The days are flying by, I can't believe it's been a week since we were all camping out at Cape Arago. We spent two nights at the cape with Nicole (Ph.D. student and REU guardian angel) and her partner, Tommy, who kept us well fed all weekend while we hiked around and hung out at the beach. The Oregon coast is an absolute wonder and between seeing a gray whale feeding along the kelp beds offshore and getting to eat copious amounts of s’mores by the fire each night, I was fully blissed out. Since then, Shon, Sebastian, and I have finished our tea-bag decomposition work by kayaking up into South Slough Estuary to access two remote salt marsh sites. At each of these decomposition study sites we surveyed plant species and buried triplicate tea-bag samples into the wet soils. Shon will return in the fall to dig the tea back up, dry, and re-weigh it. Any loss of mass from its original weight is a sign of decomposition and used to monitor carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling within the marsh. We mapped out our kayak route on Google Earth the following day - I’m very proud to say I made it the whole five mile trek up the waterways despite some gnarly head winds. On Wednesday we drove up the coast to setup new green crab sampling sites in the estuaries of both the Umpqua and Siuslaw rivers. These northern sampling sites will be maintained by two local volunteers that I had the pleasure of working/chatting with (One of whom was a retired entomologist/ecologist and the other a retired natural resource manager). I am happy to report that there were no green crabs collected in the traps at the Umpqua site. Siuslaw's traps brought in the BIGGEST green crab we’ve recorded yet. An absolute beaut and brute weighing in at 263.1g. Aside from all of the field excursions, I’ve been working out the details for my personal project. I plan to integrate habitat surveys into each of the 35 anticipated green crab sampling sites this summer. These surveys will be used to determine if abundance of the European green crab, Carcinus maenas, in Coos Bay can be predicted by habitat. And if so, what types of habitat provide the greatest risk of high abundance rates of the invasive species. If I can determine what habitat/s are most associated with high abundance of green crab, we can focus our mitigation efforts to high risk areas as a means of slowing their establishment within the bay. This in hand with Sebastian’s biotoxin testing would also be helpful information to share for recreational crabbing in the area.
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AuthorHello! My name is Colleen Walker. I'm a New Yorker now living in Oregon where I am pursuing an AS in Biology at Clackamas Community College. This summer I'll be studying the European green crab alongside Dr. Shon Schooler at the South Slough National Estuary Research Reserve. Archives
August 2022
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