June marks the end of our normal Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) funded field season.  We had a great year with close to 800 amphibians and reptiles collected!  We visited a total of eight counties in Oklahoma this year, which included nine WMAs and two National Wildlife Refuges (a summary of one refuge trip can be found here).  We look forward to continuing our...

The 2016 Oklahoma field season is well underway, with two sampling trips completed so far!  We are continuing the work of documenting Oklahoma biodiversity and amphibian infectious disease that we began in 2015. Last weekend we visited the amazing Ozark Plateau National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oklahoma.  Eight members of the Siler Lab were able to assist in field, allowing us to...

This past weekend, 15 other OU McNair scholars and I traveled to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas to present our research from the past year.  The McNair Scholars Program is a federal program to prepare undergraduate underrepresented students for doctoral studies through research and mentorships.  I presented the research that the Siler Lab and I conducted over the presence of Chytrid fungus in Southeast Oklahoma. ...

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The Siler Lab participated in the annual Oklahoma Biological Survey‘s BioBlitz!  This year the event was held in Osage Hills State Park, near Bartlesville in northeast Oklahoma.  Our lab was joined by previous students from the spring Herpetology course taught by Cameron Siler as well as colleague John Phillips from the University of Tulsa. We had a great time, with 31 total...

Science in Action and Object ID Day is an annual event sponsored by the Sam Noble Museum.  One Sunday a year, the museum is FREE to the public and all museum departments/collections, plus a wide variety of other OU or Oklahoma-based science entities have booths to educate people on their research or other items of importance. This year the Herpetology Department featured...

This is the fifth in a series featuring the recent OU graduates who are members of the Siler Lab.  In their own words, they will highlight the experiences they had with us as students, volunteers and/or employees.  Begin the series here with Rachel Flanagan. My year in the herpetology lab was an incredible experience, full of learning and experiencing new things.  I had the...

This is the fourth in a series featuring the recent OU graduates who are members of the Siler Lab.  In their own words, they will highlight the experiences they had with us as students, volunteers and/or employees.  Begin the series here with Rachel Flanagan. I joined the Siler Lab in the fall of 2014 as a senior at OU. Before I started volunteering at Sam...

This is the third in a series featuring the recent OU graduates who are members of the Siler Lab.  In their own words, they will highlight the experiences they had with us as students, volunteers and/or employees.  Begin the series here with Rachel Flanagan. I started working in Dr. Cameron Siler’s herpetology lab as my honors thesis project my senior year.  While I had...

This is the second in a series featuring the recent OU graduates who are members of the Siler Lab.  In their own words, they will highlight the experiences they had with us as students, volunteers and/or employees.  The first entry, by Rachel Flanagan, is available here and the third in the series, by Matt De Ruyter is available here. In January 2015, I began volunteering in...