Student work: Jennifer Schieltz on cattle-wildlife interactions

By Jennifer Schieltz, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology on July 6, 2015, 3:20 p.m.

In this submission for the Emerging Alumni Scholars Award, graduate student Jennifer Schieltz explains her dissertation research, which investigates the interactions between cattle and wildlife on shared rangelands in Kenya.

Princeton University researchers conducted two large-scale studies in Kenya that offer the first experimental evidence that allowing cattle to graze on the same land as wild animals can result in healthier, meatier bovines by enhancing the cows' diet. The findings put to pasture the long-held convention that wild animals compete with cows for food, and could help spare wildlife from encroaching ranches.

Princeton celebrates 25 years of research and teaching at Mpala, Kenya .

Princeton is celebrating 25 years at the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya, while looking toward deepening engagement for the future.

It takes a village: With camera and determination, Riehl studies communal nesting in birds .

Christina Riehl, a Princeton University assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, was, as a Princeton graduate student, the first to study and document the extraordinary breeding and nesting behavior of the greater ani bird species. This fall, Riehl returned to Princeton to explore the reproductive costs and benefits of group nesting, and, in the process, inspire her students to investigate animal behavior at a deeper level.

Wild science: The nature of the Mpala Research Centre .

For Princeton University faculty and students, the Mpala Research Centre, a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional field laboratory that sits on a 50,000-acre reserve and ranch in central Kenya, provides an expansive natural terrain ideal for large-scale field experiments in ecology, biology, geology and other fields. Princeton recently expanded its long involvement with Mpala by assuming the role of managing partner. Mpala offers students and scientists an international experience in a place of great natural beauty and diversity.

Student work: New approaches to antibiotic resistance .

In this submission for the Emerging Alumni Scholars Award, graduate student Jonathan Robinson explains his dissertation research, which involves developing mathematical models of chemical reaction networks within bacteria, and using them to aid in the design of novel therapeutics.

Understanding animal coexistence with a little dung and a lot of DNA .

Princeton University researchers deployed a new tool to help solve an old puzzle: How can multiple animals coexist while eating the same resources? They used "DNA metabarcoding" to determine the specific plants that herbivores inhabiting the Kenyan savanna eat. They found that the animals have distinct diets that allow them to inhabit in the same area without strong competition. This correlation of animal diets with specific plant compositions is already changing how people think about biodiversity and species conservation.