I just wrapped up the innagural AU Turtle Week, in which we integrated some of our group’s research with teaching in the Principles of Ecology course this fall. About 80 undergraduate students and 5 Graduate Teaching Assistants came together at one of the ponds on campus for a intensive 8 days of turtle capture, marking, measuring, and release. Altogether, we caught 5 different species of turtle (in order of abundance, Trachemys scripta, Chrysemys picta, Sternotherus odoratus, Kinosternon subrubrum, and Chelydra serpentina), averaging about 6 individuals per day. The students will work out population size estimates for T. scripta over the next week, but this was a really great effort by all and the start of what I hope will be a long-term dataset for researchers and students to both use in the future.
