For years, many have said the blood-sucking critters can jump, but now, thanks to a Fordham researcher, there’s video providing proof—as well as greater insight into the potential skills of leeches, which are seen worldwide but sparingly studied.

“We know very little about them,” said conservation biologist Mai Fahmy, Ph.D., GSAS ’22, lead author of a June study in the journal Biotropica about a leech of the Chtonobdella genus, found in Madagascar. “We know that they’re found almost everywhere on Earth except Antarctica”—on land and in both saltwater and freshwater, she said, referring to all leech species. “And they’re highlighted in pop culture all the time because of their feeding habits.”

Indeed, those habits might be why scientists have kept their distance, her coauthor said.

“Not a lot of people want to study a worm that sucks blood,” said Michael Tessler, Ph.D., GSAS ’13, a biology professor at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York.

But the lowly leech is worthy of study, they said. For one thing, the contents of its guts can offer a window into a region’s biodiversity and inform conservation efforts, said Fahmy, a visiting scientist with the American Museum of Natural History and a Fordham postdoctoral researcher working in the lab of biology professor Evon Hekkala, Ph.D.

Captured on Cell Phone

Fahmy was new to the study of leeches when, during a research visit to Madagascar in 2017, she used her cell phone’s video camera to capture one of them leaping from a leaf and landing on the ground. She thought such jumping was documented. But she soon learned otherwise, and during a follow-up trip to Madagascar last year, she got another video of a leaping leech and confirmed the species. The video offers support for prior testimonies of leeches jumping, Fahmy said.

Leeches are already known to latch on when a host animal brushes against them. (Despite their sucking blood, they’re mostly harmless to humans, Tessler said.)

But the leech in question—cylinder-shaped, measuring only a few centimeters, with suckers on its front and back—can do something more. It jumps by rearing back, almost like a cobra, and compressing itself to create tension before releasing it.

These leeches move along surfaces like an inchworm does, but “they’re surprisingly fast,” Tessler said. Still, he said, “they are not something you would necessarily expect to be able to just turn into a little spring and ‘boing’ off of a leaf.”

Measuring Biodiversity

With all the DNA they ingest while feeding on host animals, leeches help scientists get a fuller picture of which animals can be found in a given area, Fahmy said. For instance, leeches might seek out animals that are too small to trigger automated camera sensors or too well camouflaged to be spotted by scientists. Also, she said, they’re “generalist” feeders who aren’t picky when choosing a host.

She’ll be studying leeches for a while yet. Her research focus is on gathering DNA found in nature to study how the diversity of species is affected by deforestation and human conflict, as well as cultural values’ role in conservation efforts. Knowing more about leeches’ ability to jump and reach hosts can help when designing biodiversity surveys, she said.

“Leeches are among the few tools that are able to capture biodiversity across many different taxonomic classes, which makes them really efficient, especially if they’re out there finding you,” she said.

“I haven’t pinpointed what I specifically want to work on, but I’m eager to do research that has some kind of positive impact on the world, whether that’s helping people or the environment,” Bonanni said. “I want my research to have a bigger purpose.”

Some student researchers focus on a single topic, but Bonanni has dabbled in several—and because of this, she sees the world differently, said a Fordham professor. 

“Her experience has given her a good view of different topics. She can ask questions that other people might not be thinking about,” said her academic advisor Patricio Meneses, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences. “This will benefit her when it comes to asking the next interesting or necessary question in science.” 

‘A Whole New World Opened Up’ 

Bonanni was born to a family of scientists in Niskayuna, New York. Her father is an electrical engineer at General Electric. Her mother, a longtime optometrist, pursued her career when there were few women in her field. Both inspired their daughter to become a researcher. 

Bonanni had always been fascinated by the natural world. In elementary school, she drew three-page pictures of different landscapes and the flora and fauna that lived within them. But in high school, Bonanni realized that science was more than a childhood interest. 

“When I took a biology course, it was like a whole new world opened up. I learned how the natural world works, how everything fits together in ecosystems, and how life functions. Once I knew that was a field, I was like, ‘Wow—that’s the one for me,’” she said. 

Growing as a Biologist at Fordham

In 2020, she enrolled at Fordham. She wanted to attend school in New York City, and she was drawn to Fordham’s Jesuit ideals.

