Psychology junior Kylie Hung spends her free time catching, tagging and measuring turtles. To get a good sample, she said, you have to swab the turtle’s shell, its mouth and three more points.
Hung joined the turtle pond research project last year just to get research experience, but she is now one of the project’s undergraduate student leaders, where she trains new students and leads fellow researchers to collect and analyze data from specimens. Later this month, Hung and her fellow researchers will sample every turtle in the University’s pond.
The project has provided students with hands-on learning experience in the lab and the field since its founding in 2022. Justin Havird, integrative associate biology professor, oversees the project and helps conduct research on the pond’s inhabitants.
In July, Havird and students successfully submitted and published their research in the scientific journal Public Library of Science One, where they examined the microbiomes, communities of microorganisms, of red-eared slider turtles across Austin. They found that the communities differed more significantly depending on what part of a turtle’s body they were on than by the actual location of where the turtle lived.
The study was primarily conducted by undergraduate students, which Hung said has been valuable as a student in need of research involvement.
“(Havird) is always looking for undergrads to help the project, and his main goal for this project is to just get undergraduate students into research,” Hung said. “To get research at UT, it’s very competitive. So his whole thing with the turtle project is to let everyone have a chance doing some sort of research.”
With the first paper published, the team is now wrapping up sampling for its second phase and beginning to investigate new research questions in a third phase, analyzing characteristics like sex and mating. Havird said he and his team are gearing up for this month’s data collection project.
“It’s going to be all hands on deck,” Havird said. “We need as many people out there as we can.”
During sampling sessions, students work together to capture turtles, identify previously tagged ones, record physical measurements and collect biological samples, Hung said.
Unlike traditional research projects that may require prior experience and knowledge, Hung said students from any major are allowed to participate, regardless of their scientific background.
“As long as you know you want to do it … you can come to us and be like, ‘Hey, how do I get involved?’” said Mariangel Correa Orellana, a biology graduate student who helped with the project. “It’s open to any major and any undergrad, no matter what year you are.”
Beyond fieldwork, students can also participate in laboratory analysis and contribute to potentially publishable research to help participants decide if they want a research career, Correa Orellana said.
“I really enjoyed the research process,” Correa Orellana said. “It changed my whole career trajectory, and it gave me a new way of doing science.”
