 PRESENTERS
Dr. Janice Greene
Dr. Brian Greene
Dr. Alexander Wait
Jennifer Moody-Weis
Tina Tamme
Kristen Pattinson
Mike Dickerson
Jessica Smith
Doug Aubrey
BBQ!
PRESENTATIONS
 Dr. Janice Greene,
Director of the Bull Shoals
Field Station and Professor of Biology,
introduced members of the audience to the current status of the field station.
She explained that we are very busy renovating the area to house groups
of people for short-term field trips. Dr. Janice Greene also mentioned three
current field station projects: the weather station, class field
trips, and teacher workshops.
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 Dr. Brian
Greene, Assistant Professor of Biology,
presented his talk entitled, “Cottonmouth ecology of southwest Missouri”.
Dr. Greene conducts surveys of reptile and amphibian populations at the BSFS.
Specifically, he is studying life histories of cottonmouth
populations.
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 Dr.
Alexander Wait,
Assistant Professor of Biology,
has been conducting research on two different topics at the Bull Shoals Field
Station. The titles of his presentations were, "Documenting the
Impacts of Fire and
Herbivory on Oak-Hickory
Forests" and "Examination of Aquatic/Terrestrial
Transfers in Plants and Animals."
Dr. Wait's research has demonstrated that the effects of controlled
burns in Ozark forests regulate herbivory, understory development, establishment of
new plant species, and maintenance of habitat for mammals.
His second area of research indicates that aquatic habitats provide
resources to their adjacent terrestrial habitats.
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 Jennifer
Moody-Weis,
former graduate student currently working
on her Ph.D. at the University of Kansas. Her presentation focused on the
thesis work she conduced at Missouri State entitiled, "Pollination
Limitation to Reproductive
Success in the Missouri Evening
Primrose, Oenothera macrocarpa".
Data from the research indicate that seed production was increased significantly
by artificial pollination in two of three populations of Oenothera macrocarpa
that were studied, suggesting that recent habitat
fragmentation has reduced that local populations of pollinating hawk moths.
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 Tina
Tamme,
former
BSFS Manager, presented her talk entitled,
“Environmental Limits to Invasion of
Ponds by the
Exotic Zooplankter
Daphnia lumholtzi Sars”.
As a former graduate student of Missouri State, Tina conduced a portion of her thesis
research at the Bull Shoals Field Station. Her research focused on local
factors that may be inhibiting the exotic zooplankter, Daphnia lumholtzi,
from establishing a population in local ponds. Her research concluded that
D. lumholtzi populations experienced suppressed densities in the presence
of a natural pond zooplankton community.
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 Kristen
Pattinson,
former graduate
student of Missouri State and current research specialist in the Biology Department,
presented her talk entitled, "Water Monitoring of the White
River System". Her current research is the study of
the biological components of the White River Watershed, which includes Bull
Shoals Lake. Her findings from the last few years suggest that Bull Shoals
Lake is a relatively clean body of water. This is mainly indicated by the
biological health of the kinds and densities of the algae found in the water.
However, because the development around adjoining lakes can cause water problems, there is a need to continue monitoring Bull Shoals Lake.
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 Mike Dickerson, former Manager of the Bull Shoals Field Station,
presented his talk, “Databases of the Bull Shoals
Field Station”.
All of the current work compiling data for the field station was initiated by
Mike Dickerson. On this day, he reported on the progress of his project of
establishing baseline databases for future research at the station.
Established databases include plants, animals (including amphibians, birds,
mammals, and reptiles), weather, and his own most impressive literature
database. Dickerson has found over 600 pieces of literature,
including governments reports, grant sponsored research, and graduate
theses on research conducted in the area. He also mentioned the
survey work conducted in the
area that provides a great deal of this data, including bird watches by the
Greater Ozarks Audubon Society.
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 Jessica Smith former graduate student of Missouri State
and presented research she conduced at the Bull Shoals Field
Station in a talk entitiled,
“Reduced Hawkmoth Pollination in Ruellia humilis”.
This study was conducted as her thesis research and included three
different sites, one of which was the Bull Shoals Field Station.
The focus of her research was to determine the amount of
crosspollination occurring in the Hairy Petunia,
Ruellia humilis.
Research concluded that
current outcrossing
rates are significantly lower than historical outcrossing rates in
three of four populations of Ruellia humilis that were
studied, suggesting that recent habitat fragmentation has reduced
the local populations of pollinating hawk
moths.
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 Doug Aubry,
former graduate
student at Missouri State, presented his pending thesis research in a
talk entitled,
“Fire
Effects on
Seedling and Sapling
Composition in an Ozark Forest: a Demographic
and Physiological
Approach”
The focus of this research is to determine the effects of fire on
seedling and saplings in the forests of the Bull Shoals Field
Station. His data suggest that seedling and sapling density
increases in burned areas, total litter production is highest in
the burned forest habitat due to large amounts of acorn
production, and that the canopy is more open in burned than
unburned habitats.
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Bull
Shoals Field Station
