Week five and my chitons are still alive –well, some of them at least. This past week I spent time taking advantage of good low tides to collect more adult chitons to spawn. I started doing some experiments with larvae I raised from their spawning. For my first experiment, I looked at whether calcium concentration affects the formation of the mysterious crystals. Across the different calcium concentrations (0.001, 0.0001, and 0.00001 Ca [normal seawater 0.01 M Ca) all larvae have their mysterious crystals and there didn’t seem to be an effect of Ca. Unfortunately, pesky ciliates infiltrated my controls so I lost nearly all my control larvae. I wish I had my controls, not only to make a relevant comparison, but also because my larvae in the other treatments did not grow their calcium carbonate spicules (Figure 1). This is interesting because spicule development usually precedes the formation of these crystals. It may mean calcium carbonate is not a part of the makeup of these crystals. However, I still am going to try a small-scale experiment to test the repeatability of what I saw (this time with controls that will live!). Additionally, I took a stab at putting larval chitons in acidified seawater (affectionately nicknamed “boneless chicken water”) to see if I can dissolve the spicules (calcium carbonate) without dissolving the mysterious crystals and keeping the animals alive. For the most part it seems to work, after four hours in the boneless chicken water, the chiton’s spicules are gone but the crystals appear to remain (Figure 2). The animals survived the treatment but after ~10 hours back in regular seawater, the crystals appear in scattered clumps within the animal and it is hard to be confident that what I see are actually the crystals. Regardless, this result is showing me that the crystals do not behave the same as the calcium carbonate spicules. This is a step in the right direction for what I am going to use boneless chicken water for: to dissolve the shells of juvenile chiton, which prevent crystal observation crystals. Hopefully, I can use this to see how long crystals persist after settlement. Outside of dissolving calcium carbonate and mourning the loss of replicated controls, I have started a collection of pictures with sculpins out of water. It is in its infancy but please enjoy some zany fishes!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a rising fourth year at Villanova University in Pennsylvania from San Diego, California. I enjoy going tidepooling and making music. I'm looking forward to a great summer at OIMB! Archives
August 2021
Categories |
Proudly powered by Weebly