I am currently assisting a professor on determining how polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB's) affect Snapping Turtles metabolism and development. Summer tasks included trapping male and female turtles from various locations around northwestern PA. Samples were collected for Mercury and PCB contamination analysis. Eggs were also collected from females, incubated and hatched. Hatchlings respiration and metabolism of yolk sac were recorded directly after birth. How PCB's affect them during hibernation is also currently being studied.

My own research project will begin in May, 2006 on how Painted Turtles use polarized light as an orientation cue towards water. Little "sunglasses", or helmets, will cover the eyes of the test turtles, while the control group has clear helmets attached. An enclosed "Y" shaped maze covered with black canvas has been constructed to give the turtles the choice to go towards either exit (water or field). The statistics used to analyze the data is a one-tailed binomial test. Anticipated outcomes are that the turtles wearing the helmet without polarized filter should show the most consistency with their direction towards water. If there is no significance between field and water, another project will be done on how weather conditions affect the degree of polarization. My ultimate goal for this project is to get the results published by next year.