Our first paper on turtle research at the UT turtle pond was just published at PLoS One! Big congrats especially to Mariangel, the grad student that oversaw a lot of this work and took the lead on data analysis and writing up the paper.
This is the first study from a long-term research project centered on getting undergraduates involved in biodiversity research at UT. We started this work a few years ago in collaboration with the UT undergraduate EEB club with seed funding from the UT Greenfund that was later enhanced quite a bit by a research education grant from the UT Stengl-Wyer endowment. We’ve since had >100 students involved to some degree in research around the turtle pond, which is coordinated by undergraduate team leaders, graduate students, and multiple faculty members.
This first study investigated microbiomes in red-eared sliders and how they vary across body locations and different urban ponds around Austin. We found that microbiomes are shaped by both body location and pond, with turtles at the UT turtle pond having particularly distinctive shell microbiomes.
This project was also important in establishing a baseline at the UT turtle pond – both in what types of microbes live there and how many and which turtles are there. We’ve now PIT tagged all turtles at the turtle pond and have baseline data on their size, weight, appearance, etc.
More research is underway with these turtles, so stay tuned for other projects!