From August to April Otterbein’s campus is alive with students, faculty, and staff as they carry out their daily routines and activities. We might think that once students leave for the summer not much happens on campus, but in some respects, that’s when it’s easiest to see the campus really come alive.
In the summer of 2022 two families made Otterbein’s campus their home. They experienced success and failure, hope and loss.
The first family to call Otterbein home was a family of Red-shouldered Hawks who built a nest in a large tree outside Mayne Hall, across from the Campus Center. They began checking out the tree and building their nest in February and March. The eggs were laid by mid-March, and the parents began the arduous process of incubating the eggs. They sat on the nest through winds, chilling rains, and the demolition clatter of the Campus Center remodeling. By mid-April three little hawks had hatched and the parents began bringing food to them, which included such tasty treats as squirrels and other rodents, frogs, and even songbirds.
By mid-April, another family
was just getting started. A male Pileated Woodpecker, Ohio’s largest woodpecker, began excavating a hole in a dead tree around the edge of the Otterbein Lake behind the Point. His chisel-shaped beak made short work of the wood and he tossed wood chips from the hole as he carved it deeper and deeper into the heart of the tree. The female approved of his handywork, and they took up residence in the cavity by late April. The parents took turns attending to the nest, sitting on the eggs, brooding the chicks, and bringing food to the nest. One of the shift changes occurred between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. every day like clockwork. The male would begin calling from a distance around 5:00 p.m. and slowly approach closer and closer to the tree; calling about once every 510 minutes. Finally, at last, the female would burst from the tree cavity to go find food, and the male would land on the tree, check out the hole, and then take his turn with the chicks. In early June, two young male chicks began sticking their heads out of the nest cavity and investigating their new world. Mom and Dad continued bringing food to them and carrying away fecal sacs until eventually the chicks were lured from the hole,
one-at-a-time, to fledge and forage for food on their own.
In late May and early June, during the Memorial Day weekend, the Red-shouldered Hawk family experienced a tragedy. The nest was knocked from the tree before the young hawks had fledged. Unfortunately, two of the three chicks did not make it. One had to be euthanized because of the extent of its injuries. The second may have succumbed to injuries or a storm that blew through a couple of days after the nest fell. The third chick disappeared, but fortunately was re-found by the parents who gave it their undivided attention and care. That chick successfully fledged and is now potentially flying around the Westerville area. Hopefully it will raise a family of its own somewhere on Otterbein’s campus someday.
It's important to remember that Otterbein’s campus isn’t just home to students for part of the year but is also home to a variety of wildlife throughout the year, and we should work to improve that home because it could enhance the learning experiences of many students.
Article and photos by
Casey Tucker, Adjunct Professor
Do you see the chick?
An adult female Red-shouldered Hawk (left) using a leafy branch as a lure to entice its eyass (right) in early flying lessons.
Male Pileated Woodpecker with male chick
The Hidden Mussels of the Olentangy River
Over the summer, Dr. Hoggarth and two Otterbein students traveled up and down the Olentangy River in search of mussels. Dr. Carol B. Stein, The Ohio State University, Museum of Biological Diversity performed the first systematic survey of the mussels of the river more than 60 years ago (her Master’s research), and Hoggarth repeated her work almost 20 years after. That survey was supported by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Natural Areas and Preserves, just as the one we completed this past summer. The lower Olentangy River from Delaware Dam to Worthington, Ohio is a state Scenic River. Our work resulted in some troubling data and some exciting new discoveries. One of the students is interested in Environmental Chemistry (the Chemistry Department here will soon have an
Environmental Chemistry Major) and she found that the turbidity of the water in the upper portion of the river was not related to precipitation events: mussel numbers were much reduced probably due to sight feeding fishes not being able to find mussels displaying to transfer their larvae to a host, and just the feeding and reproductive problems heavily silted water poses for mussels. However, once we left the headwaters and moved downstream where we had larger natural buffers along the stream, we found formerly undocumented populations of two federally listed species of mussels for Marion County: the rayed bean (Paetulunio fabalis) and the snuffbox (Epioblasma triquetra). One male snuffbox was found alive (see photograph) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Division of Wildlife are interested in seeing if there
are more in the reach. In addition to this exciting find, we found two new species which have moved into the river from the Scioto River and all but a few species living that Stein originally found to be extant in the river.