“I knew that I could find a Catholic community at other colleges, but I liked how Fordham implements the Jesuit values in their course philosophy,” she said. 

Bonanni spent her first year on Zoom due to the pandemic. The following summer, she took two tuition-free classes. Among them was a genetics course with biology professor Edward Dubrovsky, Ph.D., whose work she loved so much that she asked if she could work in his lab. 

Throughout her sophomore year, they examined the genetic mutations responsible for cardiomyopathy, a disease that thickens heart tissue and can lead to death. Using fruit flies as a model for the human body, they explored a question: Where do the mutated genes that cause cardiomyopathy need to be located in order for symptoms to develop? Any cell in the body or specifically in the heart? (They later learned that the latter was correct.) 

Under Dubrovsky, Bonanni learned what it’s like to work in a real lab, versus a classroom. 

“When you’re in a research lab, you don’t know what the answer is. Sometimes things don’t go right the first time, but that’s just part of the research process,” Bonanni said. “That uncertainty is where discoveries are made.” 

The following summer, she studied in Australia through Fordham’s partnership with the School for Field Studies. For one month, she lived in the rainforest and conducted fieldwork on marsupials. 

“It was really cool to learn about how they came to be in Australia and set up field cameras to take pictures of marsupials passing by, like pademelons,” Bonanni said. 

Exploring Bronx Plant Life

She loved working with animals, but she also wanted to try working with plants. She had always enjoyed tending to her family’s vegetable garden, where they raised tomatoes, lettuce, squash, and beans. 

Last fall, she studied the spread of Japanese knotweed, an invasive species that has spread to the Bronx, in the lab of biology professor Steven J. Franks, Ph.D. She enjoyed the experience, but realized she preferred working with animal cells. 

Keeping the Earth Safe for Turtles

This semester, Bonanni started working on a project that combines her interests in cell and molecular biology and ecology. 

In the lab of Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences, Bonanni is studying green sea turtles, the largest hard-shelled sea turtle on Earth. Every year, these turtles return to the same beach to lay their eggs. The problem is only some areas are protected from poaching and other activities that prevent babies from hatching and safely making their way to the ocean. 

“If only specific areas are protected, then only specific turtle genes might be protected. That means you’re limiting the genetic diversity of the population,” Bonanni said. “A less genetically diverse population is less likely to survive diseases,” said Bonanni, who is now analyzing DNA from hatched turtle shells to assess their genetic diversity. 

The Wonder of the Natural World 

Bonanni wants to become a biologist. No matter what she focuses on, she says she wants to hold onto something that we often forget as adults—the wonder of the natural world. 

“Growing plants is so exciting when you really think about it,” said Bonanni, who once worked as a summer camp counselor who taught children how to water seeds into sunflowers. “The fact that a beautiful, green, lush thing can come out of a small seed is so cool. As adults, we sometimes lose the wonder associated with that. But when you look at a kid experiencing it for the first time, you remember how exciting it really is.”   

After earning a master’s degree in biology at Fordham five years ago, Anco moved to Wyoming to serve as assistant curator of the Draper Natural History Museum, part of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody. The museum, about 50 miles east of Yellowstone National Park, features a live raptor education program and introduces visitors to the sights, sounds, and smells of the region’s diverse ecosystems, from alpine to mountain meadow to plains.

Anco hadn’t considered museums as a career path until he worked closely with Fordham biology professor Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., conducting genetic research using historical African leopard specimens at the American Museum of Natural History. Beyond their educational mission, he realized, museums are “actively involved in research and, in some instances, conservation action.”

That’s what drew him to the Draper museum, which Anco said has been monitoring the occupancy, distribution, reproduction, and diet of golden eagles in the Bighorn Basin since 2009. He said he’s humbled and inspired by his work and where he does it.

“When I climb over a ridge and see how expansive this alpine landscape is, and that there’s literally no sign of human impact for miles and miles and miles, I get such a visceral feeling of raw nature that inspires me to care for it.”

Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and an AMNH research associate, worked with Fordham students on research projects focusing on DNA from historical leopard, monitor lizard, and crocodile specimens, all found on-site within the museum’s collections. The research is featured in Shelf Life’s Episode 16, Tales from the Cryptic Species. 

