What did I do this week? I can't remember. They say science is all about trial and error. It’s more like error, error, error, error and maybe a few trials that succeed. Let’s just say this week has given me a newfound respect for people who study ocean acidification.
I began behavior trials this week, and they didn't go how I thought it would. Which was both good and tiresome thing. I originally planned on exposing crabs to two different pH targets which were 7.4 and 7.8 for at least five days. I was going to use these crabs in my behavior trials, which was testing how long the crabs took to reach a piece of food that was placed upstream from them, and comparing the two different pH treatments. The crabs were unable to reach the food at all. It was interesting to see that most of them were unable to find the food. I decided to use the crabs that have not been pre-conditioned and were being kept in the sea table in our lab at an ambient pH. I did a short exposure to the different pH treatments just by flowing 7.4 or 7.8 water through the behavior arena. There was an average of 81 seconds take to reach the food by the 7.8 crabs and and average of 131 seconds taken by the 7.4 crabs to reach the food. So it is cool to see that there may be some difference in their behavior by exposing them to a different pH in such a short amount of time. But on a lighter side. The REU's are winding down our last weeks together and taking advantage of all the time we have left. This past weekend, in between poster parties we had one of our last bonfires down at OIMB beach. I watched someone roast a starburst? It gets crispy on the outside after it cools, but stays gooey on the inside. Some do recommend, but please proceed with caution. I think my favorite part of my weekend though, was getting a chance to have dinner with Aaron and his family. We had some amazing chicken and bratwursts, all grilled by the legend himself. We just talked about all the cool research opportunities and life itself. He also bought us Dairy Queen on the way back to OIMB.
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AuthorHannah is an undergraduate student at UCLA studying Marine Biology and minoring in theater. She's just a gal who wants to be an adventurer both in the outdoors and her research. Check out her blog! Archives
August 2019
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