In the field this week I turned my attention back to the South Slough, conducting replicate trapping sessions at sites I have already sampled. I returned to sites in the Slough loaded up with crab traps. In my blog I tend to focus on fieldwork because of the pretty pictures, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of my day doesn’t deserve a mention. This heretofore neglected half of my day is typically spent preparing for the next session in the field, entering data into the computer from my last sampling, and thinking about how I will analyze these data to answer my research questions. Even though this part of research isn’t photogenic it is still both engaging and worthwhile! I’ve spent a lot of my time indoors formulating relevant research questions, aspects of the green crab invasion that really fascinate me. Currently I am curious as to 1) Are green crabs are more abundant in the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve than in 2016 and 2017? 2) How does the number of green crabs I catch relate to physical and chemical conditions in the estuary? and 3) Is the green crab population influencing the size of the native shore crab population? These are some pretty big questions so they require big data. I’m starting to dig into datasets from other green crab researchers to look for trends in the population in the estuary. There’s a lot of information so I’m dusting off my statistics notes, grabbing books from the library, and looking up statistics coding languages. Brushing up on this Stat will allow me to better analyze all the data I have access to and relate it back to real world questions. Above is code I wrote all by myself to analyze data I collected all by myself! Even though this is one of my more boring photos, it documents a moment in which I was thoroughly excited to apply what I learned in class to the real world.
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AuthorI’m a rising junior at the University of Pennsylvania studying ecology and evolutionary biology. When I’m not doing science I love doing pretty much anything outdoors. I’m an avid backpacker, runner, paddler and rockclimber. Finally I love to read fiction in pretty much any form. Archives
August 2018
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