Field season wrap-up

We had a busy summer in the Bassing lab, much of it focused on fieldwork and data collection:

• Ashlyn and MSU undergraduate student, Morgan Anderson, captured and collected genetic samples* from 24 black-tailed prairie dog colonies in central South Dakota, as well as initiated an experiment to assess how prairie dogs respond to elevated avian predation risk.
• Chase completed his second summer of fieldwork on the Idaho wolf project, locating and collected genetic samples from 7 wolf packs across the state of Idaho.
• Sarah joined Ashlyn and Chase in the field throughout the summer, attended a leadership retreat, and gave a talk at the Ecological Society of America's 2026 conference in Salt Lake City, UT.
• Ashlyn was awarded a $10,000 Crawford Wildlife Habitat Graduate Fellowship at the end of last semester. Congratulations Ashlyn!

Here are a handful of pictures from the field this summer. *All prairie dogs were captured and handled under appropriate research permits and protocols.