UTC students take geospatial research to Chile

Three UTC students and a faculty member pose for a selfie along a rocky coastline in Chile.

Dr. Azad Hossain (front) poses with students Adam Williams, Itzayana Torres Martinez and Samuel Jayroe. Photo courtesy of Dr. Gretchen Potts.

Every night of a two-week trip to Chile, students Adam Williams and Samuel Jayroe would look up at a sky so dark they could see the Milky Way.

Along with a group of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga students and faculty researchers, they stayed in a remote astrocamp tucked away in Chile’s countryside.

During the day, they hiked among shrubs and rocky hills as they collected environmental data that could help researchers better understand the degu—one of Chile’s most recognizable native animals.

The June trip gave the students the opportunity to join a research project that has been ongoing for more than 20 years.

Dr. Loren Hayes, a professor in UTC’s Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science, began studying degus in 2005. His research examines the rodents’ complex social behavior and how changing environmental conditions affect their populations.

About four years ago, Dr. Azad Hossain, associate professor and environmental geoscientist in the department, joined the project to add a geospatial science component.

Williams’ and Jayroe’s opportunity began in Hossain’s introductory geographic information systems (GIS) class.

“The first thing that Dr. Hossain said was that there was a Chile trip that he was going to be doing,” said Jayroe, a rising junior majoring in environmental science with a minor in GIS. “The very first thing that I wrote down in my notebook was ‘Chile trip,’ and I circled it.”

Both students followed up after class and spent the next several months preparing for the trip, meeting with Hossain to learn the field techniques they would use.

“We didn’t really know anything about it,” said Williams, also a rising junior environmental science major and a Brock Scholar in the UTC Honors College. “But the thought of getting to study abroad over the summer was just so cool.”

Two UTC students work with research equipment among shrubs in the dry, mountainous landscape of central Chile.

Adam Williams and Samuel Jayroe work in the field.

The research team stayed at Viento Sur Astrocamping in the rural community of Peral Ojo de Agua, a 30-minute drive from the nearest main road and 20 minutes from the study site.

“We would get up, fix breakfast and plan what we were going to do that day,” said Williams, who hails from La Vergne, Tennessee.

After a short drive, the team spread out across the study site.

Biology students trapped, measured and tracked the degus, while Williams and Jayroe focused on the landscape.

“I was doing environmental data,” Williams said. “One day I might collect soil moisture samples. Another day I might collect ground temperature and air temperature to see how that varied across the study site. We also looked at things like shrub canopy and what percentage of the ground was covered by vegetation.”

Those measurements are what researchers call “ground truth” data—information collected in the field that can be compared with high-resolution satellite imagery.

Jayroe, who came to UTC from Dyersburg, Tennessee, focused on the vegetation.

He used ArcGIS Field Maps to map different plant communities throughout the study area. The information will be used to train a model capable of identifying vegetation types across the landscape using satellite imagery.

“I would physically walk around as many different types of vegetation as possible, create polygons and record information about each one,” Jayroe said. “Then I’ll be able to train a model that can identify those different vegetation types.”

The geospatial component is a new addition to Hayes’ project.

He approached Hossain after realizing years of GPS data collected from radio-collared degus could be viewed in an entirely different way.

“A geospatial component led by Azad allows us to ask new questions about how environmental factors influence degu social living,” Hayes said. “In particular, we are able to determine how geospatial features influence where degus live. In the coming years, we hope to use geospatial tools to better understand social interactions inside of burrows.”

A small degu held in someone's hand. Dirt and grass in the background

A degu in a radio collar. Photo courtesy of Dr. Loren Hayes.

The work is especially important because degus are found only in Chile, where a prolonged megadrought has altered the landscape over the past 15 years.

With over 20 visits to Chile, Hayes saw these changes firsthand.

Among the discoveries from his two decades of research, Hayes said one degu population collapsed following an extraordinarily dry year. His team has also found that female degus benefit from living in groups during environmentally challenging years, while the animals’ social groups are far less stable than researchers once believed.

“There is a need to understand how the habitat of the degus changes over time, or how the environment is affected by changing weather conditions,” Hossain said. “There is a lot of satellite data out there that we can use. We can look not only at the current situation, but how things have changed over time so that we can predict the future habitat for degus.”

Hayes said the National Science Foundation’s International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program has allowed students like Williams and Jayroe to participate in international research for years.

“NSF IRES and other federal funding programs catalyze innovative and student-centered programs like this long-term project on degus in Chile,” he said.

Hossain said creating these opportunities for students is just as important as the research itself.

“I wanted the students to see the work in person,” Hossain said. “They had never been on a trip like this. They are getting in-depth research and it’s a very exciting thing for students at an undergraduate level.”

Williams and Jayroe are continuing to analyze the data they collected in Chile as part of their departmental honors research.

Williams, who had never traveled outside of the United States prior to the trip, said the experience made the research all the more interesting.

“It was just such a crazy experience, especially getting off the plane,” Williams said. “Stepping out of the airport, it’s like, ‘Wow, I am on the other side of the world right now.’”