Reinke Lab
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News

Updated March 2024

Follow us on Instagram for the latest news! @ReinkeLab

View fullsize Rafael, Laura, and Beth visited the bird collection at the Field Museum today! We went to learn about how the Field stores, maintains, and prepares its almost half a million bird specimens for scientists from around the world to use! We picked up lo
View fullsize Yesterday was “Dead Bird Day” in the lab. We inventory all the individuals we collected over the last year that have died from hitting windows on NEIU’s campus. This is important information for conservation efforts here, as well as
View fullsize For the last lab of the semester, the BIO 325: Local Fauna class built native bee houses! They did an excellent job providing a variety of tubes for females to choose from, and painting the boxes beautifully! The paint will dry and air out over the
View fullsize A little snow won’t stop the Local Fauna students! We spent this morning learning to fish at the Gompers Park Lagoon. It was chilly but beautiful, and some of us got to see a rarity- a rusty blackbird! #GetOutside #ChicagoParks #fishing #biol
View fullsize Kim Rice and Caroline Byrne both came to the SACNAS Diversity in STEM conference to present their research from our lab! Kim won an award for best poster in General Biology! Congrats to both!!! @neiubiology #UndergraduateResearch #biology
View fullsize It was an amazing exhausting day! I’m so proud of all of my students presenting their work today! I’ll share more later but for now, congratulations to all the students! #SCSEConference @scse.neiu @neiubiology
View fullsize Today BIO 325: Local Fauna visited the Peggy Notebaert @naturemuseum to see the local reptile species were unlikely to encounter on our field trips. Of course, we did some birding on their bird walk as well! Photo 1: Students looking at the bird ta
View fullsize BIO 325: Local Fauna had a great time at LaBagh Woods today! We’re getting to see more warblers than we can ID, found some excellent herps, and enjoyed the cooler weather #Wildlife #Chicago #UrbanBirding
View fullsize I’m so proud of this paper from my very first group of summer students! Erik is the first author and Georgina is the second on our new paper out in Herpetologica. This paper also means a lot to me as it’s the first paper where I’m
View fullsize

Beth Reinke received a research fellowship from the Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study to conduct work on reptile osteology at the William R. Adams Zooarchaeology Lab! She will visit the collection for two weeks in early March.

Research Fellowship

 

Poster Award!

Kim Rice won a poster award for her presentation at the Diversity in STEM SACNAS conference in Portland, Oregon! Caroline Byrne and Beth Reinke were also able to attend, and Caroline presented her work too!

 

NSF Grant

Beth Reinke received a research grant from the National Science Foundation titled BRC-BIO: Investigating color and pattern diversity in painted turtles. This three year grant contains significant research opportunities for undergraduates so stay tuned!

 

Student Publication!

Lab alumni Erik Maki and Georgina Jaimes had a publication in Herpetologica detailing Erik’s summer research project when he was in the Reinke Lab. Check it out here and read more about it on our Instagram!

 

Field Season Is Here!

Field season is off to a great start as Beth, the summer research students (Jonathon Stasiek, Kim Rice, and Caroline Byrne), and Sara Crow head to Thomson to conduct the 34th year of a long-term painted turtle research study! They will be meeting up with folks from the Janzen and Bronikowski labs at Michigan State University. Follow along with the work on Instagram @ReinkeLab!

 

Paige Boban and Beth were part of an international team of researchers investigating nocturnal basking in painted turtles! The paper just came out in Global Ecology and Conservation. Check it out here!

Student Publication!

 

2023 Summer Research Students!

 

We are so excited to have Jonathon Stasiek, Kim Rice, and Caroline Byrne (back for her second year!) as our SCSE Summer Research cohort! All three students will be conducting independent research projects during field work in Thomson, Illinois (#TurtleCamp) and Hayward, Wisconsin (#LongTermPaintedTurtleStudy) this summer!

 

The Lab is Growing!

