Fall Break at Cedar Point

Hey guys! This is Airicca, the new kitchen manager at Cedar Point, popping over to write a guest post for the blog about Fall Break. If you don’t know anything about me yet, I have an undergraduate degree in organismal biology, but am a baker by trade (yup like yummy breads and cookies and sweet delectables). I love food so much! I’m considering getting my masters in food science. Enough about me, ON TO FALL BREAK!!!

The prep week started off a little crazy because I had a family emergency to attend to, BUT my amazing boss and employee (Jon and Joe, respectively) did an amazing job prepping for the week! Joe made some absolutely amazing hummus and Jon sliced everything up just beautifully. I arrived the same day as the students, and everything was great! They pulled off dinner that night of chili and cornbread fabulously. With approximately 70 students and 10 faculty/staff plus 2 researchers, we certainly had a full house! We also had a guest employee from Sunday to Tuesday, Mitch. He had been the kitchen manager for 2 summers prior to this last summer. Much from him I learned.

It was definitely an experience for all. The students ran into all kinds of food they had never previously encountered such as gumbo or egg taco scramble or okra. I learned that they didn’t particularly like to eat rice, and no matter how many pounds of bacon I put out at breakfast, someone would make sure none went to waste. Or mostly any meat at any meal for that matter. Haha. :)

I tried to mix and match good old Nebraska fare with other things. It took a little creativity though because one main goal we had as a kitchen was to use up all the items we had on hand. If we use it, we don’t have to store it or throw it away. Both are major pluses: no wasted money or space. Gumbo, spaghetti pizza, and rice dishes were born of this effort. Soups were a main staple at night because it was soo, sooo cold! Sadly, cinnamon rolls never made it to the table because there was not enough time to make them from scratch for so many people. Never fear, in the summer, we planning on Saturday or Sunday (or both depending on how ambitious I feel) morning cinnamon rolls.

Two things the students really enjoyed were the fire place and the hot cocoa! They were in front of that fire place every night and most mornings. The hot cocoa packets were gone in a flash, and Jon had to go buy more to keep up with demand. I did note that the students were making their own coffee mixes with the hot cocoa as well. Smart idea! Peanut butter sandwiches was also crazy popular (probably due to my crazy concoction of meals and/or the hungry that comes about from crazy amounts of physical work that happen in a field class).

Anyway, fall break was a success and now, sadly, Cedar Point is all closed up for the winter. We are all prepped for reopening during Spring Break (hopefully) for a volunteer group. Summer is coming fast though, and we need help! Anyone interested in working at Cedar Point during the summer, contact Jon ASAP! There are multiple positions open and we are a lot of fun to work with! I mean come on, what can be more awesome than working at Cedar Point? :D

UNL's Parasite Laboratory Made This Week's Daily Nebraskan!

Post By: Johnica Morrow

Hey everyone!  Some of our fellow cedar pointians from past and future summer sessions have made UNL's campus newspaper!  Dr. Scott Gardner (the professor that taught Field Parasitology at CPBS) runs the Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology.  An interviewer from the Daily Nebraskan stopped by the lab and spoke with Gabor Racz (the collection's manager) as well as PhD student, Francisco Tiago Melo.  Francisco left the Daily Nebraskan with a sentiment that many of us parasitophiliacs can relate to saying, "In my opinion, parasites are amazing creatures."  Well-said Francisco!

Here is a link to the article! Enjoy!

CPBS Featured in the Daily Nebraskan

Article By: Johnica Morrow

On Thursday of this week, I picked up a copy of UNL's campus newspaper, The Daily Nebraskan.  As I browsed through stories about the smart freshmen coming into the university and the plans held by our Chancellor for creating more green space, a photo of a familiar place caught my eye.  The photo featured a view of CPBS from the perspective of the guys' student cabins.

Naturally, I stopped flipping pages and promptly read the article written by Maricia Guzman.  The article had several quotes from well-known Cedar Pointian, Dr. Gwen Bachman, and from a recent CPBS student, Kate Kollars.  It was a great article about how awesome CPBS is for learning biology in a practical setting.

This is a wonderful article worth the read!  Here's the link! Daily Nebraskan Article

RMCP at the CPBS

Article By: Johnica Morrow

As has become tradition among western and Midwestern parasitologists, the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Conference of Parasitologists took place here at the station Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  The eager faces of dozens of parasitologists from Wyoming, Colorado, Illinois, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and of course Nebraska filled Goodall Lodge in with an air of excitement.  At this 44th annual meeting, parasitologists (many of whom are or were former Cedar Pointians) met to discuss research in the field of parasitology and to watch students present their research to an audience of their peers.

