Department News
Check out what the Faculty and Students have been up to over the past year.
S8E4: How can art help enrich our lives and solve everyday problems? (Roth)
March 16, 2023 – The Maine Question Podcast
Art — whether it’s created on a page or computer or in a studio or theater — can do more than showcase creativity for amusement and cultural enrichment. Art can help teach people about historical and contemporary societies, advance research, support economic development and combat daily and systemic issues.
Amanda Ives: Teaching — and learning — with Maine Audubon
March 16, 2023 – UMaine News
Amanda Ives has always been outdoorsy. She remembers her childhood vacations and outdoor summer camp adventures as formative times in her life, and influential in her decision to pursue conservation as a career.
Secret Life of S’mammals (Yen)
Mar 3, 2023 – Georgia Wildlife Federation
A conversation between two small mammal researchers: Dr. JT Pynne (Georgia Wildlife Federation) and Ivy Yen (PhD Student at the University of Maine).
Most plants grow from seeds, but how do those seeds get there? Seed dispersal is the method by which plants spread out their seeds to populate an area. Seed dispersal comes in many forms, from hitchhikers riding along pants legs to birds eating and passing seeds.
Study traces migration habits of woodcock (Blomberg/Roth)
February 28, 2023 – The Piscataquis Observer
The American Woodcock, whether you hunt them over a gun dog or simply observe their spiraling spring mating rituals, are a fascinating and unique migratory game bird.
Reading Trees: Are small mammals able to predict seed densities in the Maine woods? (Franzoi Dri)
February 2023 – Maine TREE – Written by Gabriela Franzoi Dri
We all know that farmers try to predict if the coming season will produce a good crop based on spring weather. But have you ever wondered if squirrels can predict if this will be a good or poor acorn year? This is very intriguing because trees produce variable seed quantities each year – a process we call “mast-seeding” – and squirrels certainly would benefit from knowing when food will be more abundant.
Kaylee Hussey: Wiki-wonder
February 13, 2023 – UMaine News
Editor’s note: This story was updated Feb. 14, 2023
The assignment was simple: add information to the Wikipedia page of an invertebrate species, citing two peer-reviewed sources. Somehow, Kaylee Hussey misunderstood the task — and may have found a passion for science communication along the way.
A Fond Farewell to Amanda Ives, the 2022 Davis Intern at Fields Pond
December 20, 2022 – Maine Audubon
Imagine a job where you start your day by filling feeders for wild birds, then help to plan an after-school lesson for fourth graders, then recommend some hiking trails for visitors to the Fields Pond Audubon Nature Center.
New study shows trends of Lymphoproliferative disease among Maine wild turkeys (Blomberg/Gonnerman)
December 14, 2022 – UMaine News
The potentially lethal Lymphoproliferative virus (LPDV) is becoming more prevalent among wild turkeys in the Northeast. With wild turkey populations growing, the risk of disease transmission between them, their domesticated counterparts and chickens may increase.
A Fish That’s Swum in Maine Ponds Since The Ice Age Faces An Uncertain Future (Murphy)
December 12, 2022 – Maine Public
It’s a brisk late-October morning, with a bright sun breaking through the fog clinging to the surface of Floods Pond, in Otis.
What Birds Can Tell Us About Conservation (Njuguna)
December 07, 2022 – The Nature Conservancy
A TNC volunteer and a Kenyan student are applying a novel approach to measuring river health.
Meet the Mice Who Make the Forest (Yen/Mortelliti)
Nov. 25, 2022 – New York Times
It’s easy to look at a forest and think it’s inevitable: that the trees came into being through a stately procession of seasons and seeds and soil, and will replenish themselves so long as environmental conditions allow.
Wild Turkeys from Maine are Wired to Adapt to Winter Weather, Study Says (Blomberg/Gonnerman)
Nov 23, 2022 – Nature World News
According to a recent study, wild turkeys in Maine can easily adjust to changes in winter weather and rising temperatures.
Charney speaks to BDN about forest loss to solar energy development
November 21, 2022 – UMaine News
The Bangor Daily News interviewed Noah Charney, assistant professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology at the University of Maine, about concerns related to booming solar energy development in Maine cutting into forests and habitats already threatened by climate change. “Where you choose to put a site is important, given the options.
Wesley Hutchins: Studying and advocating for migrating monarchs (Roth)
October 25, 2022 – UMaine News
Wesley Hutchins knows how to handle butterflies. The third-year University of Maine undergraduate studying wildlife ecology has spent the past two summers carefully gluing radio transmitters the size of a grain of rice to the abdomen of monarch butterflies, where it won’t get in the way of its wings or legs.
UMaine installs Motus Receiving station on Nutting Hall to track migratory species (Roth/Hutchins)
October 13, 2022 – UMaine News
The Motus Wildlife Tracking System, or Motus for short, is an international collaborative research network that uses radio receiving stations to track tagged animals as they travel along their migratory paths. The network has more than 1,200 receiving stations in 31 countries — and now, one of them is at the University of Maine.
updated 11/01/2023