The importance of interdisciplinary research about crayfish: A conversation with Hampton Kennedy

Hampton Kennedy was between jobs when he came across an opportunity for the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Research Participation Program Fellowship. The fellowship blended history – Hampton is a history teacher – and ecology in that it focused on the history of signal crayfish in Montana. In this episode of the ORISE Featurecast, Hampton talks about the process of investigating the history of signal crayfish. Few studies had been done prior to this project, but determining whether signal crayfish are a native species or were introduced affects how ecologists manage their presence. Hampton found mentions of crayfish in the journals of explorers Lewis and Clark, and thought his work was done, but the reference wasn’t of the creature in question. Hampton and his mentor, Susan Adams, Ph.D., published a paper on their research, which can be found here: https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wat2.70014