Smithsonian Institution, Butterfly & Moth Biodiversity and Insect Surveys Internship, Summer 2024
Every summer, The Bill Lane Center for the American West offers many opportunities for Stanford undergraduates (including graduating seniors and co-terms) to work with organizations throughout the West. Through these internships, students can explore careers in natural history, conservation, land use, museum curation, resource management, energy and more.
All internships are full-time for nine to ten weeks during the summer. They are fully funded by the Lane Center with stipends ranging from $7,500 to $10,000.
The Lane Center has placed hundreds of interns in positions across the West since 2005. It has developed strong relationships with host organizations and works hard to ensure interns have successful and enriching experiences.
For more information about the internship program, please visit the FAQs page, or email Education Manager Corinne Thomas.
Details about the summer 2023 cohort of student interns and their placements can be found here.
Student reflections about the internship experience can be found by visiting the Out West student blog and the Lane Center Instagram channel.
Stipend Information:
The Bill Lane Center will provide a base stipend of $7,500 with additional funding for student financial aid and location, if applicable, up to $10,000.
PLEASE NOTE: The selected individual will be required to undergo a recruitment process with the Smithsonian Institution to allow them field vehicle privileges and sponsored travel (additional travel within the bounds of the internship).
Description of the Agency and the Internship:
The Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum, education, and research complex, encompasses 21 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park, and nine research centers. The Smithsonian is a national and world treasure and is dedicated to its founding mission, “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
This internship has two projects: butterfly and moth biodiversity and insect and plant responses to Mormon cricket control.
Project on Butterfly and Moth Biodiversity:
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is looking to carry out modern biotic inventories of some of their more ecologically significant tracts in SW and SE Idaho. Initial goals will be to collect baseline surveys of moth populations using blacklight trap samples and caterpillar surveys. The BLM is especially interested in identifying important conservation targets on their lands known to have significant vertebrate and plant taxa.
The caterpillar sampling will emphasize the collection, rearing, and photography of caterpillars. An important aspect of the caterpillar surveys will be to document the tri-trophic interactions between caterpillars, their hostplants, and parasitoids. Over the course of summer, interns will learn basic plant identification, DNA barcoding (for caterpillar and parasitoid identification), and macrophotography, and have an opportunity to interact with entomologists, botanists, and wildlife biologists.
Data from the survey will be used to inform conservation and BML management decisions, yield baseline data on insect diversity and abundance in the region, and ecological studies examining trophic specialization (diet breadths) and food web structures across latitudinal gradients.
Additionally, much of the caterpillar and moth data will be used as the basis for species accounts for a book on the “Caterpillars of Western North America” to be published by Princeton University Press. Very little work of this nature has been done in Idaho, and thus the intern can expect many novel discoveries over the 9-10 weeks of the internship.
The intern would be encouraged to spend 1-2 weeks at the end of the internship in Storrs, CT, prepping 95-190 specimens for DNA barcoding. The intern would enter all metadata into a database, image the voucher specimens, collect tissue subsamples, and prepare the microplate one or two microplates for sequencing. This effort (and training) also would involve the labeling and curation of specimens, database management, as well as the interpretation of the raw sequence and generation of neighbor-joining identification trees. The intern would work in Dr. David Wagner’s lab in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UConn.
Primary responsibilities of the intern will include the deployment and collection of blacklight traps, caterpillar sampling with beating sheets, raising and photographing caterpillars, and assisting with the preparation of barcode plates that will be sent off for sequencing. The intern will also be responsible for photographing and vouchering hostplants yielding caterpillars.
Project on Insect and Plant Responses to Mormon Cricket Control:
In this project, the intern will assist a graduate student with a Smithsonian-led project examining orthoptera, ant, and plant responses to use of carbaryl bait for Mormon cricket control. Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids) are dominant herbivores in many grassland habitats, with implications for plant biomass, plant communities, and nutrient cycling. A subset of Orthoptera species go through periodic dramatic increases in population which have the potential to decrease the amount of forage available for livestock. Aerial applications of insecticides is a common method used to control orthoptera when densities are high. However, recent policy may result in a switch from aerial spraying to use of vehicle-deployed carbaryl bait in public lands with populations of Sage Grouse.
Control of Mormon crickets on public lands in Idaho has been implemented using carbaryl bait as the primary control mechanism for a number of years. Sites in Idaho provide a useful gradient spanning sites treated with carbaryl bait in the current year to sites treated several years prior. The study will also include control sites where there has been an absence of insecticide use. Both treated and untreated sites will be sampled to test both basic questions of system responses when insects are reduced, and applied questions regarding the effects of carbaryl bait on target and non-target insects. Sites will be located on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land in SW Idaho and selected based on current knowledge of the insecticide applications conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS).
