Exploring the Effects of Invasion on Plant Morphology in Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria)
Alex Krohn, University of California-Santa Cruz
Invasive plant species displace native species lowering the biodiversity of their invaded range in addition to causing changes to environmental conditions such as increases in fire spread due to invasive grasses in northern California. This CURE is looking to answer questions related to whether invasive species morphological traits differ in their invaded range compared to their native range. Students will work with natural history collections to collect morphological data on invasive plant species and compare those data between native and invasive ranges. This CURE will allow students to develop skills in data collection and management, using natural history collections, mapping, and analyzing results, and presenting their findings. There are options within this CURE for different level courses in higher education with research goals such as How does morphology vary in invasive species between their introduced and original ranges?; How do attributes of the novel environment (e.g., climate, habitat, salinity etc.) influence the morphology of the invasive species?; and How has morphology changed over time?

Exploring species distribution changes and their drivers using digital natural history data
Tanya Dewey, Colorado State University
Species are usually found within a geographic range that is determined by their tolerance to physical stressors, such as temperature and moisture, and interactions with other species, such as competitors and predators. When conditions become unfavorable, individual organisms can move to a location where conditions are more favorable. Although this is a natural process, negative human impacts to the environment can exacerbate unfavorable conditions and accelerate shifts in species distributions. Introduced exotic species can alter species interactions, leading to competitive displacement and/or local extirpation of naive prey. Climate change can make physical conditions at a particular location no longer suitable for a particular species, leading to population shifts poleward or to higher altitudes. Urbanization fragments landscapes, alters local climate, and facilitates species introductions. In sum, human activities are contributing to changes in species distributions which can have further negative environmental consequences. For this CURE, students compare present species distributions, using resources such as iNaturalist or their own field observations, with historical distributions using digitized natural history collections data. By using publicly available digitized collections to answer student-led research questions, students gain ownership of the research question and free access to the data.

A CURE for invasions: mobilizing digitized natural history collections to track invasive species
Tim Whitfeld, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
This CURE was developed to introduce first year students to research using digitized natural history collections. Students will investigate how the range of an invasive species has changed over time and use this information to generate and test hypotheses about the impact on the distribution of an interacting species. Students will retrieve, clean, and annotate digitized natural history collections and/or citizen science data, map and compare the species distributions, evaluate the strength of their results, and present a summary of these explorations to their peers. Student progress will be evaluated by regular group progress reports, and one final product that communicates the entirety of the effort.

Sexual dimorphism in melanized wing patterns of Pieridae butterflies
Janice Krumm, Widener University-Main Campus
As flexibility in undergraduate educational experiences has become increasingly critical in response to the COVID pandemic and other disasters, courses that can be implemented in online formats are becoming the standard response to unpredictable educational environments. CUREs that can be implemented online are also especially important given the effectiveness of these courses in expanding access to undergraduate research experiences, especially for underrepresented groups in STEM and first generation college students. Digitized natural history collections data is a tremendous resource for online CUREs, as over a million specimen records are publicly available through online data portals to undergraduates at all institution types, leveling the playing field for students at all institution types. This CURE utilizes digitized natural history collections to provide undergraduate students with the opportunity to build scientific research skills and can be implemented entirely online. Students participating in this CURE will use digital images of Pieridae butterflies to investigate differences in the level of variation between sexually and non-sexually dimorphic melanized wing patterns. While sexual selection has been shown to play an important role in the evolution of wing patterns in butterflies, melanization is also used for thermoregulation, and can be seasonally plastic in Pieridae butterflies. Thus, patterns of wing variation in these two types of patterns will be correlated to changes in seasonality within a geographic location as well as changes in geographic distribution.