Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Annika and I am transferring to UCSB this fall as an Aquatic Biology major. Typically during the summer you can find me swimming at Isla Vista beach or (trying) to catch some waves at Devereaux or Sands. At low tide you can find me looking for rocks along the sandy beaches in search for some intertidal critters. My favorite creatures in Santa Barbara are the anemones! Coming to Charleston for the summer is a drastic change in climate compared to the hot and sunny days that are typically found in Isla Vista. Remaining in a coastal town brings me a lot of comfort, I have grown up living close to the Pacific. I guess I like to keep close to this ocean, it brings familiarity to a place so different from 'home'. One luxury I will be missing is being able to swim and surf in warm waters. Nonetheless, I am excited to play in the waves here at Bastendorff with a new OIMB wetsuit and snorkel gear (thanks to our GE, Nicole) along with my gloves and booties that are bring shipped to me (thanks mom!). I have quickly and easily acclimated to living at OIMB along with my other cohorts. I have never lived in a dorm or eaten in a dining hall for more than a one week summer camp. It is nice to live and eat with new people, especially as we are coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. With classes along with everything else being held online the past year, having a schedule and different places to be physically present for is such a wonderful change of pace. In the last two weeks I have accompanied my lab-mate and mentor, Maite and Aaron, in their diving adventures. While they spend some time underwater, I act as surface support by making sure I can see the two of them in the water and preparing the boat for anything that they may bring up with them. Last week they spotted the first Pycnopodia (sunflower sea star) in Coos Bay since the Sea Star Wasting Disease (2013-2016) placed them as 'critically endangered' on the IUCN Red List (as of 2020). This week they found a different, slightly smaller, Pycnopodia (check it out here: https://twitter.com/awegalloway/status/1407439052236726277?s=20) as they collected a nice handful of purple urchins and bat stars to being back to the lab! Some of the urchins collected are going to be specimens in my project this summer. Purple urchins have recently been a threat to the integrity of kelp forests by consuming kelp at high rates, turning them into algae-less urchin barrens. I will be conducting a series of experiments on these marine "shredders", testing how much polypropylene rope they eat through every day. If urchins are shredding plastic rope like this into little pieces, they are creating microplastics that are small enough to enter the bodies of filter feeding animals (mussels, clams). These organisms are frequently consumed by humans; if filter feeders are filtering plastics, we end up consuming those plastics. I am excited to collaborate with and learn from Reyn and Aaron in the CTE (Coastal Trophic Ecology) Lab this summer.
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Annika SullivanHello blog visitors! My name is Annika Sullivan. I am from Agoura Hills, CA and have been studying at Santa Barbara City College for the last 3 years. This fall I will be attending UC Santa Barbara as an Aquatic Biology major. I have always dreamed of living in Oregon, and now I get to do so while conducting marine research at OIMB under Dr. Aaron Galloway and Dr. Reyn Yoshioka in the CTELab! Archives
August 2021
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