The intern will assist a graduate student with sweep net surveys to assess grasshopper species composition and ring counts to access grasshopper densities. To collect data on species composition and density of ants, a non-target taxa that is a key seed disperser, the intern will assist with capture ants using baited vials. The intern will help conduct both plant biomass surveys, using a pasture meter, and plant nutrient surveys by clipping aboveground plant biomass. This study will be of direct benefit to inform future policy of the Idaho Bureau of Land Management in deciding when and how to treat public lands for Mormon cricket control.
Internship Work Environment:
This is an in-person internship. The intern will work as part of a small team. This will include a combination of outdoor and indoor work. Outdoor conditions will expose candidates to various challenges associated with working in a prairie/sagebrush ecosystem including biting-insects, rattlesnakes, extreme heat, sun-exposure, and primitive road conditions. All candidates must be prepared to handle these challenges and maintain a positive attitude throughout the duration of the internship.
Housing:
Housing will be provided for the field component of this internship at a Bureau of Land Management bunkhouse in rural SW Idaho.
No family housing is available for this internship. Housing is in a shared setting with common living room, kitchen, and bathroom facilities in a furnished house or small dormitory-style building.
This is a REMOTE location, so candidates should be prepared to live and work closely with a small group in an isolated setting, including other interns who may be working on different projects. Trips to town will be limited. Cell phone and internet service will be available.
Interns may be expected to share a bedroom with one other person. Each person is responsible for cleaning their own space and common areas, as well as removal of all trash and recycling. There are laundry facilities onsite. Pets are not allowed in shared housing.
Transportation:
Once in Idaho, the intern does not need to have a personal vehicle, as a work vehicle will be provided. However, the intern may wish to have a personal vehicle to increase opportunities to explore the surrounding area during off-time.
Location: Owyhee County, Idaho: rural southwestern Idaho during fieldwork. The two final weeks of the project may be spent at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut, curating field-collected moths.
- Assist with orthoptera and ant sampling
- Collect plants and measure plant biomass
- Collect moths using black light traps; Collect, image, and raise caterpillars
- Sort and curate collected insects; Enter and organize data
- Assist with maintenance of equipment
Bill Lane Center internships are part of Cardinal Quarter opportunities and students from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. The opportunities are full-time (35-40 hours a week) for 9-10 consecutive weeks during the summer.
Specific start and end dates can be coordinated directly with the supervisor.
All undergraduates of any year, including graduating seniors, are eligible. Graduating seniors are eligible only if they are graduating in spring quarter. Students who have already graduated, e.g., fall or winter quarter of this academic year are not eligible.
Coterms are eligible only if they hold undergraduate status.
For more application advice, please visit the BLC’s FAQs page.
Please note:
- Students are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise) during this full-time, summer internship.
- Student athletes should confirm the impact of any awarded stipend on their athletic eligibility by contacting the Compliance Services Office prior to committing to an internship.
- New Stipend Policy per the U.S. Department of Education: A stipend is considered a resource and it may have an impact on a student’s financial aid. To comply with US Department of Education regulations, student payments, awards, prizes, and gifts that are made available to the student because they are a Stanford student, must be reported to the Financial Aid Office. The Financial Aid Office is responsible for the disbursement of stipend funds to undergraduates. For more information, please visit the Financial Aid Office's webpage about the student stipend policy.
Application Guidelines for this Internship:
PLEASE NOTE: The selected individual will be required to undergo a recruitment process with the Smithsonian Institution to allow them field vehicle privileges and sponsored travel (additional travel within the bounds of the internship).
This is a very remote internship so students must be independent.
The program is designed for undergraduates beginning to explore career options, and frosh through seniors are welcome to apply.
Required Skills:
-
Be enthusiastic about drylands insects and plants
-
Have a driver’s license that is valid in the US
-
Must be able to live and work in a remote setting with a small group
-
Be prepared to work outdoors in challenging conditions including biting-insects, rattlesnakes, extreme heat, sun-exposure, and primitive road conditions
-
Be able to conduct physical activity including a lot of walking in challenging outdoor conditions, lifting and carrying heavy equipment, bending, and cleaning
-
Be willing to spend long hours in the lab processing insect and plant samples
-
Have strong communication skills and be respectful to all team members
-
Be able to follow safety guidelines
Desired Skills:
-
Knowledge of plant and/or insect identification, especially if relevant to southwestern Idaho
-
Field or lab experience with an ecology or entomology project
-
First aid training
-
Interest in pursuing a career in entomology, ecology, or conservation
Selection of applicants:
Complete applications are screened and finalists are contacted for a first-round interview with staff from the Bill Lane Center for the American West.
The top candidates for the position are then forwarded to the organization for second-round interviews with their potential supervisor and other staff.
Host organizations will then notify the Lane Center of their preferred candidate and that applicant will receive an internship offer from the Bill Lane Center by email.
The applicant is expected to respond promptly (within 48 hours) via email to the offer or the offer will be rescinded.
Once an applicant accepts an offer, they are required to promptly notify all other Stanford and non-Stanford programs to which they have applied that they have accepted another offer and withdraw their candidacy from those other opportunities.