Hi everyone, let’s talk about week five! This week I’ve spent time with some new exciting organisms! My project is coming together nicely, I have a lot more documenting ahead of me - it is exciting! On Tuesday afternoon we gave presentations on our research projects. We were all very nervous, we practiced lots and got it over with! Everyone did great. It was fun to find out about everyone’s projects more in depth. It was inspiring to see my friend’s and my own inner courage shine through our quiet-selves. The OIMB seminar on Wednesday afternoon was on basking sharks - their behavior and population dynamics by Dr. Alexandra McInturf from OSU, who is also working with the Irish Basking Shark Group. I enjoyed learning more about basking sharks, here’s a few fun facts! Basking sharks are the world's second largest fish. Plankton make up their primary food source - they don't use their hundreds of teeth for feeding! They swim with open mouths, catching plankton. This week I skinned a barnacle, as a new way to get barnacles to settle! In the field juveniles are found on the adult skin of barnacles, leading biologists to believe that larvae settle on the adult skin. Specifically for the goose-neck barnacle, Pollicipes polymerus, I dissected the skin from the stalk and super glued it to a microscope slide. Then I placed it in a container of sea water with cyprids of Pollicipes polymerus, in hopes they will settle onto the adult skin. Richard and I collected a new species of cyprid - Amphibalanus improvisus, which I will be adding to my documentation list! So far I have Balanus nubilus, Balanus crenatus, Chathalamus dali, Balanus glandula, Pollicipes polymerus, and Amphibalanus improvisus. I will need a photo of the cyprid stage and settled juvenile stage of each species, as well as a genetic barcode. Richard already has barcodes of most species. Soon I will begin learning the process of barcoding larvae! Along with the new species of cyprid, I found hundreds of snail larvae! They were incredible, I took a few photos to show you. I also photographed an image of a crab larva - Zoea, to demonstrate how odd they look. On one of my first days in the lab I’d been sorting nauplii and cyprids out of plankton for a few hours, viewing the same species for an extended period of time, when suddenly I saw a crab larva for the first time - talk about a jump scare! I also found some isopods - relatives of potato bugs (also known as “roly polies”, or “pill bugs”). I used the book “A Guide to Marine Coastal Plankton and Marine Invertebrate Larvae - D. Smith” to try and identify what type of isopod it is, and I believe it’s a Munna. This week pushed me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to see my inner courage. I look forward to my project progressing, as I collect more organisms and more data. My dad’s birthday is this Sunday, and my nephew Leif’s was on the 10th. I’ve been feeling a bit down about missing their birthdays, and my family’s annual fourth of July party - it was my first year not going. This Sunday Victoria, Chloe, Sherlyn, and I are going to the Bandon Petting Zoo! I can’t wait! Get ready for some cute animal photos next week :) See you next week! Annika
2 Comments
Hi everyone! Welcome back, to week four! This Saturday we took off on our long awaited boat trip! I’d been looking forward to it since May when I received my acceptance letter. Last September I went out into the ocean on a boat in Alaska, and never felt happier! I’ve missed the sea since then. I decided to take a dose of Dramamine - to make sure sea sickness didn’t get in the way of my fun. Unfortunately, I did not react very well to the Dramamine, and was pretty much unconscious the whole trip… I spent the rest of the day in my dorm alternating between sleeping and throwing up… definitely a lesson in taking the listed side effects seriously! I’m glad I have taken a few other boat trips previously, so I didn’t miss out too much on the experience. Thankfully the other REU’s collected many sea creatures along the trip, and brought them back to our aquarium! I’ve enjoyed visiting the creatures each morning. They are our little sea pets. We collected a baby squid during our voyage, but it wouldn’t have been able to survive, so Richard froze it to look at. We’ve had a few REU visitors throughout the week in the lab, asking to “see the frozen squid”. On Wednesday I made adult barnacle extract - to encourage settlement. The cyprids still had not settled onto the plates, and I needed them to in order begin to collecting data. Painting adult extract onto the plates has encouraged barnacle settlement in previous studies I have been reading. There is little data as to why this works, but it is believed to be caused by proteins present in the solution. I collected adult barnacles off of the marina, brought them back to the lab…. and ground them up into a yellow powdery-goo. Sorry barnacles, rest in pieces!! I ground this substance further with added sea water, until it became “barnacle juice”. I centrifuged the solution to separate the liquids from solids. I separated the liquids from solids, and fed the solid ground up barnacle remains to our sea creatures. I boiled the liquid barnacle extract for ten minutes to keep the enzymes from digesting the proteins. I painted two layers of the solution onto air-dried biofilm covered plates. I air dried the plates 30 minutes in between each of the two layers. My barnacle extract was a success! The very next morning I