October 2, 2003

	Zac Roehrs, a graduate student in natural resources, displays a bat's wing span.
	Roehrs, left, Chad Brock, center, and Trish Freeman, professor of natural resources, examine a bat caught during an outing south of Lincoln for students in a vertebrate zoology class.
	Zac Roehrs, a graduate student in natural resources, strings a net across a stream south of Lincoln to catch bats during an outing for a vertebrate zoology class. About 17 bats were caught in the nets and examined by members of the class. IANR Photos by Brett Hampton.

All About Bats

By Kim Hachiya, University Communications

Wow, this guy really smells. You want to smell this?"

The earnest graduate assistant holds out his gloved hand. His equally earnest undergrads, and assorted on-lookers, dutifully sniff. They discover that the smell of a burning tooth is the hallmark smell of a Nycticeius humeralis, or an evening bat.

That bat was one of about 17 caught during a recent field trip by students in vertebrate zoology.

Earlier in the evening, Zac Roehrs, who's earning a master's in natural resources, and Chad Brock, a senior from Lincoln majoring in biological sciences, had strung mist nets across a stream south of Lincoln.

Bats, Roehrs said, use the stream like an interstate highway. The relatively few obstructions over the streambed allow the bats to fly easily and quickly through the forest, and they get used to using the route. On this night, however, their habit betrays them.

The evening bat is one of 13 species found in Nebraska. The field trip netted one other species: Eptesicus fuscus, or big brown bat. Unlike evening bats, which migrate south for the winter, big brown bats live in Nebraska year-round, hibernating in winter. Big brown bats live in colonies and particularly enjoy structures like attics when their natural habitats, hollow trees and rock crevices, are diminished by human encroachment. Evening bats, also colonial, often roost in crevices in tree bark or under leaves. They also like to roost under bridges or other structures.

Both bats are surprisingly small, but the evening bat is significantly smaller than the big brown, with a body the size of a large cicada.

Like all experiential learning opportunities, this one offered more than just a chance to learn about bats. Students gathered about 6:30 p.m. and walked about a quarter mile to the netting site. Warnings were issued about poison ivy near the stream bank.

As Roehrs began to talk about the bats, an alarming "boooosh" in the forest behind him alerted the group to a barred owl. Moments later, a blue heron flew overhead, and it, too, cried out in raucous fashion. Roehrs said that often on field trips, the groups will encounter deer or hear other animals in the forest. This night, everyone encountered mosquitos.

The group settled in and waited for nightfall. Soon, bats could be seen flying overhead. Trish Freeman, professor of natural resources and a bat expert, noted their somewhat frenetic and disorganized flight.

Freeman said that during August and September, big brown bats feed exclusively on cucumber beetles, the adult version of the corn rootworm, which is a significant pest in Nebraska.

"One hundred and fifty big browns will eat about 33 million corn rootworm beetles in a single season," she said.

That voracious habit is why bats are an important species in an ecosystem, she said. Bats also are pollinators for some fruits, and they also spread seeds through their droppings.

Bats are among the most abundant mammals. Of about 4,000 known species of mammals, about 900 are bats. Their evolutionary history is a mystery, Freeman said. There are no proto-bat fossils. Bats appeared fully formed about 65 million years ago, and scientists still don't know to which other mammals they are most closely related.

Information on bats lags knowledge of other mammals, Freeman said, because of the difficulties in studying them. Until the 1950s, when netting became more common, it was very hard to catch bats. They don't do well in captivity because they need to eat on the fly, she said.

Scientists don't know exactly where North American bats migrate in the winter, but it is assumed the bats go to tropical areas in Central or South America. Most bats eat insects, but many also eat fruits or nectar.

Bats, Freeman admits, suffer from bad publicity. Their perceived link with Dracula doesn't help their image, and they can carry rabies.

But she notes that people rarely come in contact with bats because they are out at night. People are much more likely to encounter rabid skunks, raccoons or domestic animals, she said. Still, she warned, if someone finds an injured or downed bat, the best strategy is to not touch it and to call Animal Control to remove it.

If bats contract rabies, they die very quickly, so they are not good vectors for the virus, Freeman said. The incidence rate of rabies in bats is unknown, because scientists can test only the bats turned in to the Health Department, which usually were found on the ground. Bats are on the ground because they are sick or wounded.

As the evening bat hunt winds up, Roehrs has the students make field notes about when each bat was netted, the bat's species, sex and age. Roehrs and Brock handle the bats with gloved hands, and the students are allowed to touch the bats' fur and wing membranes. They look for a "window" in the phalanges (finger) joints of the wings; the window indicates the bones have not fused and the bats are juveniles.

