In Review

(Photo: J. Adam Fenster)

FULL MARKS: Gabrielle Henry ’19 daubs the correction fluid Wite-Out on a beetle in Mt. Hope Cemetery this fall as part of an advanced ecology and evolution laboratory course led by Robert Minckley, a senior lecturer in the Department of Biology. The class marks the beetles, a species of blister beetles, so that they can identify them in follow-up trips and monitor if the population levels change. Minckley says the beetles work well for a class project because they’re abundant in the cemetery each fall and active regardless of the temperature. “They are nearly perfect as a teaching organism and are largely unstudied,” says Minckley. “As far as I know, there has never been a scientific paper written on this species. So, the students are discovering something entirely new no matter what they decide to study.”