| Affiliations: | STEM Research Leadership |
| Project Leader: | Dana Reuter, Ph.D dreuter@tamu.edu Ecology and Conservation Biology |
| Faculty Mentor: | Michelle Lawing, Ph.D |
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Meeting Times:
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TBA |
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Team Size:
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8 |
| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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As a member of this research team you will work on creating a novel database of individual records of mammalian diets. You will learn how to obtain primary sources, read scientific literature, and code complicated data in a way that increases its utility without losing its specificity. During your research you will learn about the ecologies of mammals and how scientists collect data on those ecologies. Additionally, there will be many opportunities to design your own research project on the mammals that interest you most. These individual projects could lead to opportunities for presenting your work at conferences or scientific publication.
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Team Needs:
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We are seeking undergraduates who are motivated, organized, curious about mammal ecology, and interested in contributing to a project with large goals. Students will be reading primary literature sources and contributing findings to a large dataset. Access to a computer with video chat capabilities is a must for once a week meetings with the team. Depending on the student’s schedule the student will be expected to spend around 6 hours per week on the project. |
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Description:
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An organism’s diet is how it meets its energetic needs; therefore, diet is related to almost every aspect of an animal’s ecology and evolution. Mammalian diet is difficult to characterize given the variation in methods, spatial scales, and temporal scales that exist in the literature. This project will focus on North American mammals and their geographic variation in diet. The ultimate goal is to use the resulting database to understand the biogeography and ecomorphology of mammalian omnivores and mammalian species that mix food resources. |