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Mighty Oak Monday Jennifer Campos
The Roosevelt Wild Life Collections (RWLC) at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry is home to a variety of specimens. Located in the lower level of Gateway, the collections range from parasites to mammals, and often exciting discoveries are waiting to be made.
A recent example of this is from the work of Jennifer Campos, a senior environmental biology major. Campos has been working on the preservation and organization of unionid mussels that otherwise would have been discarded.
Campos has been interested in the collections even before coming to ESF. Her interest in the RWLC started during a campus tour. She was drawn to the RWLC because it reminded her of "the austere setting of a museum; a place of scientific discovery, and a place rich with biological history." Once at ESF, she began working there as an intern.
Campos has cataloged all 51 species in the collection, which proved to be a daunting task as many of the specimens had to be recategorized and labeled to reflect new species names. A now-expert on these mussels, Campos discovered one mussel is extinct. Epioblasma torulosa is the first species in the collection to move from endangered to extinct. Epioblasma torulosa was only very recently confirmed as extinct, and therefore removed from the USFWS Endangered Species List. It was an "exciting and sobering" development for her, making her realize the fragility of these mussels and why it is so important to properly catalog them.
Working with the RWLC has been rewarding for Campos. It's taught her so much about the mussels and instilled the confidence to do similar projects moving forward. Campos said she's learned the importance of doing a job that requires attention to detail and the value of seeing a project through to its end. She also enjoyed meeting senior experts in collections and learning about the projects they are working on. After graduating, Campos hopes to continue work in natural history collections and do seasonal agroecological work.