Jenna Palmisano is a PhD student with the Savage Lab at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Through contact and collaboration, she has formed a "task force" of various partners across the southeast aiming to test and detect for snake diseases, in particular the invasive pentastome lungworm Raillietiella orientalis ("Ro").

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Jenna's work is aimed towards the goal of estimating the risk these parasites pose to our native snake species, focusing primarily on the small-bodied Pygmy rattlesnake (Sistrurus miliarius). She plans to assess the factors influencing both Ro and Snake Fungal Disease (SFD) at multiple levels of health, including molecular, organismal and population. 

 

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