BOWIE, Md. – Bowie State University is home to all kinds of wildlife, from squirrels and campus cats to the occasional fox sighting. Dr. Anne Wiley, a biologist and environmental studies professor, has made it her mission to study the turtle population that also calls Bowie State home to learn about the campus’ unique ecosystem.
“It started three years ago in the middle of the pandemic,” said Dr. Wiley, who’s focuses her research on the turtle populations in the campus’ wetland areas. “One of our primary questions is about how turtles divide niche space so they can all coexist. There are enormous numbers of turtles in any given pond or wetland. We have to ask how they can all survive together.”
Dr. Wiley noted campus has eastern painted turtles, eastern musk turtle, spotted turtles and the red-eared slider. The robust turtle population enables Dr. Wiley to bring science to life for her students, as they study the turtles’ diets, the effect of invasive species entering their environment, and even harvesting toenail clippings to get more insight into the turtles’ lives.
“A lot of our questions are student driven,” said Dr. Wiley. “Every semester, the field biology students get to make the decisions about what they want to study with this growing database of turtles we’ve captured over the years.”
Dr. Wiley and her students set traps around the campus wetlands that are left overnight. The next day, they’ll collect the traps, study and record notes on the individual turtles and release them back safely.
“We release the animals after marking them,” said Dr. Wiley. “If we capture them again, we’ll know that they been in our study before. We can track individual turtles throughout their lives.”
Dr. Wiley hopes to continue her research “for decades.”