found a crenatus settler - the most challenging cyprid species to settle! For fun, I painted my sea plates with the Crenatus extract, to see if and what would choose to settle. Low and behold, apparently Balanus glandula are attracted to Crenatus extract! The plate is crawling with B. Glandula cyprids who have not metamorphosed yet, as well as settled juveniles! I made a batch of B. Glandula extract and C. Dali extract, and I will test how they compare in success! I’m glad I finally have some settlers to work with, and data to collect. I will continue monitoring my current settlers and documenting their development. I am collecting more cyprid species and trying to settle them, as well as testing out my barnacle extracts. I have plates out in the sea, and plates in a sea table at the lab. I'll see how settled cyprids compare with wild settled cyprids. On Wednesday I attended a seminar with Dr. James Carlton, from the Williams College-Mystic Seaport, the world’s expert on marine bioinvasions. He discussed the link between marine bioinvasions, plastic, tsunamis, storms, and coastal development. The Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011 gave him an opportunity to study the transoceanic rafting of marine organisms, as the event carried hundreds of Japanese marine species into North America, some of these species continue to arrive in 2021-2022! On Friday morning we took a trip to Qochyax Island - the tide was low enough! We climbed down a sea cliff, trecked across tidepools, and ventured into a sea cave! It was a LOT of fun!! Thanks for reading, see you next week! Annika Hi, welcome to week three! On the fourth of July the staff, students, and REU’s of OIMB shared a picnic in celebration, complete with hotdogs, cookies, fried chicken, pickles, and lots of oysters. After the picnic, Victoria, Chloe, Sherlyn and I took advantage of the sunny day, and took a hike to Bastendorff Beach. We cooled off in the icey Pacific waters, sunned on the warm sand, and collected some crabs - and sunburns! I attended a writing session with Kelly Sutherland, she discussed how to develop and utilize scientific communication skills, and gave us helpful tips on the process of writing scientific papers. I swapped proposal drafts with other students, and began my revisions. On Wednesday morning Victoria, Richard, and I took a boat trip to the North Spit to return the sand dollars and sea urchins that we had previously collected, and are no longer needed in Victoria’s research project. This week I attended a seminar featuring Dr. Susanne Brander, an ecotoxicologist from the OSU Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology. I learned what common microplastics are found here, in the Pacific Northwest, and how their size, shape, and particle type impact their ability to transfer into marine systems - and what happens if they do. I have begun practicing photographing cyprids using the compound microscope. I am raising nauplii larvae in the incubator, and feeding them the diatom Skeletonema costatum, until they molt into their cyprid form. I have cyprids in sea water filled containers with plates in the incubator, connected to a stirring rack. The plates have been sitting in a sea water filled table, collecting biofilm. The biofilm covered plate and stirring motion of the water will encourage the cyprids to settle onto the plates. I also have plates out in the sea water at the docks. I am monitoring the settled cyprids and photographing their development. I have attached some images below, so you can finally see what I am working with! Please keep in mind, these are the first images I have ever taken with the compound 'scope, and they are not great quality! I wanted to share them with you anyway, so you can get a sense of these organisms. Don't worry - better images will be coming soon! The nauplius was swimming during the photo, and is not in focus at all! I wanted to include it anyway, to allow you to visualize what a nauplius is. In the future I can use magnesium chloride to relax the organism to get a better photo. I will be learning to use adobe photoshop, how to maximize the pixels, and I will switch to a higher magnification lens. I had a lot of fun taking the photos and using the software to edit the coloration, contrast, and brightness of the photo. The goal is to get the appendages, pigment, antennae, compound eyes, and carapace all in focus. Clear images of these physical characteristics will provide a key for cyprid species identification - the species can be very challenging to tell apart! I spent a few hours working with the software until I got a clear cyprid photo with the right coloration and focus, but the time flew by! I took about 30 "rough draft" images - which ended up in the trash! I look forward to improving my skills and producing even better photos! Last weekend I had a refreshing recharge. I took a Friday night hike in the luscious green forest, it reminded me of back home. Saturday evening my REU pals and I had a girl's movie night, watching the classic, A Cinderella Story, on the library TV, which also reminded me of home. My older sisters loved that movie growing up, and we used to rewatch it all the time. Our long awaited boat trip is on Saturday the 9th! I will update you on my week IV post. (These blog posts are published onto the website on Friday at 5pm, but do not become public until Monday at 3pm. That is why my weekend updates are from the week prior, just in case you were wondering!)
