{"id":6783,"date":"2017-10-25T14:05:04","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T14:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/?p=6783"},"modified":"2017-10-25T14:06:09","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T14:06:09","slug":"ncc-biology-students-awarded-for-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/2017\/10\/ncc-biology-students-awarded-for-research\/","title":{"rendered":"NCC Biology Students Awarded for Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faculty and students from Nash Community College\u2019s Biology Department attended the 43rd Annual Southeastern Population Ecology & Evolutionary Genetics Meeting, held in Laurel Hill, NC October 20-22, 2017, hosted by the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Nash Community College Associate in Science students perform graduate level research, preparing for, and successfully transferring to, major research centers at area universities, taking firsthand experience with them. Three NCC students presented posters at the Meeting. Nash-Rocky Mount Early College student Trina Phan presented a poster titled \u201cUsing Genomic Data to Test for Introgression Between Putative Species of Dusky Salamanders (Desmognathus).\u201d NCC Career and College Promise student Natalie Bernat presented a poster, \u201cDeveloping an eDNA Protocol to Distinguish Two Closely Related Species of Waterdogs (Necturus) in Turbid Coastal Waters.\u201d Bernat\u2019s research is funded through the Duke Energy Water Resources Grant. NCC student Henri Vega-Bernal presented \u201cLooking for Morphological Differentiation in deeply Diverged Lineages of Tiny Salamanders (Desmognathus aeneus).\u201d<\/p>\n

NCC Biology Instructor and Lead Researcher Dr. David Beamer shared his research, \u201cGiant Genomes and Low Genetic Diversity Across Independent River Drainages: What’s Going on with Waterdogs (Necturus),\u201d in a special presentation. Dr. Beamer\u2019s study is also funded through the Duke Energy Resources Grant. NCC alumna, Kabryn Mattison gave a talk about her survey of endangered bird species in Indonesia and the conservation implications. Students enjoyed meeting NCC Alumnus Nathaniel Akers, who was also in attendance.<\/p>\n

Phan, Bernat and Vega-Bernal were jointly awarded in the “Best Undergraduate Poster” category. “This event gave our students another scholarly outlet to present their research, answer questions, learn about others’ scholarship and establish new connections for future research collaborations,” Beamer said.<\/p>\n

Much of NCC Biology\u2019s research has been focused on North Carolina\u2019s Neuse and Tar River basins and main tributaries: home to a unique species of salamander, the Neuse River waterdog. The Neuse River waterdog is a completely aquatic salamander with feathery gills on each side of its head. They are currently a candidate for federal endangered species listing mainly due to their sensitivity to environmental conditions. NCC Biology students originally began surveying Neuse River waterdogs for a North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission study in 2011. Alumnus Akers was among the first cohort of students to participate in NCC\u2019s waterdog research during the data collection phase. Akers is a UNC-W graduate and currently works as a researcher for the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Natalie

Natalie Bernat<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Trina

Trina Phan<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"students\"

l to r: Trina Phan, Henri Vega-Bernal and Natalie Bernat<\/p><\/div>\n

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Faculty and students from Nash Community College\u2019s Biology Department attended the 43rd Annual Southeastern Population Ecology & Evolutionary Genetics Meeting, held in Laurel Hill, NC October 20-22, 2017, hosted by… Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6783"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6794,"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783\/revisions\/6794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nashccnews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}