{"id":189590,"date":"2015-01-16T04:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T18:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=189590"},"modified":"2015-01-16T04:00:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T18:00:31","slug":"nmc-uog-students-ecology-research-holiday-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nmc-uog-students-ecology-research-holiday-break\/","title":{"rendered":"NMC, UOG students do ecology research during holiday break"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Six University of Guam graduate and undergraduate students have been working alongside eight Northern Marianas College students during a three-week island ecology course on Saipan and Guam during the holiday break.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_189596\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-189596\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a attid=\"189596\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Ecology-pix.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Ecology-pix-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Northern Marianas College and University of Guam students worked on ecological projects over the holiday break.\u00a0                 (Contributed Photo) \" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-189596\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-189596\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Northern Marianas College and University of Guam students worked on ecological projects over the holiday break.\u00a0                 (Contributed Photo)<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The course is funded through a grant awarded to Rice University and the University of Guam by the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Instructors\/co-coordinators from the collaborating institutions who have been guiding the students through ecology research activities include Dr. Ross Miller from the University of Guam, Dr. Haldre Rogers from Rice University, Evan Fricke from the University of Washington, and Dr. Alfredo De Torres from the Northern Marianas College.<\/p>\n<p>The two other assisting staff include Lee Roy Sablan and Edward Dela Cruz, former NMC students who are now studying at the University of Guam.<\/p>\n<p>The participants of the program are learning about the natural history of the islands, economics and bio-conservation of ecosystems, and \u201cpredator-prey\u201d invasive species. They conducted ecological research projects in the Mariana Islands and also studied \u201cpredator-prey\u201d impact studies of bird loss by brown tree snakes in Guam and on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>The course is part of the Ecology of Bird Loss project. Dr. Haldre Rogers, project director, offers the course to students who want fieldwork and research experience.<\/p>\n<p>The course initially began Dec. 28, 2014, through Jan. 5, 2015, at the NMC and continued at UOG on Jan. 6-15, 2015. Students conducted a presentation of their research yesterday at UOG. The titles for their projects included: \u201cHermit crab abundance and seed removal rates\u201d; \u201cSpider web characteristics\u201d; \u201cPollinator abundance on non-native plants\u201d; \u201cSkink anti-predator behavioral responses\u201d; and, \u201cUnderstory insect abundance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The students have also been participating in career development workshops that focus on writing resumes and cover letters for jobs in the field of natural resource management. Rogers hopes the participants will be encouraged to take up leadership positions in the science communities in Guam and the CNMI.<\/p>\n<p>In the past, the same course provided various ecological research project opportunities for the students, including analyzing the behavior of birds around snakes in Guam and on Saipan.\u00a0<strong>(NMC)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six University of Guam graduate and undergraduate students have been working alongside eight Northern Marianas&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":189596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,69,262,445],"class_list":["post-189590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-nmc","tag-northern-marianas-college","tag-uog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}