“The museum is home to 33 million specimens collected over the past 150 or 200 years that can help us understand how the world is changing,” said Hekkala. “It’s essentially an archive of the history of life on earth.”

Corey Anco, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student that Hekkala has worked with doing research on leopard DNA, said that the Hekkala lab “explores how historical processes have shaped the current distribution and diversity of species.”

Anco brought attention to the fact that while the general ecology of the leopard is known and understood, the real levels of genetic variation, and thus, the actual number of leopard species, are not clear.

“Prior to our work, only two studies explored the genetic diversity of African leopards at the continental scale,” said Anco. “We seized the opportunity to reexamine the African leopard using AMNH’s vast collection of skulls spanning sub-Saharan Africa.”

Stephanie Dowell, Ph.D.( GSAS ’15), a geneticist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, worked with Hekkala to research the Nile monitor lizard.

She said that Hekkala has  “the type of enthusiasm that helped me keep up my scientific momentum throughout my graduate career.”

Dowell said she relied heavily on museum specimens for her research. The specimens allowed her to have access to DNA samples from regions of Africa that are too dangerous to travel to today.

“I was able to obtain genetic information from Nile monitors that spanned the African continent. Although Nile monitors are considered a single species throughout their range, I noticed that individuals from West Africa were genetically very different from the rest of the continent,” said Dowell.

Hekkala said that the students learn intricate lab techniques working at AMNH, including how to “suit up” so that their own DNA doesn’t mingle with the DNA samples they are working with.

They also get an overview of how species change over time, and whether or not, and when, they are threatened by human activities.

“If we can use these historical specimens to understand how we are altering the environment, then we can help predict future threats to both species and ecosystems, and discover how we might want to change our behaviors to avoid problems. To me, that’s making the world a better place.”

—Veronika Kero 

The museum’s new exhibit, Crocs: Ancient Predators in a Modern World, which opened on May 28, features a host of unique aspects about the reptiles, including four different species of live crocodiles for visitors to see.

“The more we learn about them, the more fascinating we find they are. They have interesting social lives, they have parental care, they have communal feeding, and they can be trained to come to a clicker like a domestic dog,” said Hekkala.

An assistant professor of biological sciences at Fordham, Hekkala has carved out a unique role working with genetics in museum specimens.

In 2011, she used DNA extracted from a crocodile specimen at the museum and other museums to prove that the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) was actually two species, dubbing its cousin Crocodylus suchus. The name Crocodylus suchus actually means “The Sacred Crocodile,” and as such, her findings are featured in a section of the Crocs exhibit about sacred and mummified crocodiles.

“The ancient Egyptians believed these were a different species, and they mummified them,” she said. “Genetic work in my lab proved they were right.”

Hekkala’s research is focused on using historical collections of natural history specimens to understand how life is changing over time in response to climate change and human disturbance. As a longtime research associate at the museum’s Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, she was one of the first scientists allowed to sample DNA from the museum specimens.

In addition to a life-size replica of Gomek, a 17 foot-long Australian salt-water crocodile who was famously friendly with people until his death in 1997, Hekkala said her favorite part of the exhibit is the live African dwarf crocodiles, which grow to no more than six feet long.

“I love that species because at the same time that I was discovering Crocodylus suchus, my collaborators at the museum were discovering three new species in the African dwarf crocodile,” she said. “The species helped confirm that the patterns we were finding made sense in terms of how the animals in Africa have evolved.
“Plus, those guys are just super cute,” she added.

The exhibit also has live Siamese crocodiles, the species that inspired Hekkala and her co-researchers to look at the crocodile genome for characteristics that might help develop new medicines for humans.

“Some research shows that they make antimicrobial peptides, which may in turn give us a source for new antibiotics,” she said.

Hekkala also doing micro-CT scans of crocodile mummies from the Brooklyn Museum to help identify species. Museum exhibits like Crocs are an exciting part of her work, she said.

“I believe that sharing science with the public, and with young people especially, is a great way to help us become a more scientifically literate society. It helps to get people excited about and involved in science,” she said.

The Crocs exhibit runs until January 2017.

LINCOLN CENTER ARTS AND RESEARCH SHOWCASE

From fruit fly larvae to urban interpretive dance to liberation theology, this year’s Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s Arts and Research Showcase reflected a diversity of interests.

