Cover Boards on Campus

Don't be alarmed! We are not keeping venomous animals on campus!

Cover boards refer to any object that a small vertebrate animal could use for cover. Many reptiles and amphibians like to hide under objects with dark and moist microenvironments. Cover boards, made from plywood, carpet, or tin roofing material, create this favorable habitat for these species. Herpetologists systematically set out cover boards as a way to measure herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians) presence and abundance in an area. You simply set out the boards, wait for some time, then lift up the boards to see what you've found!

My lab is interested in looking at the effects of urbanization on herpetofauna so we have deployed eight boards across campus to compare with what we find at more natural sites. We are interested in how the microhabitat characteristics (such as temperature and humidity) also vary under the boards and whether these attributes affect what animals we find.

Please do not move or disturb our boards! This will decrease their effectiveness at attracting animals.

Which species do you think live on campus? Stay tuned to find out!

Elmer proposes his thesis!

BREE Lab Master's student (now candidate!), Elmer Gutierrez, successfully proposed his thesis at the end of spring semester. He is looking at how predation risk is modified in burned habitats and whether lizards exhibit enhanced reliance on color-matching in these areas where most of the above-ground vegetation has been burned. He has worked so hard on this project and I can't wait to see what we find!

BREE Lab Represents at SCAS!

BREE Lab graduate students got a chance to present their research at the annual Southern California Academy of Sciences Meeting (https://scas.nhm.org/annual-meeting) at Chapman University over the weekend. Daisy presented her preliminary results on how urbanization affects (or not!) lizard limb and toe morphology and locomotor performance, while Emily presented her final results (yay!) on how native lizards bask less in the presence of an invasive competitor. Congrats on great oral presentations!

In addition, Taylor, who is a mentee in the Natural History Museum's UNLAB program (https://nhm.org/unlab), co-mentored by Dr. Putman, presented a poster on her research examining rodenticide exposure in Southern California snakes! About a third of the snakes we processed tested positive for rodenticides.

It was a great time for the students and trainees to gain more public speaking experience and to catch up with old colleagues and meet new friends.