Grasslands and grasshoppers
Judith Gomez (she/her)
Major: Biology, '29
Hometown: Porterville, California
Internship: Kansas State Grassland Insect Community Ecology Internship
Judith Gomez reflects on her summer spent out on the Kansan prairie, researching grasshoppers and gaining insight into the field of ecology.
The sun had already set, and it was getting dark. It was a little past 9 p.m. as our pickup truck stopped at the border of N4D, a bison-grazed watershed at Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS). A PhD student and I jumped out of the truck with our UV flashlights in hand. We would spend the next hour and a half searching for grasshoppers we had tagged with fluorescent markers during the day. By the time we finished, the night sky was illuminated with thousands of stars (even as distant light pollution marred our view).
The next week, I awoke at the crack of dawn to get ready. By 6 a.m., I, along with another PhD student, were already at N1A, another watershed at KPBS. We were collecting pitfall traps we had set up a couple of days earlier, setting out early to beat the exceptionally humid summer heat. Here, we were again greeted by a gorgeous sight. The peaceful sunrise made the prairie grasses shine across the Flint Hills.
“There’s no place like home,” as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz claimed, except maybe, in my case, Kansas. I grew up in California’s Central Valley, but something about Manhattan, Kansas, and the surrounding areas, where my summer internship takes place, feels so nostalgic. Agricultural fields that stretch for miles, occasionally interrupted by small towns, are a hallmark of both regions. Looking out at the hills and sky, I’m constantly greeted with this sense of familiarity.
Of course, the familiarity isn’t the only appeal of my summer. Working for the Welti Arthropod Ecology Lab at Kansas State University has given me a host of fascinating and important experiences.
As mentioned, I spend a lot of time out at KPBS. Not only am I working on my own project tracking grasshopper dispersal, but I'm also helping the graduate students with their own data collection. Aside from the pitfall traps, I’ve helped with sampling soil, bagging wildflowers, weighing bison pies, and, my personal favorite, catching grasshoppers! There’s also plenty of work to be done in the lab once we gather these samples. I’ve sorted captured bugs by family, aided in heat tolerance experiments, and most interestingly, dissected female grasshoppers to count their ovarioles.
All of this work is aimed towards understanding how insect communities change and evolve over space and time, with an emphasis on grasshoppers. However, it’s become apparent to me that working in entomology is not restricted to solely working with bugs. I came into this internship thinking it would help me find my niche — the one thing I want to devote my career to. And yet, I’ve realized that mindset is incredibly confining. The amazing researchers I’ve been working with are not solely “bug experts,” but full-fledged ecologists, engaging in many different disciplines to understand the effects of climate change and insecticides on insect populations, as well as quantifying the ecosystem services they provide in tallgrass prairies.
Beyond these direct field/lab experiences, I’m also learning a lot by simply speaking to those around me. My mentor, Ellen Welti, and fellow researchers, have shared their educational and professional journeys, and not one of them had the same path. They each have their own unique backgrounds that they bring to the table, and they’re able to share their specific expertise. Moreover, through engaging in citizen science initiatives such as North American Butterfly Association’s butterfly counts and volunteering at the local discovery center, I’m discovering my passion for science outreach and education.
Honestly, I couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend the last eight weeks. Working for the Arthropod Ecology Lab has been an insightful and unforgettable experience, and Kansas has truly become like a second home. This summer has reinforced my desire to pursue a career in ecology, not just to protect biodiversity across the American West, but across the planet.