More than 50 research presenters and 105 students participated in the April 9 event that was spread among the lobbies, galleries, studios, and theaters of the Lowenstein Center.

Junior Prescilla Consolo’s project focused on the history of public policy and private planning efforts to renew Coney Island. As an interdisciplinary history major, she said her coursework is actually geared more towards the future.

“It’s not about memorizing dates and names,” she said. “Here at Fordham we look for meaning and connections to the bigger picture.”

Music spilled from the White Box Studio, where junior Chelsea Parron danced to choreography created by senior Megan Stricker.

“In our overstimulated world we sometimes forget to listen,” Stricker said in her introduction.

Parron’s movements veered from sharp and intricate to flowing and calm. After the dance Parron said that Stricker encouraged her to improvise some of the calmer passages in order to juxtapose serenity with the sharpness of city life.

“She challenged me to think about what it’s like living in the city with technology and its fast pace. The improv is slow … trying to get back to nature.”

On the plaza level, senior Matthew Miller was also considering nature, but at much closer range. Miller did research with Associate Professor Jason Morris, PhD, on the fruit fly larvae’s responses to invading organisms, such as a wasp that might inject a larva with its own eggs.

To protect itself, the fruit fly forms a crystalized shell of melatonin around the invading parasite, isolating and killing it. Miller’s research looks at how mutating the fruit fly’s gene might illicit the same response.

“The big question is whether this is an immune response or some other genetic mechanism that’s causing the response,” said Miller.

Senior theology major Sebastian Rodriguez’s project pondered the meaning of giving. He said that he began thinking about analyzing giving by using logic after he went on several volunteer projects with the Dorothy Day Center.

“When we go into these projects we realize very early on that what we can do is very limited,” he said. “But at the same time we feel it’s the correct thing to do.
I’m trying to bridge that gap between what we feel and what we’re doing in a very logical way.”

Rodriguez researched the relationship between liberation theology and the theory behind social justice in order to develop what could only be described as “radical best practices for volunteerism.” His results are not for the weak of heart.

“The only plausible option is radically becoming the other,” Rodriguez writes in his project. “This entails intelligent strategizing and simultaneous participation in the other’s suffering, to the point of near physical or social death. Where there is a preferential option for the wretched, the privileged must abandon what separates them from grace.”

“What I would add to that is that it should be done intelligently and in a well thought out way,” he said.

EIGHTH ANNUAL UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH FAIR AT ROSE HILL

Amy Tuininga, PhD, said she got her first post-bachelor’s position as research technician after she returned from a research expedition—a call came out of the blue from professor who she barely knew for a job she had not applied for.

Assuming it was a student-worker’s hourly wage, she told him she couldn’t take the job because she was holding out for a salaried position: when the professor told her it was fully salaried, she asked “when do I start?”

On April 15, Tuininga directed her anecdote to the more than 300 students sharing their original research through oral and poster presentations at Fordham College at Rose Hill‘s Eighth Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium in the McGinley Center.

“This will be a foundation for work which you will do throughout your life,” said Tuininga, associate professor of biology and interim chief research officer.

Fordham offers an active student research grant program for faculty to engage students in original research, and this year funded 115 projects.

“Is Your Shampoo Killing Aquatic Life,” a project by Brandon Mogrovejo, Mithi Hossain, and Jordan Alexander (working under the guidance of Evon Hekkala, PhD, assistant professor of biological sciences and one of 95 faculty mentors) measured the effects of shampoo runoff on the ecosystem of the metropolitan area’s waters.

The team put a small water flea, Daphnia magna, into control beakers with clean water and into test beakers with different concentrations of a leading commercial shampoo containing sodium laureth sulfate and an organic product, Dr. Bonner’s soap.

They found that the commercial shampoo killed the most water fleas. Surprisingly, Dr. Bonner’s organic soap did not have a large effect in the first experiment and, in the second, left even more water fleas alive than the clean water control group. (Students hypothesized that some fleas in the Dr. Bonner solution were pregnant at the time of entry and gave birth, pushing survival numbers higher.)

The project was designed to show “what these chemicals do to us,” said Mogrovejo.

“All the stuff we use is going down the drains,” he said. “Even taking out a little organism like Daphnia can have huge effects on ecosystems and streams.”

