Hartwick’s Kuhlmann to Present Next Faculty Lecture
Hartwick College Professor of Biology Dr. Mark Kuhlmann will present “The Octopus’s Garbage, and Other Tales of Marine Research,” the next installment of the 2017-18 Faculty Lecture Series. The event will take place Friday, April 6 at 3:30 p.m. in Eaton Lounge, Bresee Hall, on the College campus. The lecture is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Kuhlmann’s presentation will cover recent research, in collaboration with students, on predatory behaviors of the common octopus, Octopus (O.) vulgaris, at San Salvador Island, the Bahamas. Shallow-water octopods like O. vulgaris den in crevices during the day and dispose of the remains of much of their prey (i.e. snail and clam shells, crab exoskeletons) outside the den in a trash pile or “midden”; collecting and identifying these remains provides a reasonable estimate of an individual octopus’s diet.
The research team initially focused on characterizing how diet and diet specialization vary among individuals and among habitats. More recent projects are exploring other aspects of octopus foraging ecology, such as prey handling behavior, and the effect of human fishery discards (conch shells) on the distribution of octopuses.
Kuhlmann earned a B.S. Biology from Hope College, Holland, MI, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Biological Science from Florida State University. He is a marine and aquatic field biologist with interests in the behavioral, population, and community ecology of invertebrates and fishes. He is currently conducting research projects on the behavioral and population ecology of crayfish in local streams and on octopus in the Bahamas.
Throughout the Faculty Lecture Series, Hartwick professors discuss recent research in their fields, focusing on physics, politics, religion, art, economics, biology, psychology, and more. The presentations take place on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays throughout the academic year.
For more information on the Faculty Lecture Series, contact Associate Professor of Political Science Dr. Amy Forster Rothbart at 607-431-4865 or forsterrotha@hartwick.edu.