Early Assurance Program Students Graduate from HCOM
Congratulations to 2019 Otterbein graduates Rachel Nguyen and John Michael Wright who graduated from Ohio University Heritage College of Medicine in 2022! Both were
Students Present at American Society for Microbiology Microbe 2022 Meeting
Dr. Jennifer Bennett traveled to Washington DC in June, 2022 with five students to attend the ASM Microbe meeting. The students presented posters at the meeting of the research they did in Dr. Bennett’s lab. The students are pictured at right along with Dr. Bennett: Olivia Brickey ’23, Tyler Lenoy ’22, Lexi Sherman ’22, Jennifer Bennett, Dylan Gray ’22, and Evan Shelton ’22.
Epioblasma triquetra (snuffbox) collected alive from the Olentangy River. This specimen is a male.
Environmental Science Upgrades Its Remote Monitoring Capabilities
Students in Environmental Geology (ESCI 3000) during Spring ’23 are having the opportunity to do data management from remotely collected devices that upload recorded field data to the Internet. This is being made possible by the department’s purchase of two In-Situ VuLink® telemetry data loggers (photo below right). This equipment is an upgrade of the In-Situ AquaTrolls and LevelTrolls that Dr. Kevin Svitana has used historically. “The Trolls are great data recording devic-
es, but they always had the limitation that you had to go in the field and use a laptop to obtain data from the recording units. This wasn’t always convenient and it also made data sharing a little more challenging. Now students can log in to a HydroVu Data Services account and obtain their data remotely.”
There are two projects running simultaneously this spring, one is monitoring road salt incursions in County Line Run at a location along the cross-country course while the
Speed!
Students in BIO 3440 Animal Systems Physiology investigated if their reaction times were faster to auditory or visual stimuli through a series of experiments in the lab. Through data analysis, research, and reporting, they discovered that the human animal typically processes soundwave energy faster than photon energy based upon the unique transduction mechanisms in the respective sensory systems. Classic neuroscience! In other labs, students investigated muscle fatigue and also how their cardiovascular, respiratory, thermoregulatory, and metabolic systems responded to an exercise challenge through hands-on (and sweaty) experiments.
other is being used to monitor the sustainability yield of groundwater from the solar powered pumping well located at The Point.
Students are able to see the data as it is collected, compare weather patterns, and start understanding the dynamics of the system that affects the water quality and water availability of the two project locations. This is an excellent opportunity for students to learn the state-ofthe-art for environmental data collection and project scoping.
UK Students Visit Local Attractions
Students from the UK enrolled in the Zoo and Conservation Science program at Otterbein this year visited the Wilds and the Cincinnati Zoo along with adjunct faculty Casey Tucker.
That’s a Lottl Axolotls
A new addition to the Aquarium Program this fall were axolotls. Sophomore Harley Miller contributed two of the aquatic amphibians to the Aquarium lab in rm 105 and soon Aquarium Crew students set out to breed Axl (the dark colored male) and Rose (the pink female). Rose soon produced many eggs and a host of students worked feverishly to feed the new tadpoles and change the water daily, even through Thanksgiving and winter break. The surviving tadpoles are now sprouting their back legs and a few will be ready to find new homes soon.
In the meantime, with their hard -earned experience and additional knowledge gained from various axolotl breeders across the country, students began a second round of breeding using new husbandry strategies. This crop of eggs is now busy hatching and the emerging tadpoles are active and devouring food. Soon they will be transferred to a special rack that is being built to distribute water via a gravity feed that will not disturb the babies as much and which will hopefully increase feeding and growth rates. It’s a great learning experience as they experiment with
different husbandry techniques to perfect the best breeding techniques in a laboratory environment. Future projects include quantifying survival under different conditions and for different genotypes of axolotls. You can read more about the efforts on the Aquarium Instagram Account (“otterreef”).
drhodeback@otterbein.edu
Eggs after about 2 weeks showing wild type and leucistic (white) axolotl tadpoles developing still in in the egg.
