Carrier and Students Discuss New Developments at Imaging Conference

By Jake Weber 

Rachel Ransom, '08, Amy Hupp, 05, Albion biology professor Jeff Carrier, Derek Burkholder, '02, and Megan Fitzpatrick, '08, at an animal imagins symposium in Washington, D.C. Carrier participated in a panel discussing the challenges of combining research with filmmaking.

Carrier, along with Albion seniors Rachel Ransom and Megan Fitzpatrick, and alumni Derek Burkholder, ’02, and Amy Hupp, ’05, recently caught a bit more of the excitement earlier this month at a symposium on animal imaging held in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation, the conference explored uses of animal-borne video and data acquisition systems such as CritterCam, an instrument package developed for the National Geographic Society, and used to study more than 50 different animal species to date.

The symposium covered many different aspects of research associated with animal imaging, including new developments in equipment and the intersection of science and filmmaking. New research presented at the conference, Carrier notes, offers startling discoveries that may change current understanding about behavior and cognition. “Some researchers at the conference used CritterCam to show that certain birds use tools with sophistication close to that of primates,” he recalls. “These birds were even able to save tools they especially liked. These are data that we just couldn’t have gotten in any other way.”

For senior Megan Fitzpatrick, who plans to continue field research as a graduate student, animal-borne imaging “is a very exciting new way of studying animals that has revealed some behaviors that biologists didn't even know existed. For example, sea turtle researchers found that male turtles remain in the water off nesting beaches while females lay eggs, when no one had suspected that the males were there. I would love to get involved with an imaging program in graduate school.”

Ransom noted that the animal behavior research supported by imaging has direct implications on human behavior as well. “Imaging research shows that some sharks, which were thought to be territorial, actually migrate,” she explained. “This means that issues like habitat conservation have to be international efforts, and it’s important to have different countries communicating about these issues.”

The National Science Foundation underwrote the students’ participation at the symposium, an important part of their education, Carrier argues. “We’re trying to educate scientists in the broadest sense of the term,” he explains. “National meetings are an integral part of expanding scientific knowledge and undergraduates need to learn the value of working within professional organizations.

“At the conference, we were in groups where seal researchers would talk with turtle researchers – even though their research was very different, they had a lot in common, with the imaging,” Ransom noted. “It’s hard to think of another way to get people together and talking without this kind of meeting. But that’s important, too”