The conference began with President Matt Bolek welcoming us all here and telling us a few stories about the guest lecturers for the weekend.  With Cindy Church presiding, graduate presentations began promptly at 9:10am.  After four wonderful presentations describing research in tapeworms, monogenes, trematodes, and snails, members took a break for cookies, coffee, and of course discussion.

After the break, Scott Gardner introduced Augustine Jimenez who delivered a passionate lecture about nematodes for the Newton Kingston Memorial Lecture.  Members then took a lunch break before heading back in to watch the undergraduate presentations at 1:30pm.  The undergraduate presentations gave us lots of information on coccidians, echinostomes (trematodes), gregarines, gordiids, and even a parasitoid wasp's mating behaviors!  The topics were as diverse as the researchers themselves and each talk was enjoyable to RMCP members.  After another coffee/cookie break, a few more presentations informed us about fish parasites and the temperature-dependent nature of gregarine development.

Following this session, members had the chance to observe three beautifully put-together poster presentations before reconvening in the Goodall Lodge for dinner.  The Friday night banquet is a  long-held tradition at RMCP.  This year, CPBS's newest staff member, Airicca Roddy, planned a delicious Italian meal to compliment the wines members enjoyed that evening.  The day concluded with John Janovy introducing Ben Hanelt as the speaker for this year's Gerald D. Schmidt Memorial Lecture. Ben spoke about his work with nematomorphs and all the cool things these little critters have revealed to us over time.

The next day we enjoyed a fabulous breakfast before we headed down to the basement for one last session.  We listened to two talks by Dr. Scott Seville and Dr. Ron Hathaway about their exciting research about coccidians and protostrogylid nematodes (respectively).  Afterwards we moved on to the final part of the conference...the business meeting!

The meeting was directed by our president, Dr. Matt Bolek and our president-elect, Dr. Karl Reinhard.  Awards were given to the winners of the presentation/poster competitions.  Cedar Point's own Francisco Melo was among the winners this year!  Great job, Francisco!  We were also informed about how well the American Society of Parasitologists meeting went this past summer in Quebec City.  One of the major concerns of the national society is also a concern for RMCP in addition to a concern for other regional parasite meetings.  This concern is the dropping of membership, especially in terms of student member numbers.

It was this concern that motivated fellow Cedar Pointian, Elizabeth Racz to move that the society have an open discussion about moving the meeting back by a week.  During the course of the conference, several students voiced concerns about the timing of RMCP.  Being scheduled the weekend after labor day gives students very little time after returning for the fall semester to prepare their presentations, posters, and secure funding for the conference.  For those that teach, it is also quite a task to take off the second week of classes.  Many students spoke of their classmates who were unable to attend the meeting because they didn't want to miss class during the second week of the semester after only having a week to get familiar with the classes and their professors.  UNL alone would have had 6 students that would have come to RMCP had the meeting been pushed back by only a week.

Mrs. Racz's suggestion instigated a heated debate amongst students and faculty.  Most faculty members where staunchly opposed to the idea of changing the time period.  Some suggested moving the conference back by a day...which was also hotly debated.  It was interesting to see just how tied to tradition some society members were during this discussion.  The society, like its parent society, seemed very concerned with complaining about low student membership and participation.  However, a suggestion for change that could potentially increased the number of students able to participate was met with much resistance.  In the end, no decision was made concerning whether the conference should remain scheduled for the weekend after labor day or pushed back a week attempt to increase attendance. However, if student membership remains low or drops next year, perhaps the issue will be revisited.

The meeting concluded with the passing of the gavel to our new president, Dr. Karl Reinhard, and the election of our new president elect, Dr. Rich Clopton.  Those who were able to stay behind took part in a group photograph just outside of the Goodall Lodge, with CPBS's own Jon Garbisch behind the camera.

All in all, this was a great conference!  The posters and presentations were informative and exciting, as were the memorial lectures.  It was wonderful to see so many parasitophiles (lovers of parasites) walking around, discussing parasites, networking, and catching up with old friends.  Speaking of parasitophiles, CPBS released a special edition RMCP t-shirt that was black with white lettering.  The t-shirts read "Parasitophile" in bold letters with Rocky Mountain Conference of Parasitology in a smaller font underneath.  The back of the shirt donned the CPBS logo.  Over 2/3rds of the shirts ordered were sold during the conference.  If anyone would like their own Parasitophile shirt, they can be purchased for $10 by contacting Jon Garbisch!

