Hudson Valley Farm Hub: Women in Ecology Series

Meg Rumplick (former Hudsonia technician) is included as one of the "Women in Ecology” portraits by Hudson Valley Farm Hub!

This series is meant to highlight “stories of women in the field of ecology”, whose “contributions, personal biographies and journeys – remain under-told or untold.” (Amy Wu, Communications Manager at Hudson Valley Farm Hub). The series features the many women who are involved in the Applied Farmscape Ecology Research Collaborative (AFERC).

Beginning in 2018, Hudsonia Ltd and Jason Tesauro Consulting LLC, in collaboration with Hudson Valley Farm Hub and Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program, began analyzing the hazards posed by farm operations to wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta). As part of this effort, Meg diligently tracked wood turtles at the Farm Hub from spring 2023 - spring 2024*.

Wood turtles, designated Special Concern in New York, lives in and near streams and rivers, and forage in riparian thickets and fields. While farms create non-forested habitats, ponds, and nesting areas, and help keep land out of more intensive uses such as residential development, wood turtles are frequently killed or injured by farm equipment and vehicles where fields are cultivated or hayed near the river. Data have been collected primarily by means of mark-release-recapture and radio-tracking wood turtles at the Farm Hub, as well as at two other farms in the Hudson Valley.

We are learning that non-farmed buffers with a certain vegetational structure allow wood turtles to bask and feed with fewer forays into farm fields. We are translating this knowledge, and other findings of our study, into recommendations for protection and management of stream buffers.

*Meg has since moved back to Long Island to continue her study of ecology closer to home. Telemetry continued at the farm in 2024, with the telemetry torch picked up by Hudsonia intern Abigail Klein and then by new Hudsonia employee Kathryn Natale.