Glass Half-Full: Closed Campus Provided Opportunities for Researcher

September 29, 2020 | By: Karen Michael 

Closed campus presented opportunities rather than obstacles for Texas Tech researcher studying skunks, bats

 

One researcher at Texas Tech University has chosen to look at the global pandemic as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.

There are many types of accomplishments that researchers can obtain during their careers, according to Richard Stevens, professor of biodiversity and conservation biology with the Department of Natural Resources Management and President's Excellence in Research Professor. Some achievements are relatively easy to obtain and give instant gratification, but in the grand scheme of things, aren't that important.

“We've got accomplishments that take a lot more effort, a lot more long-term dedication and focus, and they are much more important, like manuscripts and grant proposals and publications. We've had a bit of a reset, in that we can now focus more on the things that perhaps matter even more, especially in terms of our long-term legacy,” Stevens said.

At the same time, Stevens said he has noticed his job has become somewhat unidimensional during the pandemic. Normally he is busy doing five different types of things during his day, including research, teaching, service on committees, and advising both undergraduate and graduate students.

Now, he said, “It's really research, research, research. I really crave those other dimensions.”

Research that has continued through the shutdown has included work on those manuscripts, Stevens said, as well as some actual field research that was approved because of its very remote location.

Stevens said he has a lot of data that he has never yet published. It got pushed to the back burner because other projects and new funding sources came along, and he had to focus on those projects.

“The dream is always to get back to these peripheral data sets, but you never really get the opportunity. I've had that opportunity,” Stevens said.

In the Field

As an ecologist, Stevens said his work is often in remote locations.

One of his team's ongoing research projects is funded by the Texas Comptroller's Office. Stevens said he is working to better understand the population dynamics and movement ecology of a spotted skunk in east Texas. The skunk was rare to begin with and is now suffering from land use change and habitat modification and fragmentation, becoming even more rare, he said.

“Oftentimes when species are listed under the Endangered Species Act, the process that is used to make the decision as to whether to list them or not is a hasty one, and one that does not involve a lot of actual data,” Stevens said.  

Over the last 10 years or so, the Comptroller's Office has begun funding research for species that are being considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They fund research to collect the data so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can make a much more informed decision, he said.

Another project he is continuing work on is located in the Lincoln National Forest near Cloudcroft, N.M. This project involves an animal that is a key focus of Stevens' work: bats.

Bats exhibit what Stevens calls “elevation gradients,” which means that as you go further up a mountain, there are fewer and less diverse bats. Cloudcroft's name should provide a clue into how high it is; at an elevation of 8,675 feet, researchers can see differences in bat populations on the 16-mile trip down close to Alamogordo, located at 4,330 feet above sea level.

Stevens said his team is trying to understand if there are fewer bats because of changes in habitat, resources, temperature, or climate. They also want to understand how bats co-exist with each other, and how their location in certain areas might change from night to night, month to month, season to season, and year to year.

Researchers use bat detectors that are placed in the forest and can record all species-specific echo-location calls of the various bats that fly by within a monthlong period.

Not only do the researchers stay far away from other people during this effort, they also don't come into contact with other animals because they use the bat detectors.

“Another concern of getting back to work is spreading coronavirus to other organisms,” Stevens said. “Since we don't even have to touch the bats, we don't have to worry about spreading coronavirus back to them.”

Stevens noted that although bats might have been involved in transmission of the coronavirus to humans in Asia, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is not present in the bat populations of the United States.

“But if it were to get into the bat populations of the U.S. we might not ever get it out. This could be a huge perpetual problem,” Stevens said.

On-campus Research

One other project that Stevens and his team have continued to work on during the closure at Texas Tech is at Texas Tech. Working with the Texas Tech Physical Plant and the Department of Biological Sciences, Stevens has been working to continue monitoring of the pigeon population on campus.

Stevens said Texas Tech has had a large increase in the number of pigeons over the past 15 years or so, and the group is both monitoring the number of pigeons and putting out a bird food that contains birth control to keep the population from continuing to grow.