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
2 Comments
Heather
7/11/2022 03:58:50 pm
Interesting! You make in depth science research sound like so much fun! I can tell you have a passionate enjoyment of it. Thank you for sharing so much of your week
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Annika
7/12/2022 01:14:55 pm
Thank you 💚
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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.
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