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We spent yesterday with Nicole Hafer and her Muskingum Soil and Water Conservation District’s summer camp students! We have been working with these students for about four years now with our Water Across the World project where we connect them with grade school students in Uganda through videos and letters. Yesterday, we got to teach them a bit about water quality and aquatic organisms in the US as well as Uganda. We even had them lift a Jerri can to experience what retrieving water is like in Uganda vs. just turning on your tap at home. We also talked about the microsystis blooms that are currently plaguing Lake Erie and how it can affect Ohio’s water quality. Afterwards, we got to sample stream invertebrates and do a little fishing! Thanks so much Nicole and students for such a great experience!

We currently have Jeremy sampling differently managed agricultural ponds for water quality and fish and macroinvertebrate biodiversity; Bethany just returned from Uganda where she was investigating mate-choice between two populations of cichlids; Tiffany has been working on her cichlid diet analysis; Shib is dissecting eyes and brains of Round Gobies to look for parasites that cause cataracts; Chelsey is working closely with Lake Erie Charter captains to determine lure color choice of Walleye in different water conditions; Taylor has now reared 400 cichlids in the lab for behavioral studies under turbid and clear conditions; Andy is studying the optokinetic response of large Walleye under turbid conditions at Stone Lab; and Harrison is studying the swim performance of Emerald Shiners at Stone lab for his REU project. Quite the busy summer for the Gray lab! Stay tuned for weekly research spotlights on each project!

Our very own Dr. Gray was awarded the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching so CFAES interviewed her. Check out her interview here to find out more about her!

Congratulations to Richard Oldham who just had his first paper accepted in Current Zoology, “Behavioral differences within and among populations of an African cichlid found in divergent and extreme environments”. Richard performed this experiment as an undergraduate Research with Distinction project with The Gray Lab and The Pintor Lab!