In “The Physiological Effects of Artistic Gymnastics on the Growing Female,” students Kelsey Donlon, Natalie Cheung, Altina Kukaj, and Anastasia Tzanides looked at the effects of intensive training on the bodies of young girl gymnasts. Their faculty mentor was Usha Sankar, PhD, instructor of human physiology.

Among a group of 400 girls age 6 to 16, they measured for body fat, bone mass density, and various hormonal levels.

“As a group of four females, we were definitely interested in the female body,” said Donlon. “We’ve heard that high-impact sports might have an effect on how a girl grows.”

Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham, said the students have shown the “virtue of intellectual curiosity” and great courage in sharing original research.

“You [are]restless, curious people, bent on discovery,” he said. “Make that a part of the legacy you leave to your younger sisters and brothers.”

The public event attracted faculty, students, and alumni to whom research has special emphasis–several of whom have created fellowships. Boniface Zaino, FCRH ’65, co-sponsor of many research fellowships and the symposium with his wife, Alison, said the fair creates a chance for students to “learn the steps” of doing research; from selecting a topic, setting an end goal, gathering materials, analyzing them, and coming to a conclusion.

“It’s a wonderful experience for them,” said the financial analyst.

A Faculty Mentor’s award went to Amy Balija, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry. Also, 11 research projects from all three undergraduate schools—Gabelli School of Business, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and Fordham College at Rose Hill—have been published in the annual Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal.

(Janet Sassi contributed to this report.)

But in the age of budget cuts and sequestration, funding from sources such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) is drying up, forcing scientists to find creative ways to keep research and innovation alive.

So while some have gone the way of Galileo and Charles Darwin, paying for their research out-of-pocket, those who lack personal and family fortunes are taking a grassroots approach by appealing to the public through crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding (also called crowdsourcing) is, simply put, a form of digital fundraising. In the spirit of old-fashioned bake sales, websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo allow individuals and groups to raise money for a project by receiving small amounts of money from a large number people. These online platforms sponsor causes that span the fundraising spectrum; from disaster relief, to startup companies, to support for starving artists.

Assistant Professor of biology Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., is pioneering the use of crowdfunding at Fordham, having set up a fundraiser on Microryza, a science-specific platform (the site’s mission is “science for the people, by the people”). Hekkala and her students launched a 45-day campaign on the site to raise $13,000 toward a project on genetic variation in museum specimens.

“After eight unsuccessful NSF submissions, we decided to take it straight to the people,” Hekkala said.

The project, “DNA from Dioramas,” is an ongoing collaboration between Hekkala’s lab and the American Museum of Natural History. The research team samples DNA from animal specimens that the museum collected during an expedition to the Congo a century ago, and which are now on display in the museum’s dioramas. In doing so, the team can learn how the region has changed over the century.

“There are thousands of specimens from the expedition 100 years ago that we can compare to animals and populations that are in the Congo now,” Hekkala said. “Depending on what our data shows, we can add to the signage and share with the public the updated research that’s ongoing at the museum and here in our lab. It’s a great educational opportunity for the millions of people who see the dioramas every year.”

Hekkala and her students are undertaking a social media blitz to promote their campaign, broadcasting their Microryza page across Facebook and Twitter, sending word out in email blasts, and soliciting social media mentions from science journalists.

“You have to be constantly promoting it. You can’t let it just sit to raise its own money,” Hekkala said. “But if you frame it in the right way, it can be effective for anyone.”

Crowdfunding research in academia has appealed to researchers who are strapped for cash, but has left has left some universities uncertain about how to handle money that comes from crowdfunding. Some, such as the University of Arizona, have barred faculty and staff from using the sites until the school can craft a policy on the technique.

Because Hekkala is the first at Fordham to undertake the initiative officially, the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) is letting the process unfold organically. Determining how to catalog the donations she receives is somewhat tricky, though, said Kris Wolff, manager of the OSP.

“The usual checklist of things that determine that money is grant rather than a gift are not present,” she said.

The office cannot simply classify the funds as grants, Wolff said, because grants often require an end product, such as a publication, and demand stringent financial reporting (the latter of which is a requirement of University auditors as well). Crowdfunding websites do not set such requirements. However, forgoing the “grant” classification would exclude faculty from certain OSP resources, and could mean that these funds are not taken into consideration when faculty come up for tenure review.

