Hey ya'll,

I am a senior animal science major graduating soon in May! I did a research internship with Wayne Ohnesorg at the Madison County Extension office in Norfolk, NE. I worked with him on his PhD project. His project was to show if there would be beneficial arthropod movement into an adjacent crop field from a prairie based off of how many times the native prairie was cut. If it was cut once twice or not at all how that would affect their movement. I was with him for two years of his project. I went out and set up the plots and I collected all of the insects using different types of traps. I learned so much about insects when we began to identify them under the microscope. I got to see up close and personal all the different shapes, size, and colors of these different insects. I was amazed to find out just how hard it is identifying insects. They get as detailed as a hair on their tooth to identify them! Studying different insects also helps with animal science in regards to disease control and beneficial or harmful insect knowledge to certain animals. For instance if horses eat too much of blister beetles they will die. It is important to learn about insects to be able to properly manage animals or be involved in animal science. I began to spark an interest in entomology and thus lead me to the entomology 115 class at UNL.

Thank you for listening,

Jenna Brown