Lizard Project Days 4 & 5: No two days are ever the same in field biology.

We are already into day 5 of The Lizard Project.  Our team is settling in to our daily routine of working in the field, but when it comes to science in the field, nothing is ever really routine.

Yesterday, was a really full day.  We left at 6:00 am to get our rental pickup truck.  This is great for us, because we can now pull a trailer with all four of our kayaks and carry all of our gear in the back, all in one trip.

Tim caught a bumble bee with a lizard noose.  No way!

We did four Skype video calls with classrooms. The first call was to Adam Taylor's class in Nashville, TN at Overton High School.  They asked lots of great questions and Mr. Taylor even ran a live webcast of our conversation!  We then talked to 3 of Mr. Will Reed's classes at Kelly High School in Chicago.  The first conversation actually took place from the water while we were paddling the kayaks out to the islands!  We had  hot sunny weather and it was a great day for the lizards. We caught 76.  Tim also became a legend among our crew when he caught a bumble-bee out of mid air with his lizard noose.  If you don't understand why that is amazing, check out this quick video of a lizard noose in action. http://bit.ly/HszCIG Now picture using that to catch a bumble bee in mid-air.

Threatening Sky

Today mother nature dealt us a completely different day to work with.  We got out to the islands around 9:00am, but it was cool and windy with storm clouds threatening.  We worked at catching lizards for 4 hours total on three different islands and only caught 6 lizards. Lizards are ectothermic or what you might know as cold-blooded. Because they are ecothermic, they can't move very fast when they are cool.  So on days when it is not sunny and hot, they spend most of their time hiding inside of trees or underneath palm fronds.  They are almost impossible to find under these conditions and we only found a few. We decided that any more time spent searching for hidden lizards was not worth it,  the sky grew more threatening and we spotted lightning. That was our cue to head for home.  We hurried to load up our gear in the boats and paddle for the dock.  We  paddled with a huge wind at our backs and loaded the kayaks onto the trailer just as the rain and hail hit.  No we are back at the field station catching up on data processing and waiting out the rain.

Lizard Project Day 3: The little things.

One of the best parts about doing research in the field is the little unexpected things that you get to see because you are spending time looking at nature so carefully. Today we got a lot of work done.  We measured dewlaps in the morning for 20 lizards, paddled out to islands M and K where we caught 76 more lizards, took a break for dinner and then measured, weighed and marked our catch.  We did a lot of work, but the things I will remember about today were the little things that happened in between the work.

While paddling between islands in our kayaks, we saw a snake swimming out in the middle of the estuary.  We paddled over to try and catch it.  Once Tim had it in hand, we realized that it wasn't a snake at all.  It was a eastern glass lizard, a species of lizard without legs.  It is a great example of convergent evolution.  They look like snakes, but they evolved this body completely independently.  None of us had ever seen one in real life (aka: the wild) before.

In the middle of working on the islands, we heard loud snorting and slapping noises.  In the estuary, we saw several dolphins swimming in the shallows.  Quite a site to see for us, since we all live in the midwest, nowhere near an ocean.

The other fun part of the day occurred as we chased down a large male anole.  Aaron spotted the anole in the tree, and it was eating the lunch of a fat spider.  Tim then tried to catch the anole with his lizard noose but accidentally caught the spider instead. The seconds later, Dan caught the lizard.

We are looking forward to more of the little things.  -Tim and Aaron

If you want to learn about evolution with lizards, you have to go to where the wild lizards live. Join us as The Lizard Project goes to the islands later this week!

Do you ever wonder how scientists learn about evolution? 

Follow us this week as Dan, Tim, Andrew and I will head down to the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve and Tomoka State Park in Florida to continue an exciting experiment we began last year.  We are really glad to have you follow along as we do science and we are looking forward to answering your questions on line.  Let me tell you a bit about what we will be doing down there on our islands.  You can also follow on twitter @mr_reedy (#lizardproject) or on youngzine.com 

What questions are you trying to answer with your experiment?

All science starts with a question and the big question we are asking, “Why is there a 50/50 sex ratio in so many animal populations?” If you really think about it, this doesn’t necessarily make the most sense for an animal population.  Since a population can often grow faster with many females and few males, why is it that we so often find males and females in almost equal numbers?

When thinking about this we also wondered, “If the sex ratio, became really biased towards one sex or the other, how quickly would natural selection push things back to 50/50?

And,” In a world that is mostly female, would males have a better chance of surviving and reproducing? What about in a world that is mostly male?

What are your hypotheses?

