{"id":2793,"date":"2025-01-24T13:50:21","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T21:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/?p=2793"},"modified":"2025-01-24T13:50:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T21:50:21","slug":"the-details-are-in-the-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/2025\/01\/24\/the-details-are-in-the-dna\/","title":{"rendered":"The details are in the DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Have you ever been on a walk or a hike and encountered the feather of a bird or the scat of a deer? Most likely, you tried to avoid stepping on the scat and you maybe admired the feather for a few moments before moving on. But did you know that those left behind animal parts are actually full of genetic data that scientists use to answer all kinds of ecological questions? Nowadays, many ecological studies strive to be as non-invasive as possible since physically handling animals can be logistically complicated as well as potentially cause stress to the animal. Hence, being able to make use of biological samples such as feathers or scat that are already left behind is incredibly non-invasive!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"908\" src=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie-1024x908.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2795\" srcset=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie-1024x908.png 1024w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie-300x266.png 300w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie-768x681.png 768w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie-1536x1362.png 1536w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie-2048x1816.png 2048w, https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2150\/files\/2025\/01\/dziedzie-624x553.png 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>On this week\u2019s show, we talked with PhD student Emily Dziedzic about her multitude of projects that she is working on for her research in the <a href=\"https:\/\/agsci-labs.oregonstate.edu\/levit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Levi Lab<\/a> in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences. Emily is a molecular ecologist who focuses on bioinformatics, which means that she uses computer-based methods to analyze genetic data. Her work spans a wide variety of taxa, from freshwater fish to scarlet macaws, from bats to Humboldt marten, and has implications for improving ecological monitoring for management as well as assisting in the fight against wildlife disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re curious to hear more about Emily\u2019s research as well as learn about how she went from being a young child who organized all the kids in her neighborhood to save snapping turtle hatchlings on bikes to a molecular ecologist working on conservation management projects at OSU, then listen to our episode with Emily wherever you get your podcasts, including on our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kbvrfm.orangemedianetwork.com\/inspiration-dissemination-5\/\">KBVR page<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/3usrAGPKdWufw5IttiuIm9\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/inspiration-dissemination\/id1337404264\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, or anywhere else!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever been on a walk or a hike and encountered the feather of a bird or the scat of a deer? Most likely, you tried to avoid stepping on the scat and you maybe admired the feather for a few moments before moving on. But did you know that those left behind animal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109824,1024799],"tags":[1305654,140586,1305734,1305735,155,523],"class_list":["post-2793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-of-agricultural-sciences","category-fisheries-wildlife","tag-bioinformatics","tag-conservation","tag-levi-lab","tag-molecular-ecology","tag-oregon-state-university","tag-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2796,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions\/2796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspiration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}