Current Research Focuses

Our research group is broadly interested in ecology, ethology, and, conservation of amphibians (and some reptiles). Our current projects focus on: 1) Interspecific interactions between wood frogs and spotted salamanders, 2) Effects of road salt pollution on an aquatic community, 3) Parental care behavior of Japanese giant salamanders, and 4) Population assessment of giant salamanders using environmental DNA.

Recent News

• "Egg predators improve the hatching success of salamander eggs" (Takahashi and Ruszala, 2023) was published in Ecology & Evolution

• Thanks to the ASIANetwork Student-Faculty fellowship award, MT brought three undergraduates (Ibrahim Ware, Tseday Robinson, and Luna Horsley) to Japan for the 2023 summer research.

• "The plight of the Japanese giant salamander: ‘23m years of DNA might die out’" in the Guardian.

• "The race to save the Japanese giant salamander" in the Japan Times.

• "Saving the Japanese giant salamander from concrete" in LifeGate.

Interested in joining the lab?

Please go through the lab web page carefully to see if your research and personal interests fit those of the lab. Bucknell is a primarily undergraduate institution. But we also offer a master's program. Feel free to contact me if you are interested.