From Meerkat lies to ancient DNA—join Suds & Science host and VCE Conservation biologist Jason Hill and a series of dynamic presenters for engaging science stories—each month from February to May. This season we're back with the incredible folks at the Norwich Inn!
All Suds & Science events are free, meant for all ages, and run from 7-8 pm.
Living in Meerkat Society: Grief, Lies and Social Behavior in Animals
Dana Williams (Vermont Center for Ecostudies)
RESCHEDULED: Monday, February 16th: Dana is a behavioral ecologist whose research has covered the impact of animal social networks on maternal care, anti-predator behavior, personality, and cognition. In 2015, she spent a year at the Kalahari Meerkat Project in South Africa working with Meerkats, whose complex and dramatic social lives have led them to stardom in productions like Animal Planet’s Meerkat Manor. Dana will share stories from the daily lives of meerkats while weaving in anecdotes and research from the world of animal behavior, which tries to help us make sense of the inner minds of the creatures we share our world with.
Historical Genomics: Insights from Ancient DNA to the Study of theHistoric Period.
Raquel Fleskes. (Dartmouth)
Wednesday, March 4th: Raquel’s research uses ancient DNA to understand histories of historic period archaeological populations in North America. She is specifically interested in understanding the lived histories of European and African descended individuals by co-interpreting ancient DNA data with archaeological, osteological, archival and oral history sources. (Entry for this event will be 6:45 p.m.)
Not Easy Being Green: How Urbanization Impacts Amphibian Communities
Brian Kron (Vermont Center for Ecostudies)
Tuesday, April 7th: Brian is a conservation ecologist whose research explores the impact of human-mediated environmental change on wildlife. From 2020-2024, he developed a project to study how urbanization affects frogs and toads in Northwest Ohio, and how we can use those beloved amphibians to protect habitat for dozens of other species. Brian will share stories and sound bites from the fascinating study of our imperiled amphibian friends, while discussing research on how to protect frogs in your own backyard.
Firelight and the origins of storytelling
Nate Dominy (Dartmouth)
Tuesday, May 5th: This talk will explore mounting evidence on the importance of firelight during human evolution, especially the origins of spoken language. Nate is an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist studying the behavior, ecology, and functional morphology of humans and nonhuman primates.
Selected Past Talks:
Restoration through Dam Removal and River Reconnection- A Nature Based Approach to Community Resilience
May 06, 2025Karina Dailey [Vermont Natural Resource Council]. Karina shared the fundamental concepts of watershed science and the impact of man-made dams along Vermont's rivers. She told stories from four recent dam removal projects, engaging the community from the ground up, and the restoration outcomes that resulted from a free flowing river. Watch it here! »
How I Discovered a New German Speech Sound – and Why Nobody Cares
April 01, 2025Dr. Simon Stone [Dartmouth]. Computer science meets linguistics in this mashup. Simon invited led us on a trip into speech science research from both an engineer’s and a phonetician’s perspective. We explored how humans produce speech, how we scientifically describe speech sounds, and how engineers translate them into technical systems to learn more about this amazing human ability. Simon told a story of how he once worked at the intersection of multiple disciplines in the broader field of speech research, and how it ironically made it more complicated for people from these disciplines to hear what each other had to say. Watch it here! »
Underground Allies: The Crucial Relationship Between Trees and Mycorrhizal Fungi
February 04, 2025Dr. Jordon Tourville [Appalachian Mountain Club]. Mycorrhizal fungi form mutualistic symbioses with >94% of all plant species, yet research around their impacts on forests is still in its infancy. Using examples from mountain forests in the Northeast, we discussed how these relationships work and what we still need to understand about these unlikely allies. Watch it here! »
Persistent Pollutants: people and fish
January 07, 2025Dr. Celia Chen [Dartmouth]. Environmental pollutants like mercury and "forever chemicals" impact humans and wildlife through consumption of their food. Pollutants come from sources related to human activities and make their way to wildlife and humans through aquatic food webs. Where do they come from, what is their fate in aquatic ecosystems, and what we should do about it? Watch it here! »
Season of the Ticks: Understanding the Spread of Ticks and Lyme Disease in the Northeastern United States
May 07, 2024Joseph Savage [Dartmouth]. The presence of Lyme disease and blacklegged ticks in the Northeast results from an incredibly complicated story of ecology. Joseph helped us understand how Lyme Disease has become so widespread, and the pieces that we are still working to figure out. Watch it here! »
There and Back Again: a journey through aquatic ecosystems
April 02, 2024Kate Buckman [Connecticut River Conservancy]—There and Back Again: a journey through aquatic ecosystems. Throughout her career Dr. Buckman has worked in various freshwater, estuarine, and marine aquatic ecosystems, traveling from NH to the Caribbean, the deep sea, and back to NH and the Connecticut River watershed. Despite the outward differences between these areas, this journey allowed Kate to observe common threads in aquatic ecology and how humans interact with water. She will talk about her experiences and observations and invites discussion around how our actions here in New England may reach farther than we think. Watch it here! »
