#Scifund Round 3 is underway and each day I will highlight a new proposal from the Challenge to give you a more in-depth understanding of each participant and their research.

Today I present to you Jennifer Karberg, Danielle O’Dell, and the Nantucket Conservation Foundation. They track how endangered spotted turtles use Medouie Creek on Nantucket Island. Their habitat is being altered as a result of a restoration project and Jennifer and Danielle are looking into how the restoration has impacted their habitat.

Tell us about yourself, where you are from, and where you see yourself going.

We are both ecologists working for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation – it’s a non-profit land conservation group on Nantucket Island.

Danielle has a Master’s degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Arizona and is currently a Research Technician for NCF. She has spent much of her time slogging through bogs, tracking spotted turtles on our various properties in order to understand how they use the land so that we can better adapt our management. Some of the other projects she works on include protecting nesting populations of shorebirds, including piping plovers, least terns and American oystercatchers, studying the impacts of deer browse on heathland plants and how sheep grazing effects the growth of St. Andrew’s Cross.

Jen has a PhD in wetland ecology and is currently the Research Supervisor at NCF. Jen’s projects primarily involve looking at individual plant and community ecology responses to habitat level management. On this project, Jen is studying the effects of changing hydrology and salinity on native and invasive plants at the Medouie Creek Wetland Complex.

How did you get involved in your research project?

The Conservation Foundation owns about 33% of the island of Nantucket and a lot of the research we do looks at land conservation and management practices and their influence on the ecology of the island – particularly on rare plants, animals and habitats.  We are stewards of a large chunk of the island and are very interested in managing the land in an ecologically sound way.

The research project we are highlighting for #SciFund Round 3 came about because we had a large wetland restoration project we wanted to conduct.  Medouie Creek Wetland was historically a large salt water marsh but sometime in the 1930s it was diked, preventing salt water from reaching a large part of the marsh.  The Massachusetts Wetlands Restoration Program designated this wetland as a high priority wetland restoration site so we went ahead with a restoration project to reintroduce salt water to the marsh and hopefully convert it back to a salt marsh system.

Restoration often happens at a large scale – on the landscape level and sometimes this can influence individual species that we also want to conserve.  The spotted turtle is a freshwater turtle that used to use Medouie Creek before the salt marsh restoration began. We are assuming that the turtles are moving and using adjacent wetland habitat now but we won’t know until we track their movements!

Why is your research important to you? Why should others fund it?

Salt marsh restoration is becoming increasingly important, particularly along the east coast we realize the ecological impacts of decades of salt marsh draining and developing.  This means more and larger salt marsh restoration projects are being proposed and implemented.  On Nantucket we understand the importance of this restoration but we also want to understand how it is impacting other species that are just as important to us on our isolated island.  Funds donated to this project will go directly to helping us further understand the ecology of the spotted turtle and how it response to changes in its ecosystem.

Do you have a favorite story that came from working on your research project?

The following story is from Danielle:

One of my favorite memories on this project was my first sighting of a spotted turtle at Medouie Creek. I had just started working for the Conservation Foundation and was brand new to Nantucket. It was winter and I had just moved to the island from Arizona – still adjusting to the cold! Knowing that I would be spending much of my time during the field season tracking turtles at Medouie, I was sent out one cold but sunny late March day to wander the marsh to get the lay of the land and scout some potential trap locations. I was warned to be careful of sinky spots and to steer clear of the bottomless ditch. I bundled up and put on some waders.

I was told that spotted turtles on Nantucket didn’t become active until late May so it was to my very great surprise when, within 2 minutes of walking in to the marsh, I peered in to the ditch and saw not one, but two, spotted turtles! I’d never seen one before but they are unmistakable. In clear water like that, their brilliant yellow spots stand out like headlights. Gorgeous! I was so shocked and excited that I temporarily lost all rationality – I launched myself in to the ditch after the little buggers. There was no way they were escaping me – I was afraid no one would believe my sighting!

Reality hit when my foot sunk into the mud and felt no bottom – luckily I managed to capture both turtles and hauled myself out of the ditch without getting wet or stuck. The turtles were a male and a female. The male had been swimming in front of the female, showing off his spots in the sunlight – clearly trying to get her attention. I felt a little guilty for interrupting their tryst but they resumed upon release as if nothing had happened. Beautiful creatures. They instantly won my love and I have been passionate about my work with them ever since!

Why did you decide to particpate in the SciFund Challenge?

SciFund is a great opportunity to bring our research department up to date and learn how to use social media to have conversations about science.  This has given us a chance to start a blog (ncfscience.wordpress.com) for our department that we will continue to use to help the public and our members learn about all of the research we are doing.  Funding for research, particularly conservation and ecology is diminishing and crowdfunding is a new avenue that might not only bring in funds but will also help donors become participants in our research and help us reach a broader audience to talk about what we do!

And to save you time from scrolling up, you can read about their project and contribute here. Thanks Jennifer and Danielle for sharing your science!