Thanks to all the officers, students, and faculty who attended RMCP at the CPBS this year! We hope you enjoyed the food, lodging, and general atmosphere.  We look forward to serving you again next fall!

Summer Course Schedule for 2014, almost there

From: Jon Garbisch,

Here it is our first pass at what will be offered at Cedar Point Biological Station, summer 2014.  Yes, no guarantee at this point that we will not make changes.  Yes, we have added two new courses; PHOT 161and Field Herpetology NRES 374.  I believe both of these are very close to 100% for sure.  I also believe they will fill early. We try to have these finalized by the first week of November and I will gladly take a deposit at that point.  You can certainly tell us now that you want a space saved of course and I'll confirm in early November.  Our room and board costs will remain the same; $575 for 3 weeks.

1^st  session, 18 May to 6 June 2014

BIOS 475 / 875 Ornithology, John Faaborg 

LIFE 121 Organismic Biology, William Glider – ACE4

2^nd session, 8 – 27 June 2014

BIOS/NRES 474/874 Herpetology, Dennis Ferraro 

BIOS 468 / 868 Field Animal Behavior, Daizaburo Shizuka  (ACE10)

PHOT 161  Digital (Landscape) Photography for Non-majors, Allen Morris – ACE7 (Dept. of Art and Art History is listing this course and only June 8-21)

Also most probably during that session:  EPSCoRE Young Nebraska Scientist 8 – 14 June and then Keith Co. middle school science workshops.

3^rd session, 29 June – 18 July 2014

BIOS 452 / 852  Field Epidemiology, Devin Nickol – ACE10

BIOS 422 / 822 Comparative Physiology, Gwen Bachman – ACE10

4^th session 20 July – 8 August 2014

BIOS 487 / 887 Field Parasitology, Scott Gardner – ACE10

BIOS 207 Ecology and Evolution, Chad Brassil

A Breath of Fresh Air-icca

Article By: Johnica Morrow

Cedar Point would like to welcome it's newest staff member: Mrs. Airicca Roddy!  Airicca has been hired to fill a number of roles here at the station.  She will be working on data management for our library and scientific collections as well as serving as the station's librarian.  In the off season, she will be doing promotional/public relations work for the station.  In addition to her many other hats, she will be wearing that of the Head Chief and Kitchen Manager.  She is currently in the process of hiring kitchen staff for the 2014 field season.

Airicca comes to us from College Station, Texas, where she has been working in a bakery for the last year.  Prior to her work in College Station, Airicca was a librarian at the Burkburnett City Library in Burkburnett, Texas.  Airicca holds a bachelors of science degree in Organismal Biology from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.  Airicca also has public outreach experience from her involvement with Bark for Life and Rockys Creek Ranch and Horse Rescue among a few other non-profits.  Airicca will be living in Lincoln while her husband, Nathan Roddy, works on his master's degree in hydrology.  Other members of the Roddy family include their cat, Luna, and their dog, Ninja.  

Airicca has many exciting plans for the CPBS kitchen, including an initiative to serve food that is not only delicious, but also healthy.  Airicca has a passion for food and she loves experimenting with ways to make yummy foods less bad for you.  She is also hoping to find ways to make the station more sustainable in terms of how the kitchen is run.

The following is a brief interview with Airicca about her plans for CPBS.

1) What plans do you have for managing scientific resources at CPBS?

Soon we will be in the process of creating a searchable database in RefWorks that should be accessible from our homepage.  You will be able to search for bibliographic information published that relates to research conducted here at Cedar Point.  This information will be useful for students taking classes and working on research projects at the station.  Our long-term goal is to have full papers digitally available for students, but we will start with providing a working research bibliography before getting to that point.

2) How will you be involved with promotional work for the station?

I will be working closely with our Associate Director, Jon Garbisch, to recruit UNL students for classes and as summer workers here at Cedar Point.

3) What changes can students and researchers expect next summer in terms of their dining experience at CPBS?

Well, as I'm from Texas, you can certainly expect less traditional Nebraskan foods. (*She laughs*)  Let's start with my favorite meal, breakfast!  We are hoping for more than eggs and bacon/sausage every morning.  I'm wanting to expand our breakfast offerings to include things like homemade pancakes, muffins, and french toast once or twice a week.  I'll also be introducing some Tex-mex items such as breakfast tacos and migas.