This semester (Spring 2023) we’ve had several new students join the lab! Sara Crow is a Masters student who will be working on her thesis this summer. Veronica Villa started working with us last semester to coordinate a large collection of mark-recapture datasets for a study on demographic buffering. Al Mayhugh is a McNair Scholar mentored by Beth. Jonathon Stasiek also just joined the lab and may be working with us in the field this summer. Kim Rice has been joining our lab meetings for a while and will continue to teach us all about the wonders of the gut microbiome!

 

Paige Boban and Haider Mehdi gave podium presentations at the annual SCSE Conference this Fall! Caroline Byrne, Ken Owens, and Kim Rice gave excellent poster presentations on their work from the summer as well!

SCSE Conference 2022

 

Animal Behavior Society Conference

This July, Beth and Paige Boban traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica to present research at the Animal Behavior Society Conference! Paige presented her first poster project on the impact of plant communities on painted turtle spatial ecology. Beth presented ongoing research on sexual selection in squamates.

 

New Papers!

The Reinke Lab had a good summer for publications! Check out our work in Science on aging in reptiles and amphibians (including the datasets we’ve been collecting in the field)! This paper has been in progress for four years and received press from news outlets around the world! Additionally, a paper on sex-related differences in aging led by Hugo Cayuela came out in Evolution and an excellent project led by Grascen Shidemantle on the effects of artificial light on tadpole color came out in Environmental Pollution!

 

2022 Field Season

We once again had a successful field season! Ken Owens and Beth spent two weeks in Thomson, Illinois, monitoring turtles on the Mississippi River. We were fortunate to be visited by researchers from Michigan State, and by our very own Dr. Aaron Schirmer, Dr. Jennifer Slate, Sara France, and Israel Contreras! Then, Beth went to northern Wisconsin for her field study there where she was joined by Paige Boban and Caroline Byrne, as well as Dr. Alex Peimer!

 

Two Students Accepted to Animal Behavior Society Conference!

Congratulations to Paige Boban and Haider Mehdi whose poster presentations were accepted to the Animal Behavior Society conference! They will be presenting their research posters in Costa Rica this July.

 

2022 Summer Research Students

We are delighted to welcome Ken Owens and Caroline Byrne to the Reinke Lab for the SCSE Summer Research and Training Program! They will join Paige Boban to conduct field work and research projects throughout the summer. Welcome!

 

Haider Mehdi accepted to CIMS Internship!

Haider Mehdi was accepted to a competitive internship on Cultural Immersion in Monarchs & Milkweeds Advancing Science Education! Haider will conduct independent research on monarchs in the Chicagoland area, and will participate in this internship throughout the summer. He will be presenting his research in the fall and we can’t wait to hear about it! Congrats, Haider!

 

Want to join a Research Community?

Professor Lauren Meranda (NEIU Art+Design) and I are starting a research community called the Wonder of Nature. No artistic skills or knowledge are necessary! We are looking for several biology students interested in exploring how to use art to express scientific data. Students will learn wildlife identification, taxidermy, and insect pinning, and will explore the intersection of art and science in weekly meetings. The community will culminate in a field experience in the Northwoods and an art exhibit. Fill out this Google Form to apply.

 

We’re Recruiting!

I’m looking for students (preferably Freshmen or Sophomores) at NEIU who are interested in helping with a research project on window strikes on campus. Students must be available in the early morning to walk campus. Please contact me if you’re interested eareinke at neiu dot edu.

 

New Lab Members

This summer, Hayden O’Connell joined the lab as a part of the SCSE Summer Research and Training Program! Hayden is working on a project (in collaboration with Dr. Kirsty MacLeod) studying the evolution of iridescence in squamates. This fall, we will have another new student join us- Paige Boban! Paige will be working on a project on basking behavior in painted turtles. Welcome to the Reinke Lab!