Thanks for joining along on this summer’s adventure! Annika Hi everyone!
This week has been full of exciting trips, and amazing creatures. On Tuesday morning, Richard, Victoria and I took a fishing boat to a sandy beach on North Spit at low tide in search of sand dollars. We were only able to find young sand dollars, about one to three years old, about the size of a gingersnap cookie. We had a great time on our search, discovering other creatures along the way. There were many little snails, crabs, brown pelicans, and a vibrant purple sea star! I collected beautiful shells as well. We searched for areas in the sand where the diatoms had been disrupted by observing the patterns of the brown colored ridges in the sand. We then stuck our hands deep under the sand, massaging it, waiting to feel a hard sand dollar, and then pulling it out. As I was searching, wrist deep, I felt something hard, grabbed onto it - and felt a sharp PINCH! I’d accidentally unburied a crab! On Wednesday morning, the three of us took a trip to the rocky shore on the south side of Sunset Bay. We trudged through the slippery tidepools in our rubber boots with a little difficulty and a lot of fun. There were many purple sea urchins, crabs, snails, a ribbon worm, chitons, sea anemones, and beautiful purple and orange sea stars. Victoria and Richard ate small pieces of uni (sea urchin gonad) from a damaged purple sea urchin … but I abstained. Apparently they taste similar to an oyster - salty and sweet. I have been sorting through plankton under the microscope, identifying cyprids and nauplii (barnacle larvae), and sorting them by species. Nauplius VI are the last feeding stage of barnacle larvae before they develop into cyprid larvae. By collecting nauplii and raising them, I hope to increase the number of cyprids I have to work with. I am creating a photogenic key of cyprid and nauplii larval stages in coastal Oregon. This will be the first updated key since the 1981 publication. I will photograph the stages of juvenile barnacle development and include observations that will aid in identification between the different species. We have been attending professional development workshops, weekly lunches with marine biologists, and seminars. Last week we had a workshop on ethics in research. This Tuesday, our workshop was focused on writing CVs, cover letters, and resumes in the scientific community. We learned about the different career pathways in biology, and the steps of applying. On Wednesday we had lunch with Katlyn Haven, a fish biologist from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. We asked questions about her academic pathway, and her career path. Later that afternoon we attended her seminar on the groundfish fishery in Oregon, and how they are sampled. She also discussed the process of stock assessments. I hadn’t known much about the topic prior, but have always been curious. It was very interesting to learn about the effort to collaborate with both the fishermen and fish populations to attain sustainability of fish while supporting economic stability in coastal communities. On Monday we have a fourth of July picnic. On Friday morning Nicole took us tidepooling, we had a blast! Next weekend is our boat trip, I can’t wait! I’ve been looking forward to it all summer. Thanks for reading, see you next Monday at 3pm! Annika |
Author
Hi! I'm Annika, a biology student attending Lane Community College. I will be researching cyprid larvae in the Emlet lab this summer. I look forward to sharing my findings on Cyprids. I love roller skating, my eleven penpals across the globe, my two cats, two guinea pigs, and the enchanting PNW woods - my forever home.
Archives
August 2022
Categories |
Proudly powered by Weebly