and then we’ll have students working year-round in the lab as well.”
Two to three undergrad students from MSU will participate on the project and will have the opportunity to present and publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals.
Whiteman says some of the preliminary research has been done but the experiments in the field will take place over the next four to five summers.