“I think we will all have to relax our definitions, because this is probably going to become more popular with the tightening of federal research budgets. In ten years, it might be completely normal for someone to fund an entire project through crowdfunding,” Wolff said.

“We need to lay the groundwork now to allow for that to happen. If we don’t, we could miss out on an important source of research dollars.”

The daylong event was sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill. Faculty mentor awards went to Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, Suzanne Hafner, Ph.D., assistant professor of modern languages and literatures, and Melissa Labonte, Ph.D. assistant professor of political science.

You don’t have to look far to see the irony in the fact that Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., was born in Fossil, Ore.

Old bones, mummies and other centuries-old samples from the animal kingdom are the tools of the trade for the assistant professor of biology.

In recent months, Hekkala’s work in rediscovering extinct species has been featured in notable peer-reviewed publications, in addition to being picked up by the mainstream press. First came her discovery last May with a team of scientists that theRana Fisheri, or Vegas Valley Leopard frog, was not extinct, as was generally believed.

Her most recent discovery, published in September in the journal Molecular Ecology, offered proof of two separate species of the Nile crocodile—one that had been subsumed within the identity of the other for hundreds of years.

In spite of these successes, Hekkala acknowledges her status as an “accidental conservation geneticist.” Originally an anthropology major, she developed an interest in animals after unearthing a reindeer antler and a wooly rhinoceros tooth on her first archeological dig in the south of France.

From there, she went to Madagascar to study the behavior of one of the most primitive of primates, the lemur.

“When I started to study lemurs, I learned that they are extremely endangered,” she said, “and it hit me: how are we going to learn anything from these species if they all go extinct?”

Hekkala decided to devote her career to conservation biology. While working at the California Academy of Sciences, she had an idea: Surrounded by museum specimens, she asked herself, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if archival specimens could be used to get genetic information about animal populations from centuries ago, and compare them to the same populations today?’

“I imagined it as a way to sort of time travel,” Hekkala said. “A lot of these specimens are a hundred years old or older. I thought that, by comparing them to populations today, we could better understand what impact human behavior is having.

“In other words, if we put a dam or a road somewhere, are we disrupting the gene flow between two animal populations? Have we fragmented the landscape in such a way that has caused species to not be able to breed with each other over the last 50 or 100 years?”

The short answer, she discovered, is yes.

In the case of the Nile crocodile, Hekkala extracted DNA samples from ancient crocodile mummies from Thebes, held in the Natural History Museum in Paris. She compared those samples with the current Nile crocodile, and discovered that, up until 100 years ago, there were two separate, unrelated species proliferating the region—the “traditional” Nile crocodile and another found to the west, crocodylus suchus.

Moreover, in the last 100 years, one of those species, the more docile Western Nile crocodile, has disappeared from much of its range due to human overharvesting, changes in the way water was used or increasing oil exploration, she said.

“This is a case where we were able to use mummy specimens to identify a new lineage, one that is critically threatened because it is sparsely distributed,” she said. The discovery will be considered for a listing under the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species (CITES).

One of the things that conservation biologists run into, said Hekkala, is skeptics who ask: “How do you know that this species is disappearing because of humans?” or “How do you know that global warming is bad?”

“Museum samples can provide a smoking gun,” she said. “Now we can say with scientific certainty that 100 years ago—before we put in a dam, built a superhighway or filled in the Everglades—this was the genetic status of these populations. And that today, those same populations show less genetic diversity or a disruption in breeding.”

Hekkala is currently at work on a new project with old chipmunk specimens from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). She is using their DNA to measure whether their Sierra Nevada mountain populations have moved their habitats to a higher elevation in the last century due to climate change.

She has also appropriated an old whale vertebra from the Freeman Hall anatomy collection. She plans to invite students into her lab to sequence its DNA.

“I am enthusiastic about getting young people to discover science,” she said. “A student with absolutely no background in laboratory work can learn how to identify a species using a genetic bar code; DNA bar coding is happening all over the world right now.”

Can old museum specimens play a role in the global development of these barcodes of life?

“Did you know that 90 percent of the AMNH’s collection is behind the scenes?” Hekkala said. “There is so much material to tap into—and all of it is ripe for exploration with new genetic techniques.

“The past can tell us a huge amount about the future,” she said.

