Welcome back to another wonderful synopsis of my week at OIMB! We are finishing up our fourth week here, it is crazy how time flies. The week started off with Reyn showing me, Maite, and Rhoda how to perform a fatty acid extraction from some algal samples. A few weeks ago I had Reyn explain the process and now I have seen it in action. Chemistry is like magic, but there are no secrets as to how it works. I have finally gotten (mostly) all of my thoughts together and have begun my project; the working title is "Urchins: Benthic Consumers Turned Microplastic Producers". I set up the 24 glass jars, got too excited and put urchins in all of the jars when I only needed 18, oopsie! After randomly assigning the jars to 3 different groups (old rope, 3 week old rope, and new rope), I went to Bastendorff beach and walked along the water to collect many bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) blades to purge my urchins. I also grabbed some extra for the Charleston Marine Life Center (CMLC) to utilize. After the urchins were acclimated to their new environment, I fed them lots of kelp to purge their stomachs of any previous contents for their new diet of polypropylene rope. After two days, I gave them a nice heaping of rope to eat. Thus far I have only observed one urchin actively chewing on their new rope. Aaron left for Alaska this week to do some Pycnopodia work, so he left me with the exciting task of learning how to operate the Trident underwater ROV. I operated one of these ROVs back in 2019 during my Field Methods course at SBCC. Our class enjoyed using the tool so much, we based our final project on theoretically using the Trident to examine kelp/urchin densities. Having the opportunity to work with it again is a blessing! During the weekend, we watched 3rd of July fireworks with some of the other interns at Jordan and Reagans house. We had a good view of them from their yard, but it was cloudy so we could only see the bottom half of each firework that went off. Once it got too cold, we all went inside to play Jenga and Taboo. This week, some of the interns and I came together and made a delicious salmon dinner two nights in a row. We got our groceries at Grocery Outlet and they had cheap salmon filets that we could not pass on. The fish was paired with roasted colorful carrots, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, onion, and garlic. I got to make white rice for the first time in 4 weeks, it has been weird to not be cooking for myself every meal and eating in the dining hall. Maite made a delicious lemony marinade for the salmon and veggies. This was the most satisfying meal I have had since we made crab! I am excited to see what events the coming weeks have in store for us.
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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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