Frogs on Tea Bushes and Lessons From Fieldwork
March 06, 2024Lilly Linden [Dartmouth]. Dr. Linden will talk to us about some novel genera of frogs from the Western Ghats of India. While several species of amphibians seemed to thrive in the heterogeneous agricultural landscapes that she worked in, Lilly will also talk about the challenges and unique opportunities of working in landscapes with high agricultural and tourist pressures. Watch it here! »
Engineering Bacteria for Cellulosic Biofuel Production
February 06, 2024Daniel Olson [Dartmouth]. Biofuels made from cellulose are one of the few options available for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the heavy-duty transportation sector, which includes long-haul trucking, ocean shipping, and aviation. Bacteria that natively consume cellulose are good candidates for producing cellulosic biofuels, but in many cases, their metabolism is poorly understood. Watch it here! »
Wild Echoes: a story of hope and rewilding
January 02, 2024Shelby Perry [Northeast Wilderness Trust] Watch it here! »
A Firsthand Account of Winning the World Series of Birding
March 07, 2023Nathaniel Sharp. Watch it here! »
Making Connections - shedding light on animal migration to aid conservation efforts
January 03, 2023
The Diets of Feral Cats in Urban Colonies
January 04, 2022Laura is a PhD student in the Eco-Epidemiology Lab, and is interested in the role of anthropogenic drivers in the transmission of diseases from animals to humans. Watch it here! »
A community approach to conserving rare plant communities in the Pinelands
January 05, 2021VCE's own Dr. Ryan Rebozo walks a through a conservation strategy that involves bringing diverse stakeholder groups together at the table to conserve for a common cause: rare beach and bog plant communities. Watch it here! »
Urban heat wave effects on human and environmental health
February 02, 2021Dr. Vivek Shandas from Portland State University, and founder of the Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab. Watch it here! »
Insect conservation in a warming world
March 02, 2021Dr. Angela Laws is an Endangered Species Conservation Biologist and Climate Change Lead for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Watch it here! »
Life on the edge: alpine plant communities
April 06, 2021Dr. Simone Whitecloud's (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory [CRREL]) research uses experimental approaches to investigate the competitive and cooperative (synergistic) actions of plants in the White Mountains (where 30% of the vegetation is left over from the last ice age) and the Arctic. Do different plant species actually facilitate each other in harsh environments by modifying soil moisture or moderating the localized effects of weather? Watch it here! »
Community-based conservation of migratory amphibians
February 04, 2020Every year, on the first warm, rainy nights of spring, thousands of salamanders and frogs emerge from their winter retreats to make their way to nearby vernal pools to breed. Unfortunately, many individuals are killed when their journeys take them across busy roads. Brett Amy Thelen of the Harris Center for Conservation Education joined us to describe her longstanding citizen science effort to document and reduce migratory amphibian road mortality. This effort recently resulted in New Hampshire’s first “Big Night” road closures to provide safe passage for amphibians. Watch it here! »
The conservation status and uncertain future of Vermont's native bees
March 03, 2020Did you know there are over 300 species of wild bees in Vermont? At least, that's the current estimate - but since there has never been a full survey of the state’s bees, it is very difficult to know whether Vermont's bee populations are healthy or declining. Enter the Vermont Wild Bee Survey (VTBees). This ambitious, multi-year project represents the first step in assessing bee populations across Vermont. Last summer, the VTBees team collected more than 9,000 specimens throughout Chittenden County. Then, in an effort to build a comprehensive database of Vermont's bee fauna, the team spent the winter tracking down specimens in museums around the state. They found many surprises in 2019, and they’re certain many more are yet to come. Spencer Hardy of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies joined us to discuss all things buzzy and fuzzy, and to dish out the inside scoop about the trials and tribulations of studying bees, and the current status and future plans of the VTBees project. Watch it here! »
Stone tools: exploring the lives of New England's first human inhabitants
January 08, 2019Over 12,000 years ago what would become New England was a very different place. Open tundra in place of forests, huge herds of migratory caribou replacing our familiar whitetails and moose. This was the world of the Paleoindians, the first human populations to settle this area. While our knowledge of these first Native American groups is limited to stone tools, these materials can help us understand life during the Ice Age here in our own backyard. Dr. Nathaniel Kitchel, Dartmouth College. Watch it here! »
Monarch butterfly migration and the power of citizen science
March 05, 2019Known for its beauty and spectacular migration, the monarch butterfly is Vermont’s state insect. Last summer the butterflies were unusually abundant, but during the past decade they’ve become increasingly rare. What’s behind the fluctuations we see in monarch numbers? Elizabeth Howard, Journey North. Watch here! »
