Michigan State University has a long history of studying and protecting wildlife around the globe.
In honor of World Wildlife Day, celebrated March 3, here’s a sampling of some of the projects that Spartans are leading.
Kay Holekamp, Michigan State University Distinguished Professor of integrative biology, is one of the world’s leading behavioral ecologists. She has accumulated more than 25 years of data with her long-running hyena study, covering nearly 10 generations, of spotted hyenas. She and her students have published more than 150 scientific papers.
Jianguo “Jack” Liu, the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and CSIS director, has spent nearly 20 years working in, for and around the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China. He’s known as the Panda Man – the researcher who has deep-dived into the heart and soul of panda habitat to understand what makes a healthy panda home tick.
Arthur Muneza, a Rwandan educated in Nairobi, Kenya, and a MasterCard Foundation scholar at MSU, conducted a field study in the greater Ruaha ecosystem, which includes Ruaha National Park in Tanzania, Africa, to help find a solution a skin disease plaguing giraffes. He also helped with the relocation of 20 giraffes across the Nile.
Pamela Rasmussen, MSU integrative biologist and assistant curator at the MSU Museum, is tied for the third-highest total of birds discovered in the world with 11 – and is ranked first for birds discovered in Asia.
MSU researcher Eben Gering collaborated with a team study the mysterious ancestry of the feral chicken population that has overrun the Hawaiian Island of Kauai.
Weiming Li, MSU professor of fisheries and wildlife, and Michael Wagner, MSU associate professor of fisheries and wildlife, are leaders in protecting the Great Lakes from invasive sea lampreys.
Ashlee Rowe, MSU assistant professor of neuroscience and zoology, is unlocking the secrets of how grasshopper mice use scorpion venom as an analgesic rather than a pain stimulant.
Zachary Huang, MSU entomologist, and Rufus Isaacs, leader of the Integrated Crop Pollination Project, are experts on bees and their critical role in pollinating crops.
MSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital conducted an MRI of a lion, the first ever at an academic institution.
Jason Gallant, MSU zoologist, helped lead the team that sequenced the electric eel genome.
Gerald Urquhart, Lyman Briggs assistant professor, is helping Nicaraguan farmers co-exist with endangered Baird’s tapirs.
Peggy Ostrom, MSU zoologist, showed how the oceans’ fisheries have changed by studying Hawaiian petrel bones.
MSU research shows that when the woods get crowded, female squirrels improve their offspring’s odds of survival by ramping up how fast their offspring grow.
James Sikarskie, a zoo and wildlife veterinarian in MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, treat injured and ill birds of prey.