The leading theory on the 50/50 sex ratio is that when the ratio gets out of balance, natural selection pushes it back towards 50/50.  For example when there are many male lizards all fighting for territory in the trees, you have a better chance of surviving if you are a female.  Therefore in a world with more males, a balance will quickly be restored as many males die before reproducing and many females survive to adulthood.  This is our general hypothesis.

We also think that in situations with biased sex ratios, natural selection will favor traits differently. We think that on an island with many males and few females,  the biggest males will be more likely to survive.  However, we think that on an island with few males and many females, the smallest males will have a better chance of survival and reproduction, because it will be easy for nearly all males to find a territory and mate. In this case, the large body size may be a waste of energy and be more noticeable to predators.

How are you testing these ideas?

With an experiment of course! Many people wrongly think that questions about evolution can’t be tested in the wild because evolution is a slow process.  However, evolution can be seen in the wild and measured if we look carefully. 

Since our question is big, so is our lab. Instead of testing animals in laboratory cages, we use entire islands as our animal enclosures for the experiments!

To test our hypotheses, we set up 9 experimental islands that did not have brown anole lizards living on them. On five of the islands we released a 66% male population and on the other four islands we released a 66% female population.  Before we introduced these populations to the islands, we took DNA samples and careful measurements from each of our founder lizards.  Now we will be able to check each year to see which individual lizards were most and least successful at producing baby lizards.  We will also continue to measure the future generations to see how natural selection is working to shape the evolution of these populations on the different islands.  We may be able to see evolution in action…but first we have to catch, measure, and take DNA samples from nearly every lizard on our nine islands.  We are going to be busy!

Announcing the National Geographic supported Lizard Project’s partner educators!

The Lizard Project is thrilled to announce our partner educators who will be working with us to bring evolutionary biology from the field to their classrooms.  They are all outstanding educators who work hard every day to share the wide world of science with their students. We are looking forward to virtually visiting their classrooms through live video chats from the field.  In no particular order they are:

Adam Taylor, John Overton High School, Nashville, TN- We first found out about Mr. Taylor when he was live-casting his evolution lecture to his class over the internet! How cool is that?  He enthusiastically uses technology including twitter in class to get his students excited about learning.  He has also been involved with the National Science Foundation’s GK12 program which brings early career scientists into the classroom to share real science with teachers and kids. You can follow him on twitter @2footgirrafe

Erin Nash, Benton High School, St. Joseph, MO- Erin teaches a very cool zoology course to high schoolers where kids are “exploring the animal kingdom, one phylum at a time” through all sorts of exciting hands on methods. Her students share their experiences in her class with the world at http://nashzoology.ning.com/ and she blogs about innovative science education at http://nashosphere.edublogs.org/ You can follow Erin on twitter @erinlynnnash

Nick Riemann, A. Blair McPherson School, Edmonton, Alberta- “Put simply, Nick Reimann loves school and at times it can be difficult to distinguish between his excitement and passion for learning about science from that of his students.” That’s according to the Government of Alberta, which awarded Nick its highly prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award in 2011. It is that passion for science that drives Wide World Science and exactly what we are looking for in a partner educator!  Nick blogs at http://rieportingwow.blogspot.com/and you can follow him on twitter @scimann

Alan Goldberg and Will Reed, Kelly High School, Chicago, IL-
 I am lucky enough to work with these guys every day back home in Chicago.  Alan and I have been team teaching inclusion biology classes for the last six years.  Mr. Goldberg works tirelessly for his students, no matter what their needs.  In 2011 he was awarded an Oppenheimer Family Foundation grant to conduct innovative lessons with live animals and last year he was instrumental in running the test program for The Lizard Project’s live communications. Will, who holds a degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago and is currently student at U of C’s Urban Teacher Education Program, is student teaching in my room and is on his way to an outstanding classroom career in the classroom. You can follow Will on twitter @greedotron

Youngzine.com - Youngzine, an engaging and interactive CNN-like website for kids has quickly become one of the very best online current event resources for classrooms.  We are super excited to have them as partners and we will be posting updates from the field on their site and fielding online questions from kids. I think these kids said it best when talking about Youngzine.

"Wow...... That's just all I can say. Its pretty cool but... Wow"

"Really really really!!!!!!!! awesome! I love animals all together!!! The world is just so amazing! Great article!"
"This is crazy awesome ! One of my favorite Youngzine articles . Made my jaw legit drop."
"Great story for such a young age! Keep writing you have gift and are meant to share it with the world! GREAT JOB!"

Check out Youngzine at: http://www.youngzine.com/ or to learn more about the great team behind Youngzine go to http://www.youngzine.com/page/about-Youngzine#Team

Gary Morris, Meredith Middle School, Des Moines, IA- Gary has worked with the National Science Foundation and Iowa State University’s Symbi GK12 program for two consecutive years.  Through this he has brought real science to his classroom in a unique way and helped to train two early career scientists in the art of science communication with the general public. We are super excited to have Gary hooked up with us this year!

