September 24, 2020
Eva Horne to present Division of Biology Seminar
Submitted by Division of Biology
Eva Horne, teaching associate professor in the Division of Biology, will present "Principles and Behavior/Kick-Boxing Frogs and Wallowing Bison" as part of the Division of Biology Seminar Series at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28, via Zoom.
In one part of this presentation, Horne will discuss teaching both the introductory BIOL198, Principles of Biology, and the upper-level BIOL515, Behavioral Ecology, classes. For those who aren't familiar with BIOL198, Horne will briefly describe the past and present class, present some statistics on student demographics and performance over time, and discuss recent changes, including the use of Articulate Storyline to create interactive computer-based material.
The other part of the seminar will cover some of the research Horne has done with undergraduate students. One of these projects is describing and trying to understand the visual display behavior of cricket frogs. Males of these small frogs use extensions of the back leg as part of a multimodal courtship display. Horne will also present some data from a new project to characterize the wallows that bison create and use on Konza Prairie. Wallows are shallow depressions created when bison roll on the ground to take dust baths. These depressions often hold water and provide habitat for many other organisms. We are now characterizing the environmental features that bison use to determine where to place wallows and collecting data on the physical boundaries of wallows. Future work will involve tracking the use of individual wallows by bison and other organisms over time.
If you would like to visit with Horne, please contact her at ehorne@k-state.edu.