The bats are released with a toss into the air. Roehrs notes that bats have to descend before they get enough speed to fly, which is why when one startles roosting bats, they appear to drop toward you before flying away.

And, Freeman says, away from us is where bats want to be.

North American Symposium on Bat Research As many as 200 researchers, educators, students, conservationists and enthusiasts are expected to attend the 33rd annual North American Symposium on Bat Research scheduled Oct. 8-11 in Lincoln. The conference is hosted by Patricia Freeman, professor in the UNL School of Natural Resources and the NU State Museum. "This conference attracts the biggest names in bat biology," Freeman said. "The world's bat experts will be here." Bats are among the most abundant mammals, Freeman said. Of the approximately 4,000 distinct species of mammals, about 900 species are bats. Although it's difficult to count bats, their worldwide population is in the millions. One cave in Texas may hold as many as 50 million bats in July and August, Freeman said. Most symposium events are geared toward a scientific audience, Freeman said. But this year, symposium organizers are holding a public session. This discussion session titled Rabies and Bats: Concerns for Conservation and Public Health will be free and open to the public from 7:30-9:30 p.m. Oct. 9. That session, like all others, will occur at the Cornhusker Hotel's Burnham Yates Conference Center. Featured speakers that evening are Charles Rupprecht, a research veterinarian associated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and Gary McCracken, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. All other sessions require preregistration of $250 for professionals or $225 for students. The symposium features more than 75 oral presentations and nearly 150 poster sessions on all aspects of bat biology. In addition, the symposium offers a special Oct. 11 workshop for teachers on bats in Nebraska. This workshop is a community service offered only in the towns of each meeting site. The workshop, which runs from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Cornhusker, is limited to 35 participants and pre-registration is required. Among activities are a talk on the bats found in Nebraska, ways to use a museum teaching collection to augment classroom learning and a session on building houses to attract bats. For information on this workshop, contact Sara Toren with Lincoln Public Schools "Zoo" School at <storen@lps.org>. The teacher workshop is funded by the North American Symposium on Bat Research, Bat Conservation International, Bat Research News, LUBEE Foundation, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the Organization for Bat Conservation, Speleobooks, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Lincoln previously hosted the conference in 1990. For more information on the conference, see <www.nasbr.org/Linc oln/NASBR_Lincoln.html> or <www.nasbr.org/>.

A worker removes brush near the former parking lot north of Nebraska Hall. The lot was removed because a new Y Street will be built between 16th and 17th streets where the lot was located. Photo by Tom Slocum.

Antelope Valley work at UNL begins

By Kim Hachiya, University Communications

You know how when you were a kid, it seemed like Christmas was forever far away? Then suddenly it was Christmas Eve, the big day almost here. For a long time, the Antelope Valley Project has seemed like Christmas. You know it's out there, but it's just so far in the future. No longer: The Antelope Valley Project is here.

The biggest infrastructure project in the city's history will reroute the Antelope Creek channel and remove 1,200 structures in central Lincoln, including a 50-acre portion of the east boundary of City Campus, from the flood plain. It also will reroute traffic, creating a new multi-lane thru-way from downtown to the northeast part of the city. Traffic will be shifted off 16th and 17th streets, reducing them to "residential" streets rather than the major arterials they are now. And the long waits for trains will be eliminated by bridges carrying traffic over the tracks. The city hopes for an economic development boost as new buildings can finally be constructed in the flood plain.

But Santa's goodies will be a long time in coming, and the wait will be painful. The project is scheduled for completion between 2007 and 2011, depending on funding. The projected cost is roughly $223 million, and not all of it is in the bank.

The project is a collaboration between the city of Lincoln, UNL and the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District. It also affects the railroad.

The word "project" is a misnomer. It's actually a series of projects, all interconnected, to be created in a specific sequence. Some of those sequences, project managers admit, will seem wacky. One of the last things to be done will be digging the new channel for the creek. But several new bridges will need to span that new channel, and they will be built over what's now level ground. Some current bridges will be removed, and traffic routed around. Some temporary routes are being created that will be removed when permanent routes are built.

"We will build the bridges before the channel goes there," said Wayne Teten, overall project manager. "It's more easy to accommodate the traffic that way. Because of the staging process, it's going to look disjointed and disassociated. There's going to be a lot of 'what the heck?' because of the longevity of the project. But we decided that relatively minor deviations in traffic patterns were much better than total closure for months or years."

Work began earlier this year near the mouth of the channel, where Antelope Creek connects to Salt Creek just north of State Fair Park. The channel is being widened and lined with concrete, hence the construction under way west of the Devaney Center. Work is also under way at the Northeast Community Park, west of 33rd Street and Huntington Avenue, which replaces ballfields and other recreation space lost to the project.

