Dr. Karen Cangialosi

Teaching

I teach several Biology majors courses at Keene State College including BIO 110 Molecules and Cells, BIO 345 Animal Behavior, BIO 333 Invertebrate Zoology, and BIO 210 Ecology. All of these courses are taught with an integrated lab-lecture approach allowing flexibility in course content and lab/field activities. I also incorporate online components and use some Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Pedagogy in my courses. My non-majors courses include INBIO 300 Evolution and Human Behavior (an online class), and INBIO 104 Tropical Marine Biology. The Tropical Marine Biology course includes a field trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands where students explore coral reefs and associated marine environments through SCUBA diving, snorkeling and kayaking. (See Biology Program Highlights for more information).

Research

Spider Behavior

I have used spiders as a model system for addressing questions in behavioral ecology for many years. Most of my recent work has been an in depth investigation of the foraging strategies of spiders in the genus Neospintharus. Neospintharus trigonum is a common species in the forests of New Hampshire. This species is unique as it exhibits a wide repertoire of foraging behaviors including kleptoparasitism (food theft), host predation, scavenging, web stealing and even the construction of its own web for independent foraging. My students and I have worked on examining the variety of environmental, genetic and developmental factors that may influence foraging strategy. Several Keene State College students involved in this research have presented their work at the Keene State College academic excellence conference as well as at national meetings of the American Arachnological Society and the Animal Behavior Society.

Coral Reef Monitoring

I have been teaching Introductory Tropical Marine Biology on the island of Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands since 2001. The more time I spent on Provo, the more I realized the importance of doing conservation work on the island. Together with my colleague in the Biology department, Dr. Scott Strong, we began a reef monitoring program in 2008.

While one of the goals of our program is to collect annual data on the abundance and quality of marine life, another important goal is educating and involving local youth. We work with students from the Clement Howell High School on Providenciales. These students practice snorkeling, learn basics in reef monitoring, fish and invertebrate identification, and coral reef ecology. Using standardized protocols from the international organization, Reef Check, we have surveyed the number and size of certain indicator fish species such as groupers, snappers, parrotfish, butterfly fish, moray eels, and grunts. We have also counted the number of lobster, banded coral shrimp, sea urchins, triton, flamingo tongue snails and gorgonian corals. Finally, we census the type of substrate at every half meter point such as sand, rock, coral, sponge, etc. We also take note of any damage, trash, coral disease and bleaching.