News & Updates

Week 9-10 recap

Well, the class is really up and running now and we are in the midst of data collection. During week 9 we spent Monday collecting videos. Everyone has been working really well and are getting some great videos. On Wed. of week 9, we had our first set of presentations by students summarizing a paper relevant to their research project. I used this rubric to grade the presentations and we learned about different crayfish escapes, crayfish facial recognition, and grasshopper jumping. I also extended the deadline for their video, digitized point, and kinematic test, so we spent some of Wed. going through their kinematic code to make sure they are getting data.

Here is a video of team jump.

 

Week 10 started off with more data collection, teams came in and started working. Groups also started working on digitizing their videos and getting kinematics. The goal is to have all our videos collected by Thanksgiving, so we can move on to data analysis. In a few weeks I’ll give a short lecture on data analysis and presentation, since all groups will be presenting at the Department of Biological Sciences poster day on Dec. 7. On Wed, each group gave a short presentation on their proposed research, graded following this rubric. We also had another student present a paper on water strider jumping performance.

Here is a video from Team Water Strider

Week 7-8 recap

Well, we are more than half way through the semester and the class has been moving along well. Week 7 started off with another nice day and trip to Oregon Ridge, the focus was to get grasshoppers and crickets, but we also got some more water striders and crayfish. We also caught some praying mantises, as they were pretty abundant in the field. We managed to get more grasshoppers, mostly short winged, and some crickets.

Wed. we had our only exam, a midterm to ensure we all understood the content. The class did well, 13 short answers and a B average.

Week 8 started with a tank of dead crayfish (miscommunication, overfeeding, and a build up of ammonia). We sent the crayfish team out to catch some more with Aaron, while the rest stayed behind and began working on collecting data. They set up their high-speed cameras and tanks to capture the performance they were interested in. By the end of the day, each group had gotten their filming setup figured out, and started collecting data. Water striders were gliding on calm water, invasive stink bugs were flying towards the light, and grasshoppers were jumping in the air. On Wed. we continued filming and the crayfish team got up and running after being a bit behind. The groups had an assignment due with a video from their research, a digitized point, and resulting kinematics. We are still working on it, as I am going to work with groups this week to finalize their kinematic code to get the data they need. But, we have animals, we have projects, and now we have some data. My concerns at the beginning of the semester of whether this whole thing will work, (what will there questions be, can we get animals, can we get them to perform) have disappeared. Some concern with the stink bugs, but once we realized that they are phototaxis, and we need the light for the camera anyway, they were off and flying.

 

Week 5-6 recap

Things are moving along in the course. Week 5 started off with another cancelled field trip due to weather. But, as I’m learning with this course, we adapted and instead spent time trouble shooting R. None of the students have ever used R, so it was a lot to ask of them. I made a simple code for them to get displacement, velocity, and acceleration from the point they digitized on their video in MTrackJ. There is a learning curve to R, so we spent the first part of Monday’s class making sure everyone can run their point through and get some data. And we did. I also asked them to get mean velocity and acceleration, not giving them the code, but pointing them to online resources.

Students then went back out to the Glenn Arboretum to collect some invertebrates with Aaron and Jess. They came back with a bunch of organisms. Instead of filming, I wanted to give them time to talk about project ideas. So, I had them brainstorm. We wrote all the ideas on the board and started thinking about experimental design, sample sizes, and feasibility. They had an assignment due the next Monday on an initial project idea with citation. Starting to move from learning about animal movement and research to conducting research. In class on Wed. we had a lecture on jumping and discussed a paper on hindlimb length and jumping in leafhoppers.

Week 6 began with weather finally on our side! So, we headed out to Oregon Ridge Park to try and collect. Students had submitted initial project ideas, so we had some target species. Many students went with Jess to catch crayfish in a creek, and they were successful, capturing ~23 in an hour. I went with several students to sample the fields, and we got some crickets and grasshoppers. Students in the creek also realized there were water striders, so they caught a bunch of them. We then sat in the pavilion and students rotated around discussing project ideas, while Aaron and Jess caught all the invasive stink bugs on the pavilion. We started to organize into groups and project ideas. Seemed there was a group that wanted to work with crayfish, a group wanting to work with water striders, another on crickets/grasshoppers and one that was open. We headed back to campus, Aaron and Jess took care of our new animals.

