Environmental Internship Program - 2023 Booklet

PROJECT TITLE
Climate-change Mediated
Evolutionary Shifts in a
High-alpine Hibernating
Mammal
ORGANIZATION(S)
vonHoldt Lab,
Department of Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology,
Princeton University
LOCATION(S)
Rocky Mountain
Biological Laboratory,
Gothic, Colorado
MENTOR(S)
Bridgett vonHoldt,
Associate Professor of
Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology, Princeton
University; Daniel
Blumstein, Professor,
Department of Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology,
University of California,
Los Angeles; Stavi
Tennenbaum, Ph.D.
candidate, Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology,
Princeton University
Emma Demefack ’26
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
I worked as a field technician and research
assistant on the Marmot Project, a historic study
that began in 1962 and is one of the world’s
longest-running studies of mammals in the wild.
At the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in
Gothic, Colorado, I worked alongside a highenergy
field team of undergraduates, graduate
students and postdoctoral researchers. My
day-to-day responsibilities included taking
behavioral observations, trapping and handling
live animals, collecting biological samples such
as blood and feces, performing timed running
trials, taking morphological measurements,
processing samples and managing our database.
Additionally, I collected data to study the
genomic responses of hibernating marmots
to climate changes in high-alpine meadows
in the Rocky Mountains. This meant focusing
on drawing blood and preserving the blood’s
RNA. Although the fieldwork was challenging,
I ultimately found it very rewarding. I learned
valuable technical fieldwork skills and a
better understanding of high-alpine ecology,
specifically within mammals. As a result, I
now have a deeper curiosity about studying the
evolutionary biology of other animals.
BIODIVERSITY AND
CONSERVATION
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