A Tall Order: Studying Giraffe Ecology and Conservation in the Savannas of Uganda
May 07, 2019The future of the giraffe is far from certain: over the past 30 years, giraffe numbers across Africa have declined by over 40%. The causes of this decline are undeniably complicated but dedicated teams of conservationists, researchers and rangers are working across the continent to understand and reverse these alarming trends. Dr. Michael Brown, Dartmouth College. Watch here! »
Backyard crickets and tropical katydids: The amazing world of insect sound and vibration
November 07, 2017The ability to detect, process, and react to cues in the environment underlies nearly every aspect of an animal’s life, from finding mates and food to avoiding predators. Therefore, to understand organisms, we must understand how they recognize stimuli to make decisions and how the process of recognition evolves, diverges, and interacts with ecological context. Dr. Laurel Symes, Dartmouth College. Watch here »
Don’t stress! Evolutionary explanations for why stress affects our health
January 09, 2018What are the evolutionary origins of stress, and how do environmental experiences shape patterns of human biology and health? The answers to these questions may provide insight into how poverty, trauma, and ethnic discrimination affect health. Dr. Zaneta Thayer, Dartmouth College. Watch here »
How warmer soils can affect climate change: From the Arctic to your backyard
February 06, 2018What do dog sledding and being stalked by a polar bear have to do with the terrestrial carbon cycle? Come find out, with a Whistling Pig Red Ale in hand, while casually learning about the interactions among plants, soils, and atmospheric CO2. Dr. Caitlin Hicks Pries, Dartmouth College. Watch a video of the presentation. »
The Social History of Invasive Beavers in the Fuegian Archipelago, Chile
May 01, 2018The year: 1946. An Argentinian Navy vessel introduced 50 North American beavers to the southern tip of South America. The intention: to create fur trading opportunities. The result: 60 years later there are >100,000 beaver, and they have fundamentally changed the ecosystem. Dr. Laura Ogden, Dartmouth College. Watch a video of the presentation. »
Bugs, aliens, and New England’s forests
March 07, 2017Dr. Aaron Weed, ecologist and Northeast Temperate Network Program Manager for the National Park Service, discussed his recent work on the biology and ecology of forest pests, how they impact individual trees to entire forests, and what this means for our local forests and the services we derive in a changing climate. Watch a video of the presentation. »
Introducing Homo naledi
November 01, 2016Suds & Science returned on Tuesday, November 1st at 7pm. Paleoanthropologist Dr. Jeremy DeSilva, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College, introduced us to Homo naledi - a new human ancestor from the cradle of humankind in South Africa. Jeremy has studied wild chimpanzees in Western Uganda, early human fossils in Museums throughout eastern and South Africa, and his anatomical expertise-- the human foot and ankle-- has contributed to our understanding of the origins and evolution of upright walking in the human lineage. Watch it here! »
Sex, Drugs and Bees: plant chemistry and pollinators
September 09, 2015Many plants rely on flower visits by pollinators such as bees in order to reproduce. When bees consume nectar and pollen, they must cope with naturally occurring plant secondary chemicals, substances usually associated with plants' defense against herbivores. Why would plants expose their pollinators to these chemicals? How do they affect bee health? And what are the consequences of plant chemistry for pollination of wild and cultivated plants? Leif's talk will draw on his research in Vermont exploring effects of plant chemicals on bumble bee--parasite interactions and bee foraging behavior. He'll also address the importance of wild bees to agriculture and ongoing efforts to halt their decline. Dr. Leif Richardson is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. He previously completed a PhD at Dartmouth College and served as State Lands Ecologist with the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. He contributed to the Vermont Center for Ecostudies Bumble Bee Atlas project. He lives in Montpelier. Watch it here »
Presettlement Forests of New England
May 05, 2015Dr. Charlie Cogbill has spent a large part of his career studying a forest that no longer exists: the pre-settlement forest in New England and New York. His primary research tools are archives, located in town halls and other repositories, of land surveys made during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of these archives contain “lotting” surveys – the survey by which the proprietors of a new town divided the town into lots, which were then sold or granted to the earliest settlers. At each lot corner, the surveyors tended to place a monument, often a post or stake or a pile of stones. They also routinely made mention of a nearby “witness tree.” Through statistical analysis and a reliance on his background in field ecology, he has been able to paint a detailed and localized picture of what the forests of New England and New York looked like back when those forests were being settled by Europeans. Watch it here »
Revisiting Loons
April 07, 2015VCE loon biologist, Eric Hanson, just got back from a regional meeting of loon biologists and managers, Eric will share new research on migration, translocation experiments, red-throated loons, social chaos, and lead toxicity. Where the stories will go from there is anyone’s guess, but it is sure to be an entertaining evening full of lively discussion. Watch Eric's lecture »
