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Eastfield Students Make Discoveries in the Big Thicket

Brittany Dunegan and David Lewis scrutinize a mushroom in the lab.

(Mesquite, TX) – Several Eastfield College students recently returned from the Big Thicket National Preserve in Saratoga, Texas, where they participated in the Project Pathways Biodiversity Summer Institute. This unique paid summer research program was designed for students to acquire undergraduate research experience. During the first part of the project the students had the opportunity to work side by side with faculty and graduate students mentors from collaborating research institutions including Texas A & M University, University of Arkansas, Stephen F. Austin State University, and the National Park Service.

Miki Crawford, Eastfield information specialist for the National Science Foundation Science Talent Expansion Program, made an astonishing discovery of a species of mushroom -- the Hygrophorus chameleon-- not documented in the last 30 years and never before found in the Big Thicket. The group, comprised of Eastfield students Brittany Dunegan and Francisco Serrano; project leader David Lewis and Crawford, took down GPS coordinates and collected a sample of the mushroom to send off to a lab in Chicago.

Travis Richardson and Dr. Carl Knight, examining carnivorous plant specimens with the TM-1000 SEM at the Big Thicket Research Station.

The experiences of all seven groups representing Eastfield were documented by the local east Texas media (KFDM Channel 6 and The Beaumont Enterprise) as the students were studying the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory at the Preserve. (The ATBI is a National Park Service initiative to document the biological diversity of our national parks, and this effort in the Big Thicket is the second program of its kind.) Biology professors, Dr. Carl Knight and Jeff Hughes, led the Eastfield team along with Dr. Jill DeVito, Research Coordinator for the Eastfield Scanning Electron Microscopy Laboratory.

The Hygrophorus chameleon mushroom that was discovered in the Lance Rosier Unit of the Big Thicket.

Students and their projects are listed below:

• Survey of fungi, spore structure comparisons – Brittany Dunegan and Francisco Serrano; David Lewis & Dr. Heinz Gaylord (Stephen F. Austin State University)
• Slime mold survey, propagation, spore structure comparisons – Rafael Gutierrez and Sara Hays; Katie Winsett (University of Arkansas) and Dr. Jane Packard (Texas A & M)
• Carnivorous plant structure comparisons – Travis Richardson; Curtis Hoagland, National Park Service and Dr. Carl Knight, Eastfield College
• Butterfly wing scale structure – Brian Goad; Dr. Gillian Bowser and Pedro Chavarria (Texas A & M)
• Dragonfly vs. damselfly wing structure – Dixie Williams; Dr. Gillian Bowser and Pedro Chavarria (Texas A & M)
• Soil analysis – J. Aaron Wood; Don Hellstern and Jeff Hughes, Eastfield College
• Fish gill structure – C. Bryan Alberts; Mark Kelly and Jeff Hughes, Eastfield College

Eastfield student Sara Hays collects a specimen in the Big Thicket.

The Project Pathways Biodiversity Summer Institute was made possible by the National Science Foundation Science Talent Expansion Program at Eastfield College. The purpose of the program was to encourage students to consider careers in the sciences by providing them with hands on experience and access to sophisticated research equipment that is not usually available at the undergraduate level. The program was offered to all Eastfield students interested in the basic sciences. The criteria used in the selection of the candidates included GPA, essay, letters of recommendation from teachers, and personal interview. Nine students were selected for the program and each student received a $3,000 stipend and 3 hrs of college credit.  

After returning from the Big Thicket, the students spent the rest of the summer working on their research project at the NSF-STEP Microscopy Lab on campus. They used state of the art equipment such as the scanning electron microscope in their research. Each student will give an oral presentation of their experimental results to the Eastfield College community on July 31, at 1:30 p.m. in Room S100.

The Big Thicket is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the United States. The preserve, composed of 86,000 acres, was established in 1974.  Major North American biomes are found here: south-eastern swamps, eastern forests, central plains and southwestern deserts. The preserve is unique because of the number of different species that coexist in this area. Big Thicket was designated as an international biosphere reserve by the United Nations in 1981.

Eastfield College’s Project Pathways Biodiversity Summer Institute participants (l-r): Rafael Gutierrez, Brian Goad, Dr. Carl Knight, C. Bryan Alberts, Dixie Williams, Travis Richardson, Brittany Dunegan, Francisco Serrano, Sara Hays, J. Aaron Wood, Miki Crawford, and Dr. Jill DeVito	Pedro Chavarria, Brian Goad, Dixie Williams on a butterfly and dragonfly collecting trip.