Not a partner educator, but still wondering if you or your class can follow our adventures in evolutionary biology online?  You can indeed.  Drop me a line at aaronmreedy@gmail and we can talk about your class following Youngzine.com, this blog or following on twitter with: #lizardproject 

Do you want to connect your classroom to the wider world of science? Your class can become a partner classroom with the National Geographic supported lizard project.

This spring the National Geographic supported Lizard Project will be back in the field and we are looking for partner classrooms who want to share in that experience. This project will give students a unique window into evolutionary biology in action. Last year we began an ambitious experiment with the brown anole lizard (Anolis sagrei) to study the effect of a skewed sex ratio on natural selection in a wild setting. We introduced small populations on nine small living laboratory islands within Florida’s Intra Coastal Waterway.  Four of those islands have female biased populations and the remaining five are male biased.  We will be going back to capture all of the lizards again, measure and mark the new hatchlings and check the population survival and growth rates.  We would like to share this process with you and interact with your class.  As we prepare for the field work, your students can get familiar with our work through blog posts and assignments that reinforce the concepts of ecology and evolution that we study.  Later, as we head out into the field, your class can watch our work and ask questions through a live Skype session and through the blog.

If you are interested in having your class partner with The Lizard Project or just want to hear more, drop us a line at aaronmreedy@gmail.com

WideWorldScience is going to TED2012!

I am thrilled to announce that I have been invited to speak at TED2012.  This year at TED there will be a new session called The Classroom that will feature ten talks that teach.  My talk on fascinating experiments in modern evolutionary ecology will be part of that session on the final day of TED2012. The talks from The Classroom may be used in part to launch TED-ED (http://education.ted.com/), TED’s new education based website that will feature talks that teach as well as "a platform where visionary educators, students, and creative professionals can identify, submit & create content for the TED-ED initiative."


I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak at TED, to promote the teaching of evolutionary biology as well as to talk with the TED community about the exciting work Dan Warner and I are doing to bring real science to the classroom with the National Geographic and Waitt Foundation supported Lizard Project. 

Thank you National Geographic and the Waitt Foundation.

Here at WideWorldScience we are proud to announce that the field component of the lizard project is now being supported by a National Geographic Society Waitt Grant.  The generous support from this grant will allow Dr. Dan Warner, me, and our collaborator Alexis Harrison to step up our work in central Florida and reach an even wider audience of students through innovative educational outreach and partnerships with classrooms around the country.  This grant will allow us to:

1) Learn more about evolution by natural selection in the wild.

As the high school students who followed our work in real time last spring already know, we have an ambitious experiment currently underway.  We are attempting to answer the question of “What effect does the sex ratio of a population have on natural selection in that population?”  An animal’s sex (whether it is male or female) is one of its most significant traits that can determine its ability to survive in a particular setting.  For vertebrate animals (like our lizards) in the wild little is known about how the proportion of males to females affects the survival of both sexes.  What does it take to survive in a male dominated world? Is that different in a female dominated world?

To work to answer these questions, we are closely studying small populations on nine living laboratory islands.  Four of the islands have majority female populations and five of the islands have majority male populations.  Each of the founding lizards on these islands has been carefully measured and marked.  We also have taken DNA samples from the founding lizard population on each island and plan to track parentage in each successive generation. We will be looking closely at the sex ratios in each generation, survival rates for individuals and which sets of traits give an animal the best chance of survival in the available environments. In short, this work will give us the chance to answer interesting questions about evolution and sexual selection that have never been answered before.

2) Bring the experience of field work in evolutionary ecology into the classroom.   

At WideWorldScience, we believe that there is too much distance between the science students usually learn in school and cutting edge of research in the field.  With the field component of the Lizard Project, we are trying to bring exciting field work into the classroom.  Students and teachers from partner classrooms will follow our work through this blog as we prepare to go into the field.  This will allow for an inside look into the process of science.  Students will become familiar with our study questions, hypotheses and development of our methods.  Then as we head out to the islands to check on our lizards along Florida’s Intra Coastal Waterway, students will stay engaged through daily Skype chats from the field and frequent blog updates.  This will give students the chance to ask questions live and in real time as they get a window into the process of science as it happens.

If you are a teacher or a student who would like to be a part of the National Geographic supported Lizard Project this spring, please drop us a line at aaronmreedy@gmail.com 

Thanks again to the National Geographic Society and the Waitt Foundation for supporting science and our efforts to bring science to the classroom!