The distribution and abundance of mammalian predators are difficult to monitor because of their elusive nature. One tool used to monitor predators is strategically placed tracking stations. Precipitation often renders tracking stations unreadable by obscuring tracks and other sign. In our study we sought to evaluate the feasibility of placing covers over stations to protect tracking surfaces from precipitation. Survival of the cover structures was negatively correlated with wind speed and positively correlated with woodlands. This suggested that covers might be best used in areas with low wind speeds and/or in forests or other sites that provide shelter from wind. Covers appeared to negatively affect visitations by coyotes (Canis latrans), bobcats (Lynx rufus), and eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus), but not raccoons (Procyon lotor) or Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana). Track quality was not substantially different for covered stations during light rain or snow.

Although known more infamously for his efforts with sericulture and the accidental release of the gypsy moth in North America, the mid-nineteenth century French emigrant E.L. Trouvelot left a more honorable legacy to astronomy based on his celestial observations, and his detailed and accurate drawings of astronomical objects and phenomena. A portfolio of 15 Trouvelot prints and an accompanying manual were produced and distributed by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1881; Emporia State University possesses ten of the portfolio prints, but not an original of the manual. The ten prints at ESU include numbers III (total solar eclipse), V (zodiacal light), VI (lunar mare Humorum), VII (partial lunar eclipse), VIII (Mars), IX (Jupiter), XI (comet of 1881), XIII (Milky Way), XIV (Hercules cluster, M13), and XV (Orion nebula, M42). Although the basis for their presence is uncertain, it has an apparent coincidence with T.M. Iden, who arrived at then Kansas State Normal School in 1897 as head of the physical sciences. The ESU Trouvelot prints have been properly conserved to preserve these historically significant renderings.

FHSM VP-2139 is the proximal end of a right carpometacarpus of the Late Cretaceous toothed seabird, Ichthyornis sp. (Aves: Ichthyornithiformes), housed in the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Hays Kansas. The specimen was found near the contact between the Carlile and Greenhorn Formations in southern Ellis County, Kansas. The specimen marks the oldest record of Ichthyornis in Kansas, and this report represents the first detailed account of this specimen. The estimated total “skeletal length” (from the beak tip to the pygostyle tip) and “skeletal wingspan” (between the right and left phalangeal tips) of the bird individual are 24 cm and 43 cm, respectively. The bird specimen is paleoecologically intriguing, because it occurred in an offshore deposit which formed during the maximum transgressive phase of the Greenhorn Cyclothem of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea.

The Niobrara Chalk in western Kansas was deposited on the eastern shelf of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea during Coniacian through early Campanian time, hundreds of miles from the nearest land. As might be expected, the remains of terrestrial animals, including dinosaurs, are extremely rare in this marine environment. The first dinosaur (Claosaurus agilis) collected by Marsh from the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk in 1871 was also the only hadrosaur known from this formation. All other dinosaur remains collected there since 1871 have been identified as nodosaurs. Here we report the discovery of an articulated series of nine hadrosaur caudal vertebrae (FHSM VP-15824) from the Smoky Hill Chalk (Upper Coniacian) of southeastern Gove County, Kansas. The presence of non-serrated bite marks on four of the vertebrae and the partially digested appearance of the proximal and distal ends of the series suggest that the vertebrae had been scavenged from the floating carcass of a dinosaur by a large shark, most likely Cretoxyrhina mantelli. The specimen represents the earliest known occurrence (Upper Coniacian) of the Hadrosauridae in the Smoky Hill Chalk, and preserves the earliest evidence of scavenging on dinosaur remains by a shark in the Western Interior Sea.

During research on mesopredators on Fort Riley Military Reservation, Kansas, we determined the densities of sympatric coyotes (Canis latrans), bobcats (Lynx rufus), raccoons (Procyon lotor), and opossums (Didelphis virginiana). For six-month trapping periods, we also documented the minimum number of individuals from 8 species of mesopredators that used the 2.6 km² trapping area. Despite low or moderate densities of mesopredators, a minimum of 48 to 55 individual mesopredators was recorded within the trapping areas, suggesting that small areas can be more intensively used than density estimates would suggest.

Cheyenne Bottoms is a Ramsar wetland site in central Kansas, where the Nature Conservancy (NC) has undertaken an effort since the mid-1990s to maintain and restore marsh and wet-meadow habitats for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. Small-format aerial photography was conducted using kites and a helium blimp in order to document changing water and vegetation conditions during the years 2002–2005. Pictures were taken repeatedly throughout the growing seasons with various film and digital cameras from heights of 100–150 m. Invasive cattails (Typha sp.) are a major concern; the spread of cattail thickets during the 1990s reduced the open marshes on which migrating shorebirds depend for feeding. The NC adopted a strategy in which drought episodes are exploited for control of cattails. During our study, a drought cycle took place. Both color-visible and color-infrared images depict the impact of changing water level on cattails, which over the course of two years (2002 to 2004) were largely eliminated from the NC marshes. Dead cattail thickets were removed subsequently (mowing and burning), and these zones were restored into open marsh that supports beneficial emergent wetland vegetation—Scirpus, Eleocharis, Sagittaria, etc. Small-format aerial photography provided high-resolution, multi-view-angle imagery that depicts the consequences of NC management practices on marsh habitat conditions.

Fruit development was examined in two lines of Tabasco pepper (Capsicum frutescens) which had previously been selected for hard-to-pick persistent fruit (HP) or easy-to-pick (EP) fruit. Four plants of each line were grown under glass. Random selections of ten flowers of each line were tagged at three or four-day intervals until the first-tagged flowers were in the “mature red” harvest condition. At that point all samples were collected and paraffin-processed for anatomical examination. Cells in the separation zone were examined morphometrically to determine the rate of sclerenchyma differentiation. Although cells in both the central and peripheral regions of the separation zone become sclerified in both lines, sclereid differentiation is faster and more complete in the HP line. In both lines sclerenchyma in the peripheral zone matured significantly faster than sclerenchyma in the corresponding central zone. Although degree of sclerification may have some role in tenacity of the HP fruit to the subtending pedicel, it does not correlate strongly with detachment force, especially in the EP line.

Asteroids that lie in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter are grouped into asteroid families based upon similar characteristics such as orbit eccentricity and inclination. The purpose of this research is to investigate the possibility of another determining factor for asteroid family classification. It has been shown that objects in space undergo a degree of space weathering due to constant bombardment by particles of interplanetary dust and micrometeorites, resulting in a definite reddening in the optical properties of the surface of the object. An age-color relationship for asteroids has also been proven to exist. Thus, it is hypothesized that, since asteroids of the same family result from the same collision, they have the same age and have been subjected to the same degree of space weathering. The degree of redness of an astrophotograph, as indicated by RGB analysis, should remain relatively constant for asteroids within the same family. To test this hypothesis, a sampling group consisting of three asteroids from each of three of the eight major families was photographed at the Powell Observatory in Louisburg, KS. Image analysis was performed to determine if there is a distinct correlation between the magnitude of the red component of the images and the family designation, as predicted. The numerical results obtained show that, based on the color data obtained, no clear predictor for asteroid family was evident.