On Wed. we spent the first few minutes finalizing groups. They have a proposal abstract due next week, as a group. We are switching over to more group work now. We then discussed movement in the air and read a paper on bee flight performance. We’re suppose to head back to Oregon Ridge on Monday to target grasshoppers and crickets, and our midterm on Wed. Then, it is all about research.

Week 3-4 recap

A quarter of the way through the semester. Weather has not been on our side. For week 3 we spent our time in lab practicing to film using some of the crayfish we had. Everyone got some crayfish escapes. We then moved to the computer lab to learn digitizing using the MTrackJ plugin for ImageJ. We used one of the praying mantis videos I had, and after we worked through the protocol, students started clicking (and clicking and clicking and clicking). They had an assignment due at the start of the next lab day tracking one point from one of the crayfish videos. Digitized points were graded based on this rubric. In lecture on week three we had a crash course in muscle physiology and energetics based off of Biewener and Patek Ch. 2. This lecture was way too long, almost two hours with no breaks. In the future I plan to break it up. Most students had muscle physiology in A&P or Animal Physiology, but not all.

Week 4 started with a cancelled field trip to the field station. So, we tried to collect in the Glen Arboretum behind our building, but within a minute it started to pour! Luckily there was some shelter from the rain. As we stood there, we talked about project ideas, what would they do with all the money and resources in the world. How long can a dragonfly fly for? Once the rain died down, we went back in and filmed some crickets jumping to again practice our filming techniques. We then headed to the computer lab to take our digitized points and start getting some basic kinematics and performance traits in R. They had an assignment due at the beginning of the next week using their tracked points to get maximum displacement, velocity, acceleration with plots (based off of code I provided), but also figure out how to obtain mean values. While things worked okay in the computer lab, they did not on their personal computers. Stay tuned for the next update to find out what we did next. Lecture week 4 focused on terrestrial locomotion, using Biewener and Patek Ch. 4 as a guide. We then discussed Full and Tullis 1990 on cockroach running and energetics at different inclines.

Its interesting to teach this material over an extended period of time. Usually I do a truncated version of form and cuntion in one lab period. Having the time to spend learning to film, digitize, and use R has been nice. Discussing papers has helped think about research ideas and practicing filming on different animals has helped them see how to think about filming and analyzing different animals and performance.

 

Week 1-2 recap

Well, we made it through week 1 and 2 of the new course. As they say, so far so good. Going in to the week I was 50% excited, 50% terrified. I get to teach a class similar to my research, instruct students on how to film animal movement using high-speed cameras and talk about topics close to my interests and research (50% excited). However, since this is a authentic research experience based on student driven research questions and hypotheses, I have no idea what they will come up with, what performance or function they will ask, how feasible it will be, and since we are relying on locally collected invertebrates (plus some from a colleague and biological supply companies), I am concerned we will not get enough specimens. So, 50% terrified.

However, we got into class on Monday and got the ball rolling. We spent Monday going over logistics of the course, introductions of the class, some basic camera principles, and then got into filming. Every student held a hissing cockroach (good for an organismal course), and every student captured a high speed video of something moving. The video was part of their first assignment, worth 5 points and based off the following rubric I created to ensure they understand what makes a good video for analysis (Video test rubric).

 

On Wed. I got in some animals from a biological supply company, including fiddler crabs, crayfish, dragon fly nymphs, damselfly larvae, American cockroaches and German cockroaches. In class we discussed the morphology, performance fitness paradigm and spent time defining terms. Lecture and discussion was based off chapter 1 in Animal Athletes.

Monday was a holiday, so no lab time. On Wednesday students submitted their first paper summary, where they had to find a paper from the primary literature relevant to the class. The following rubric was used (Paper Summary Rubric). Lecture focused on the factors that can affect performance and we discussed a recent paper, Winchell et al. 2018.Linking locomotor performance to morphological shifts in urban lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Next week we will practice getting videos on animals, introduce digitizing and kinematics, and discuss muscle physiology.

Welcome!

Welcome to the homepage for the new Organismal Form & Function Lab at Towson University. I will be using this site to provide information on the class, update on our progress and post high speed videos student’s will be collecting throughout the semester. Stay tuned as I work on the class and this site.