Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Amanda Chunco, as a member of the North Carolina Herpetological Society, has a mission to educate people about the importance of reptiles and amphibians in the natural environment, dispel common myths about snakes, teach people to identify the only venomous snake in Alamance County is the copperhead, and help people move a bit closer to appreciating rather than fearing these wild animals.

Amanda Chunco led four 黑料不打烊 students, Benjamin Munoz 鈥�26, Jessica Colon-Diaz 鈥�26, Eva Real Roman 鈥�26 and Diana Jimenez-Carreno 鈥�26, in volunteering with the NC Herp Society at Halloween Spooktacular, a free event hosted by the city of Mebane.

The students held snakes for kids and adults to touch, ran a game called 鈥淔ind the copperhead鈥� and answered questions from families attending the event. It was estimated that over 1,000 people attended the event. Many children and some adults stopped by the booth several times throughout the day, and for many people, it was their first time touching or holding a snake.

鈥淭oday, you helped people become a little less afraid of these important animals,鈥� said Ron Grunwald, Duke professor and member of the NC Herpetological Society.

Reproducibility in scientific experiments is an increasingly recognized issue in the sciences. Several recent studies have shown that replicating previously published experimental results can result in wildly different outcomes from the original study. To date, most studies of reproducibility have focused on how experiments were designed. However, reproducibility in data analysis has rarely been considered.

Amanda Chunco, associate professor of environmental studies, was part of a consortium of scientists who studied the question of whether some of the problems with reproducibility might result from decisions scientists make when analyzing data. To do so, scientists were given one of two real datasets from studies designed to answer a specific hypothesis in ecology.

One study looked at whether baby birds with more siblings grew more slowly because of competition with siblings. The other study measured how the amount of grass cover affected the growth of Eucalyptus seedlings.

The scientists were then asked to analyze the data they were given, draw conclusions, and write the methods and results section of a paper based on their findings. Importantly, each of the 174 different scientific teams involved did their analyses and statistical tests completely independently from each other. Then, each resulting analysis was reviewed by a different team of scientists acting as peer reviewers. Despite the datasets being identical, each scientist made different choices in how to appropriately analyze the data. For both datasets, results from the independent teams varied widely. This variability was not just in the statistical strength of the hypothesis test, but whether or not a team concluded that the data supported the hypotheses themselves.

This study is the first of its kind in ecology and will shape how ecologists think about statistics and experimental design in the future. The article was published as a preprint on EcoEvoRxiv and was profiled in the journal Nature.

The students, Akani Bey 鈥�24, Emma Kaminsky 鈥�24 and Sydney Goldstein 鈥�25, held snakes for children to touch and ran snake related games and activities. Several amphibians and reptiles are endangered in North Carolina and these events help raise awareness for the role these often unappreciated species play in the ecosystem and the importance of protecting them.

The event, which was free and open to the public, was attended by approximately 300 children and their families who enjoyed crafts and activities sponsored by local businesses and non-profit organizations. The North Carolina Herpetological 聽Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of reptile and amphibian species. Part of that mission includes using local events like Spooktacular to educate the community about these commonly perceived “scary” species.

The Ecological Society of America is the largest professional society of ecologists, and over 4,000 members attended this year’s conference. Their poster, “Diversity vs. Sustenance: Mammal Diversity and Agricultural Practices”, examined the correlation between several farming practices and the diversity of mammal species living on those farms.

Masecar received several grants, including a prestigious grant from Sigma Xi, to complete the field work for this project, which was a major component of her College Fellows experience. This research is ongoing, and will ultimately be used to inform best practices for maintaining high biodiversity as more land is converted for agricultural use.