 "Photo: Courtesy of Chrissie Lanzieri")
Not many people know that on the fourth floor of Higgins, diamondback terrapins are growing in a laboratory. But then again, not many people know what diamondback terrapins are. Of course, Katie Cava and Chrissie Lanzieri, both A&S '08, can tell you that these little turtles with intricate patterns on their top shells are the essential component of a great conservational project taking place at Boston College.
Both Cava and Lanzieri are Environmental Scholars who participate in laboratory and field work associated with the environmental studies department. In previous years, the girls volunteered to work on the diamondback terrapin conservation project, helping and monitoring the turtles in a laboratory, but this year for the first time they will be working with faculty members on a specific research project designed around their own hypotheses about the terrapins' unique characteristics.
Once considered a delicacy in soup, the diamondback terrapins were hunted almost to extinction at the turn of the 19th century. Despite attempts to bring the population back up to numbers "pre terrapin soup craze," the turtles still face serious threats regarding both loss of habitat due to human intervention, and natural predators.
The black diamondback terrapins lay their eggs and hatch them in the white sand, which makes them easy prey for aerial and land predators when they try to get back to the salty marshes. Crab traps are also a problem, said Cava, because while the turtles can swim, they still need air to breath, and they are frequently caught in the traps and drown.
Perhaps most problematic, the turtles take between seven and 10 years to reach sexual maturity. This leaves much time for something to happen to the them before they have a chance to mate and reproduce. It is for these reasons that great efforts are being taken to conserve and study this threatened species, which can be found along the eastern coast from Cape Cod to Texas.
The diamondback terrapin project at BC, overseen by Eric Strauss, director of the environmental studies program, and biology professor Peter Auger, involves catching the diamondback terrapins soon after they have hatched in Cape Cod and transporting them to the facilities at BC, where they can be cared for better than they would be in the wild.
Diamondback terrapin hatchlings are usually about the size of a quarter and take three years to reach the size of a baseball. During this time, the turtles are small enough to be prey for many animals and they are easily crushed on roads.
The "headstart" program at BC aims to eliminate some of the terrapins' difficulties in surviving by allowing them time to eat and grow under heat lamps during the months that they would normally be hibernating. In May, when the environmental scholars plan to release them, the terrapins will have grown to be the size of a 3-year-old turtle in only a few short months.
While some people worry that capturing the turtles will take away their chance to learn survival skills, Cava said the terrapins already possess all the knowledge they need to stay alive in the wild. There have been other studies done that show that time spent in captivity did not compromise the turtles' ability to survive in their natural habitat, she said.
Lanzieri's participation in the project extends from helping to find the hatchlings to caring for them in the lab. Her research project studies the effect of temperature conditions before the terrapins hatch and how this affects their physical development. Her prediction is that the genotype of the species will have no direct correlation with the phenotype of the turtles once they have hatched.
One of the unique characteristics of the diamondback terrapin is that the females can store the sperm from several male terrapins with which she has mated over a period of time. Lanzieri predicts that it is the temperature of the nests that affects the turtle's appearances and not their genes, since more often than not "brothers and sisters" look very similar but do not possess the same father. She also plans to study the effects of global warming on the turtle population, as warmer temperatures tend to develop more female terrapins, which in turn could lead to an imbalance in the population of the species.
Cava studies what she believes to be a direct correlation between the size of the hatchlings and their ability to grow faster and thus survive longer. She believes that the larger hatchlings are more aggressive and are able to eat more and grow larger. She hopes to prove that it would be more advantageous for a female terrapin to invest more time in fewer, larger eggs than vice versa.
"Being in a suburban area, it's important to realize that we still have an effect on animals; being involved in this project helps to counter that effect so it feels good to know that we're giving this species a head start," Cava said of her experience with the terrapins.
"You actually see a physical thing getting bigger; you don't have to dig for an accomplishment," said Lanzieri of the impact the project has had on her. "But at the same time it's sad because I know we will have to let them go. I'll spend my whole year doing this and I just hope that they make it."
Strauss, who began work on this conservational project back in high school where he had Auger as a teacher, associates the increase in the environmental studies minor to unique opportunities for hands-on learning activities, such as those found in the Environmental Scholars Program. "BC as an urban university still offers a very broad range of environments [to work in]" he said. "The most important part of this conservation-based project is that we are helping endangered populations to survive and engaging students in the project."
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