Ben Wasserman
Conservation and Ecology
From the woods of Maine to the Oklahoma prairie and the Arizona
desert, Ben Wasserman has ranged far afield in the last few years from
the New York City suburb where he grew up. Along the way, the University
of Maine junior wildlife ecology and math major has done research on a
broad range of animal species.
He even learned the proper way to take the
temperature of a fierce-looking, spiny lizard that can squirt a 3-foot
stream of blood from the corners of its eyes.
Last year, the honors student was awarded a
prestigious Morris K. Udall Scholarship for demonstrating an exemplary
commitment to making a career in the environmental field. While the
$5,000 certainly will come in handy, Wasserman says the best part of the
award was meeting the 79 other recipients from across the country who
gathered for a few days in Tucson to talk about their common passions
for the natural world and how they hope to put them to good use.
"It really was an incredible experience, being
surrounded by so many like-minded, conservation-oriented people," says
Wasserman. "It inspired me."
Wasserman wasn't exposed to much in the way of
wildlife while growing up on busy Long Island, N.Y. But once he started
working at a local natural history museum, he found that he enjoyed
caring for the live animals that — except for a 6-foot iguana —
represented a cross section of the regional fauna.
By the time he started thinking about college,
Wasserman was already leaning toward environmental studies. At UMaine,
he went looking for hands-on opportunities to learn.
The summer after his freshman year, he worked on
three research projects led by graduate students. For one, he counted
scat samples as part of an evaluation of the relationships between
snowshoe hare, Canada lynx and vegetation in areas affected by forestry
practices in northern Maine. He also trapped pine marten in northern
Maine to validate a predictive GIS model, and did radio telemetry for a
project that examined the threat of road mortality on the population
viability of Blanding's and spotted turtles, two rare species in
southern Maine.
As a sophomore, he joined UMaine's ongoing research
led by evolutionary biologist Michael Kinnison on the Arctic charr
population at Floods Pond in Otis. Maine's Arctic charr, a relative of
trout and salmon, are found in only about a dozen state water bodies.
They represent the most southerly populations of the salmonid fish and
the only indigenous ones in the U.S. outside of Alaska.
In particular, UMaine researchers are looking at how
body shapes of charr have evolved differently from lake to lake in
relation to the food sources available to them in a competitive habitat.
"I'm interested in community ecology, the
interaction of all different species that form a biological community,"
says Wasserman.
In addition to his wildlife ecology studies,
Wasserman declared math as his second major last spring, convinced that
it would play an important role in the computer modeling that is so much
a part of ecological research.
"Math is huge," says Wasserman, who serves on the
Dean's Advisory Committee for the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry,
and Agriculture. "You can use it to go all sorts of places, from the
very theoretical research to the very applied. I would like my future to
walk that line between the two."
Eager to learn about reptiles and amphibians in the
field, Wasserman worked last summer with a Southern Illinois University
– Carbondale doctoral student who is studying a population of Texas
horned lizards in Oklahoma. Largely desert dwellers, the lizards are a
threatened species in much of their range. Wasserman's lizard study
group lives near an Air Force base on the prairie, a northern outpost
for their kind.
Wasserman and the team used radiotelemetry tracking
and body temperature readings to observe how the lizards use the thermal
landscape, moving from one zone to another as necessary throughout the
day. The team also did a general survey of the full range of wildlife in
the region.
"It was a great experience to be out on the prairie, to work in such
unfamiliar territory," he says.
Wasserman hopes to one day carve out a career that
incorporates a satisfying blend of ecology and conservation.
"My motivation has always been conservation," says
Wasserman, who plans to get more wildlife fieldwork experience before
going to grad school, "but I want to do ecological research that informs
conservation measures and policy. I guess I see myself pushing the
envelope to better understand the ecology of the system, how humans are
involved and how we can mitigate the damage we do."
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