Robert Cooper and Brad Shaffer in The Scientist: Severe Drought, Heat Upended Research This Summer
A study by Robert Cooper and Brad Shaffer is featured in a News & Opinion piece in The Scientist describing how researchers scramble to adapt as bouts of severe heat and aridity increasingly become the norm.
Drought conditions, especially the absence of typical January rains, “wreaked havoc” on an experiment that used artificial ponds in Fort Ord, California, to compare and contrast the mating and feeding behaviors of native versus invasive salamanders in ponds that dry out after varying amounts of time.
In the end, Cooper and Shaffer managed to salvage the experiment, but only by modifying its scope and by spending a lot more money to get water trucked to their remote study site.