News

Dr. Bill Hopkins recently co-led an undergraduate Study Abroad Course in Ecuador. Many of the trip highlights were consolidated from social media and chronicled here in STORIFY.  

When the group returned to the States, the following story appeared in VT News:

From VT News

Students team with Ecuadorean tribes to learn most-effective plants for treating infection

It was a place where many lessons were learned.

Ten Virginia Tech undergraduate students held onto their hats this summer as they plunged down Amazonian river systems ...

From VT News

Ten Virginia Tech undergraduate students better hold onto their hats this summer as they plunge down Amazonian river systems into the heart of Ecuador.  At the helm of their canoes will be Global Change Center researchers Ignacio Moore and Bill Hopkins.

As part of a university-wide effort to promote study abroad, experiential learning, and undergraduate research, the students will witness the politics, history, culture, biology, and conservation issues in the South American country from May 16 to June ...

May 13, 2016

Cathy Jachowski successfully defended her dissertation on May 9th in Fralin Auditorium. Her public seminar was titled, “Effects of Land Use and Parasitism on Hellbender Salamanders: A Multilevel Perspective”.  Cathy, a member of the Hopkins Lab, is the first Interfaces of Global Change graduate student to complete a doctoral program at Virginia Tech!

Cathy will soon join the faculty in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation at Clemson University.

Congratulations, Cathy!

From VT News

An international birder who has been trying to get some migratory bird legislation passed, Congressman Morgan Griffith on Wednesday visited Virginia Tech’s new aviary on the Blacksburg campus to learn about its research.

Regarding his interest in avian legislation, Griffith (R-VA)  joined Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL) in introducing the Federal Bird-Safe Buildings Act (H.R. 2280) on May 12, 2015. Applying strictly to federal government buildings, the legislation requires new buildings to include bird-safe building materials and design features ...

Congratulations to graduate student, Sydney Hope, who received the Best Student Poster award at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting in the Division of Animal Behavior. The conference was held January 3-7, 2016 in Portland, Oregon. Sydney presented a poster entitled, “The effect of incubation temperature on Wood Duck duckling behavior”, which described the results from her most recent project. She found that ducklings incubated at an intermediate incubation temperature tend to exhibit shier behaviors than those ...

Dr. Ignacio Moore (BIOL) and Dr. William Hopkins (FWC) are offering “Tropical Ecology & Conservation BIOL 3954/FIW 3954 (6 credits)” in Spring and Summer I 2016. The course is open to all majors. The Spring course will be taught on campus.

During Summer I, the class will travel to Ecuador where students will traverse multiple ecosystems, from the Amazonian lowland rainforest to the high altitude Andes. Students will visit one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, and visit with ...

From VT News

BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 5, 2015 – Once a baby wood duckling hatches, it follows its mother’s repetitive whistle-like call to jump out of the nest and join its siblings in a family group.

But whether a duckling successfully follows depends on the nest environment, said fish and wildlife conservation graduate student Sydney Hope of Howell, New Jersey.

Using Virginia Tech’s new Research Aviary, Hope investigates how the wood duck’s nesting environment affects its ability to perform certain behaviors important for ...

From VT News:

BLACKSBURG, Va., Sept. 21, 2015 – Today, Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment officially opens its new Research Aviary, one of few such university facilities in the region.

“Virginia Tech has incredible strengths in avian biology, ecology, and conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and in biological sciences in the College of Science,” said William Hopkins, professor of fish and wildlife conservation and an expert in the physiological ecology of amphibians, reptiles, ...