As far as lunch is concerned, I've heard a lot of complaints from students and staff members about lunches being too heavy.  This makes me feel like we need to be offering lunches that are lighter while still offering all of the calories people need to conduct field work. We are kicking around a lot of ideas about what to serve.  At the moment, I'm thinking about things like herb-citrus roasted chicken, and minestrone.  As always, we will have a full salad bar available for both lunch and dinner, but I'm planning to make more soups available on some of those cool, rainy days in the early and late summer sessions.

Plans for dinner are similar to those for lunch.  We will be trying to give people the fuel for all of the activities they are doing without giving them foods that will bog them down out in the field.  The goal is to have lots of fresh foods available and to home-make as many things as we can.  We want to avoid foods with lots of additives and preservatives which aren't healthy. 

4) On a scale of 1 to super-awesome-ecstatic, how excited are you about working for CPBS?

 Orange hedgehog.

5) Any final thoughts you'd like to leave for those planning to spend part or all of next summer eating your food?

Students, if you are bad, we WILL serve you fruit punch...staff and faculty will laugh at your misfortune as they sip their lemonade in spite of your misery.  Also, if anyone is rude to my staff, they aren't getting dessert!  Seriously, we will be working hard so you guys need to act like courteous adults!

Thanks again for the fun interview, Airicca!  We can't wait to see what you accomplish in your new (multiple) position(s)!  Welcome to CPBS!!!

As mentioned previously, we will be looking to staff the kitchen for next summer with more UNL students! If you are a student interested in working in the kitchen next summer (or fall break of this year!), be sure to shoot Airicca an e-mail at cpbs2@unl.edu. 

Announcing Occasional Paper #2

Article By: Johnica Morrow

In 2001, Cedar Point decided to publish the first of a series of papers describing the flora and fauna of the station and the surrounding regions.  The series was dubbed the "Occasional Papers of the Cedar Point Biological Station".  The first publication in this series was compiled by Dr. Charles R. Brown and Dr. Mary Bomberger Brown.  This publication was titled Birds of the Cedar Point Biological Station.

Since the first publication, Cedar Point has not published another paper in this series.  The running joke around the station has been that the Birds of Cedar Point Biological Station was one of the very occasional papers.  This summer, we decided to change that by publishing the second paper in the series.

It all started with my love for spiders.  While working on my master's degree at Midwestern State University (Wichita Falls, Texas), I was able to take a rarely offered class in spider biology.  In this class, termed Araneology, we not only learned how these amazing creatures function anatomically and ecologically, we also learned how to collect, curate, and identify them.  I partially took the class because I was afraid of spiders, and my mother always told me that knowledge is power.  It turns out she was right, as most mothers are.  Gaining an understanding of these creepy crawlies made them much less creepy.  I began to see the sheer brilliance and beauty of animals that are all too often killed because we fear them.

Upon arrival to CPBS, I found myself gazing in amazement at the spider diversity.  I wanted to read up on the spiders found here at the station, but no one had ever written a field guide or even documented the diversity here.  I started to collect them and I asked the station's associate director to order me an identification manual.  My hobby collecting turned into a desire to create a working scientific collection of these animals for the station.

As the summer crept on, I managed to collect 157 specimens representing at least 12 known families.  Midway through the summer, things got so busy that I didn't have time to collect and I never got to completely identify my spiders.  However, I did manage to take the time to write up the second paper in the very occasional papers series.  You can expect to see Spider Families of the Cedar Point Biological Station on CPBS shelves next summer at the latest.  You might even be able to swing by Jon Garbisch's office on City Campus for a copy in the next few months if he gets them to the printer soon!

The paper briefly covers each of the families encountered this summer and is intended to be expanded upon in the years to come.  The collection of spiders now exists as a permanent part of the CPBS Non-Insect Arthropod Collection.  Hopefully next summer myself, or perhaps someone more qualified, will be able to identify what we have and contribute to the growth of the collection with their own specimens.  Knowing what we have is an important part of understanding the ecosystems around the station.  Though it is not easy to find ways to fund biodiversity studies or curatorial scientists, it is important to do so.  

Today, the collection was created and will be maintained by volunteers, but perhaps in the future some small endowment will be created for students interested in museum studies or maybe even spider biology in general.  I would love to see my work continued by budding professionals just as I would love to see the growth of our station's scientific collections.  After all, good scientific collections and publications are the marks of great research stations, and we can all agree that Cedar Point Biological Station should remain amongst those considered great.  

To donate to our efforts in expanding our collections and keeping them maintained, please contact Jon Garbisch at cpbs@unl.edu. Thanks in advance for your support!