 

2021 Field Season

We did a bad job of keeping the website updated this summer (though check out the lab Insta @ReinkeLab), but we had a successful field season at TWO sites this year! For the first two weeks of June, Beth, Erik Maki, and Nkosi Evans ran the Janzen Lab’s Turtle Camp site in Thomson, IL. Assistance was given by Kelsey Littrell and Hayden O’Connell. After that, Beth headed north to run her long-term painted turtle study in Wisconsin.

 

Beth has been a guest on a few podcasts recently. Check out the Women in Ecology and Evolution podcast (Episode 1: The WEE Pandemic Support Group) and the Science Night podcast (Episode 12: The Curious Case of the Painted Turtle with Beth Reinke). Available where ever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Guest

 

Georgina Jaimes received 1st Place in Environmental Science for her poster presentation at the ILSAMP (Illinois Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation) Conference. Way to go, Georgina!

Conference Award

 

Grad School News

Many members of the Reinke Lab are graduating this Spring and heading to grad school! Erik Maki has gotten word that he’s been accepted to two PhD programs and a Masters program, and Kelsey Littrell has been accepted to a Museum Studies Masters program! We’re so excited to see what they do next!

 

New lab member

Haider Mehdi is joining the Reinke Lab! Haider is a junior at NEIU majoring in Biology with a certificate on GIS. Haider will be working on a project with wooly bear caterpillars! Haider is also a McNair Scholar. Welcome, Haider!

 

Media

Artificial Outlook has been covered in Noteworthy at Northeastern and in Block Club Chicago! Yale Climate Connections also did a short podcast on the exhibit. The exhibit is live through March.

 

Artificial Outlook

A collaboration between Artist Katelyn Patton and the Reinke Lab is now live! The art installation, hosted by EXTRA exhibits, takes the form of three window displays on Milwaukee Avenue. The installation imagines a future where society must prevent ecosystem collapse by creatively replacing species as they go extinct. Read more here and here.

 

Honorary Reinke Lab member and artist, Katelyn Patton, received a highly competitive DCASE grant for a project in collaboration with the Reinke Lab. Stay tuned for news on the show and associated event!

Art + Science News

 

Despite the pandemic, the Reinke Lab was able to get to northern Wisconsin to continue the long-term painted turtle study. We wore masks, disinfected common surfaces, and took precautions to not risk the spread of Covid-19, but we also caught 345 unique turtles and spent 78 person hours on the lake! In addition, students were able to collect data for their summer research projects. It was a successful field season!

2020 Field Season

 

SCSE Summer Research

Three students will be participating in summer research with the Reinke Lab through the Science Center for Student Engagement (SCSE) Research and Training Program. Georgina Jaimes is a new member of the lab through this program! Welcome, Georgina!

 

A paper from my postdoctoral work in the Miller Lab is now out in Ecology: Statistical Reports. This paper describes a model we worked on to estimate senescence in a wild population where ages of animals are unknown. Check it out here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecy.2877

New Paper Out

 

The end of June marked the end of the 2019 field season! We caught a record number of painted turtles this year and celebrated the Tenth Anniversary with a cookout well-attended by the community. Thanks to all who attended and especially to those Turtle Team members who flew in for the celebration! Our turtle total was 277 unique turtles with 118 recaptures. We also had the official launch of the Adopt-a-Turtle Program. Check it out if you’re interested in hearing about how much an individual turtle grows each year!

2019 Field Season

Ten Year Turtle Team wearing matching t-shirts
 

New Job

Starting this August, Dr. Beth Reinke will be an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Northeastern Illinois University. Get in touch if you’re in the Midwest and are interested in collaborations!

 

Turtle Party!

This June marks the TENTH YEAR of the long-term mark-recapture turtle study on Lac Courte Oreilles. Join us at a community cookout on June 29th, 2019. Contact Beth and see flier below for more details.

 

#WFAB2019

In early May, Beth had the honor of being a part of a special conference called Weaving the Future of Animal Behavior. Thirty+ early career women gathered to discuss new directions in the field, the challenges of navigating academia, and the power of peer and mentor support.