Most visible now is the "Y Street Connector" project. The current Y Street between 16th and 17th streets will disappear at the project's completion, so a new Y Street is being built directly north of Nebraska Hall, in a former parking lot. Parking has been displaced, and officials know pedestrians will have trouble navigating the construction site.

The new Y Street will route 17th Street traffic west to 16th, which will become a two-way street to Holdrege Street. The 17th Street bridge between the current Y Street and the new Y Street will be removed.

A "touch-base" meeting Sept. 24 with contractors, engineers, utilities managers and others attracted more than 50 people, including about a dozen from UNL. Clark deVries, utilities manager for UNL Facilities Management, is the point person for the university. At that meeting, he reiterated UNL's need for notice whenever possible on power outages, street closures and other events that will affect the campus. Contractors agreed to meet with university officials to find ways to safely move pedestrians along 16th and 17th streets. And agreements already have been reached to keep both streets open during home football weekends.

"People in Nebraska Hall will have to realize there is going to be some additional walking and inconvenience," deVries said. "But obviously we need a way to get to their north parking lots, and preferably by not having people have to cross the streets."

In October, parts of 17th Street will be closed north of Vine Street so contractors can move the fiber optic and telephone lines, water lines, gas, electric and other utilities. At least one lane, and probably two, will remain open during construction on half the street, then work will move to the other side of the street.

"Is the university going to be disrupted? They certainly are," Teten said. "There's going to be staging of the contractors' equipment. Roads will close. But one of my goals is to make this the least painful experience that we can."

UNL received about $8.3 million in compensation for land loss, deVries said. Much of that money is paying for the new parking garage under construction at 14th Street and Avery Avenue. The project also will pay for university utilities that need to be moved, such as steam lines, he said.

UNL is building a new Transportation Services building just north of Military Avenue on 14th Street. This will replace the current Transportation Services complex at 17th and Y streets. That will be demolished, probably in December. Several other UNL buildings will be demolished, or parts removed, to accommodate the project.

There's more to come. The intersection of 17th and Holdrege streets will be widened beginning next summer, and eventually something called the Big Tee will be constructed. That will fly traffic over the railroad and connect a new eastbound road toward 27th Street and beyond.

"We are trying very hard and doing everything imaginable to try to keep the fair, the university, everybody, operating in business as usual," Teten said.

More For more information about the Antelope Valley project, maps and other data, check this website created by Facilities Management: <http://fmp.unl. edu/AntelopeValleyProject/index.cfm>. It features links to the city's website, and Facilities will update this website as the project moves forward.

School readiness is focus of grant

By Kim Hachiya, University Communications

UNL research team has received a $5 million grant to develop strategies to enhance school readiness in children up to age 5. The University of Nebraska Medical Center and Lincoln Public Schools are project partners in the study titled "Parent Engagement and Child Learning Birth to Five."

The grant, funded through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a division of the National Institutes of Health, is a five-year project to study the effectiveness of a comprehensive approach working across home and school settings to help children who are at risk for school failure. The project focuses on strengthening the relationships between parents and children, and between parents and their children's teachers and other caregivers.

"The goal is to strengthen and empower parents to become more actively engaged in their children's learning and development," said Susan Sheridan, Willa Cather professor and professor of educational psychology and lead investigator on the grant. Carolyn Pope Edwards, Willa Cather professor in the departments of psychology and family and consumer sciences, is co-investigator.

Other key personnel are Eric Buhs, assistant professor of educational psychology at UNL; Susan Churchill, assistant professor of family and consumer sciences at UNL; Barbara Jackson, director of the Department of Education at UNMC's Munroe-Meyer Institute and associate professor of pediatrics; and Chris Marvin, associate professor of special education at UNL. This team will work closely with Deila Steiner, director of federal programs for the Lincoln Public Schools' ExCite program.

Blending a number of exemplary models and approaches to working with parents and schools, the project capitalizes on the strengths of individual families and of the school programs in Lincoln, Sheridan said. Many prior research projects have studied the roles of parents or teachers, but no project has looked at how creating and supporting partnerships between parents and teachers can benefit children, she said.

The project will look to strengthen three areas for parents: parents' warmth and sensitivity, or their attachment with and responsiveness to their child; parents' support and encouragement of their young child's emerging curiosity and autonomy; and parents' active participation in their child's learning and literacy, both in the home and in formal educational settings.

Over the course of the five-year project, about 600 children and their families will be recruited, Sheridan said. The children will be monitored over time to measure the effects of implementing the parent intervention early, as compared to implementing it at a later age.