Upper Bucks Today

La Salle University issued the following announcement.

Biology professor Jim Church’s ecological studies often include observing species on and near campus.

One of Jim Church’s first observations about La Salle University was its mockingbird population. Campus is “teeming” with the gray and brown birds, Church said. They particularly love the holly tree near La Salle’s Hansen Quad, he noted.

Church arrived at La Salle in August 2015 never having lived or worked in an urban setting. He spent his formative years in upstate New York and Minnesota before studying at three universities in rural settings.

“The culture of La Salle made me want to come here,” said Church, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biology. “I learned how to drive on a dirt road in Minnesota. My mother is dealing with snow there right now. I just love it here and all La Salle has to offer.”

That includes its wildlife.

Church is an ecologist and biostatistician who uses and analyzes data to study the relationships between organisms and their environment. He has found countless creatures on La Salle’s campus—including those mockingbirds. Church posts photos of his finds on his Twitter and Instagram accounts.

His Twitter presence is an opportunity to capture the interest of his students, some of whom have joined him on excursions to La Salle’s Biostation in Penllyn, Pa., and along the Wissahickon Creek. Currently, a few of Church’s students are studying the water quality of the creek’s water and the effects of suburbanization and urbanization on the water, as it flows from the suburbs and into Philadelphia.

“I’m very fortunate to have amazing students that like spending Saturdays looking for birds,” Church tweeted in September on a physically distanced hike.

Church takes great pride in his students’ research work and the professional outcomes that follow their time at La Salle. He recalled one student who never wanted to study birds. In fact, she told Church she hates them. “Today, she’s studying birds in a doctoral program at Texas A&M,” he said.

Others have found applications for their La Salle training in medical school.

“The study of relationships between organisms can be applied to anything,” Church said. “One of our top biology students recently, he worked with me for almost three years in the study of one species of bird and how disease goes across the landscape. Now he’s in medical school. We analyzed data the same way an epidemiologist would. That’s what makes this area of study so fascinating—it’s applicability.”

We asked Church more about the wildlife on La Salle’s campus and beyond:

What’s your favorite place on La Salle’s campus?

“It’s a wooded spot at the south end of campus, past our Alumni House and the Communication Center. There’s a wood lot where we have seen deer, fox, groundhogs, lots of cool birds. We have redwoods there and lots of bamboo that provides cover for the animals. There’s a brook—a little stream, really—and we have an orange tree, too. It’s a fascinating spot for a university that is set in an urban backdrop.”

Your Twitter account has captured video from La Salle’s Biostation. Where is that located?

“It’s in nearby Montgomery County and along the Wissahickon Creek. The land there is managed by the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association. We have 13 cameras there across three different preserves. They are battery-operated, infrared cameras that trigger when an animal walks past a camera. We have seen great blue herons, white-tailed deer, red fox, and mallards, just to name a few.”

Back on La Salle’s campus, what would you say is your most-unique find?

“It’s the red fox—and I did not expect to see nearly as many. They have adapted well, over time, to living in cities. And they move at night, so we don’t typically see them. They mostly eat mice and rodents, which is an appropriate diet for an urban setting.”

Do you have any upcoming projects you hope to undertake?

“I’m fascinated by the salamanders on our campus. They occupy a small patch of woodland on our campus. Wister Woods is surrounded by concrete. I have been in rural Ohio looking for salamanders and if we saw a wood lot that small, we would skip it. There’s a tremendous abundance of them there and they probably have been there for many years. I would like to study them, to see just how isolated they have been. I would need to look at their genetic diversity to see how inbred they are. Salamanders can regenerate their tails, so any study like this would require that we take a tissue sample from their tail to learn more about their genetics.”

Original source can be found here.