A team of researchers led by Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at Fordham, and Matt Shirley of University of Florida, Gainsville, discovered a second cryptic, or hidden, lineage of crocodiles through DNA analyses of modern crocodiles and ancient mummy crocodile hatchlings.

Hekkala and her team collected contemporary crocodile samples from throughout Africa as well as from museum specimens, including some from Thebes, Egypt that are currently housed in the Museé National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris. Although the modern Nile crocodile (C. niloticus) is found throughout Africa, there have long been reports that it is larger and more aggressive in the Eastern and Southern African regions and smaller and more docile in the Congo and West Africa.

The reason, Hekkala’s research suggests, is because the Eastern and Western crocodiles are in reality different crocodile lineages, which shared the Nile river as recently as 100 years ago.

Hekkala’s analysis showed that several of the MNHN mummy samples, collected during Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in the early 1800s and estimated to be up to 2,000 years old, belong to a species once described as Crocodylus suchus.

Although the cryptic C. suchus lineage had been recognized and described (as the smaller and gentler “sacred” crocodile) by the scientist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire back in 1807, his contemporaries discounted his theory of a separate species. Among scientists, the taxonomic status of the Nile crocodile has been disputed ever since.

Hekkala and her team analyzed DNA from eight crocodile mummies from the same collections as the specimen corresponding to Saint Hilaire’s description of C. suchus.

“Saint Hilaire was very prescient in understanding the very detailed behavioral ecological differences between these two species,” said Hekkala. “But the scientific community called him crazy and,Crocodylus suchus was never recognized. We hope to change that with our research.”

Although the Nile crocodile was once worshipped in ancient Egypt, today it sits on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list as a species of Least Concern. Because of the value of its skins, some governments allow it to be hunted under sustainable-use-based management policies and programs.

But with the discovery that two different species—not just one—are being hunted, Hekkala said that any new conservation agreements producing sustainable harvesting of the Nile crocodile should be “re-evaluated.” In their paper, Hekkala and her team call for the new C. Suchus lineage to be recognized, and for the IUCN to review its status.

“Our research showed that the habitat range of C. Suchus has seriously declined since the turn of the century,” said Hekkala. “Without proper recognition of this second cryptic species and proper management of it, we may lose it altogether.”

Hekkala added that she could not have made the discovery without the use of ancient museum archival specimens—an area of research in which she has a special interest.

“Our success emphasizes the utility of non-traditional archival specimens in contributing to our understanding of evolutionary relationships and biogeographic history,” she said.

The findings were published on September 9th in an article in the journal Molecular Ecology. Hekkala’s co-collaborators included scientists from the University of Florida, the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History, the San Diego Zoo, Tulane University and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

A genetic analysis undertaken by a Fordham professor has uncovered proof that the only species of North American frog long thought to be extinct is alive—and living 250 miles from Las Vegas.

Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, teamed up with researchers from the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, University of Arizona and Tulane University to sequence 100-year-old museum samples of DNA taken from the “extinct” Vegas Valley Leopard Frog (Rana fisheri).

Initially, Hekkala said, the team set out to discover whether the extinct Leopard frog was related to today’s Relict Leopard Frog (Rana onca), which lives along the Colorado River and is a candidate for the endangered species list. The sequencing, however, showed the two frogs were not related despite their physical similarities.

Hekkala then compared the Vegas Valley Frog’s DNA to Genbank, a database that includes DNA sequencing for 62 other species of North American frogs. There, she found that the Vegas Valley Leopard Frog, which was last reported seen in the summer of 1942, was virtually genetically identical to the existing Chiricahua Leopard Frog (Rana chiricahuensis). That species’ habitat is located some 250 miles from the Vegas Valley, near the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona.

“What it means is that the only North American frog species listed as extinct is not extinct at all,” said Hekkala, lead author on the study. “For conservationists, this opens up a second chance to protect and proliferate the species.”

Hekkala was able to do the DNA sequencing using samples extracted from Vegas Valley Leopard Frogs collected in Las Vegas in 1913 and housed for a century at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

The study, “Resurrecting an Extinct Species: Archival DNA, Taxonomy, and Conservation of the Vegas Valley Leopard Frog,” was initiated by Raymond Saumure, Ph.D., a biologist at Springs Preserve, and has been published in Conservation Genetics.