Research Roundup at Montana State University (#272), Off to Africa, Flying high, Bacterial cowboys, Natural enemies
| November 9, 2007 |  View for printing |
Off to Africa
Paul Schuette, a Montana State University graduate student in biology, will leave New Year's day to check on lions, leopards and spotted hyenas in a community conservation area in southern Kenya. Across the river is a Masai community that agreed to keep their cows, sheep and goats out of the conservation area, Schuette said. Schuette, a doctoral student with professor Scott Creel, will live eight months in Africa. During that time, he will study the behavior of large carnivores inside and outside of the conservation area and observe predator-prey interactions. A non-profit group is trying to develop eco-tourism and wants to protect the wildlife, Schuette said. Schuette's work is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Flying high
Students in the Montana Space Grant Consortium have flown experiments more than 50 times on high-altitude balloons as part of the BOREALIS program at MSU, said Bill Hiscock, physics professor and head of the MSU physics department. More recently, they have become involved in NASA's High Altitude Student Platform program. The students in that program designed an experiment to sample meteorite dust, then sent the experiment on a balloon that reached 120,000 feet and stayed there for 15 to 20 hours. BOREALIS flight director Berk Knighton and two MSU students went to New Mexico for the September launch. The students were Kyle Crawford of Missoula and Teresa Lannen of Glasgow.
Bacterial cowboys
It's hard to study bacteria when it wiggles, but live bacteria is important for researchers who want to see how it behaves and responds to changing conditions, said Recep Avci, director of MSU's Imaging and Chemical Analysis Laboratory. To keep the wiggling to a minimum, Avci and other MSU scientists figured out a way to use antibodies to lash down live bacteria. They demonstrated the technique on live Salmonella cells and explained it on a poster that won awards at two international conferences this year. One conference was in Korea, and the other in California. Among other things, the poster displayed the MSU bobcat logo that was made from live bacteria crowded together and standing up in a pattern.
Natural enemies
Many of Montana's invasive weeds came from Eastern Europe, so it made sense to look for their natural enemies in Eastern Europe, Jim Story said at the centennial celebration of MSU's Western Ag Research Center at Corvallis. Story, a research entomologist, told visitors that scientists found 12 Eastern European species of insects that thrive on the weeds introduced to Montana and North America. Of those, seven are making a noticeable impact on spotted knapweed. The most effective of the seven is the root-eating weevil, cyphocleonus. The weevil reproduces at a very slow rate, however. To speed things up, the research center mass-produces the weevil in plots of spotted knapweed. The weevil doesn't fly, so scientists keep it from escaping by placing sheet metal borders around the plots.
Evelyn Boswell, (406) 994-5135 or evelynb@montana.edu
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwvi ... rticle=5340
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