Slowly but surely, more questions on my project are surfacing in my mind. That seems to be the way it works for me, I have to wait for thoughts to drift up from the deep, like migrating larvae coming up to feed in the photic zone of the ocean. On that note... I am still trying to prove whether or not my species Strongylocentrotus fragilis (fragile pink sea urchin) have the potential to vertically migrate towards the photic zone, or if they simply cannot tolerate such temperatures and pressures in the first place. Also we will still be comparing both sea urchin species to sea what differences lie in the larvae and adult urchin forms. It seems that we have been sitting and reading too long the past couple weeks, so my lab partner and I finally decided to get a move on with our experiments. Matt is going around collecting shrimp skeletons from out the back of the fishery across the street for his detrital matter (turns out that detritus in the ocean attaches itself to marine skeletons before drifting to the sea floor), and I am in the process of another temperature experiment. I am being sure to pay particular attention to larvae left behind in the pipette or vials that we are conducting the experiment so we can get a true count of the mortality rates after each experiment. Below is an image of one of our new and improved methods for counting the mortality rate of our sea urchin larvae after a 24 hour temperature experiment. We did not use this at first because the water would stay in place while you moved the device (rotating around its center). After my thought process combined with Craig's, I thought to fashion clay bits into the well of the plate, sectioning off 4 area for 4 separate larvae vials. The water fitted perfectly and I could quickly move through 20 vials of larvae, 400 larvae total. Another spin on this second experiment, I have been seeing dead larvae this experiment!- Compared to the previous experiment, where I was only seeing live larvae, and not even the whole amount of 20 larvae that I intentionally put in the vials to begin with… So it’s looking like the first data collection was a trial run, which is just fine because we are getting exponentially more efficient with our experimental process anyhow. Our methods improvement is helping motivate me to conduct more experiments. I hope to provide enough thorough information to draw the most accurate analysis as possible. Craig young’s lab is notorious for polished and finely detailed work it seems, I hope to live up to that expectation. The community and social life here is still great, everyone in the internship seems to be getting along and we are planning another bonfire on the beach tonight! I really do love having such a supportive community, it makes times in between lab that much more enjoyable. Stay tuned, data will soon be analyzed, and we may have a sneak peak into some answers of my many questions!
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AuthorMy name is Kaylee Wilkinson, I am both a student, and am currently employed by Lane Community College in their wet lab for marine biology research. I serve as a coral husbandry assistant and tank-scape artist. I enjoy sciences where you can dive into the "unknown", being in Craig Young's lab is perfect for such interests. I am thankful for Dr. Young and his graduate students to have taken me in as an REU intern this summer, they have been very enjoyable to work with! Archives
August 2019
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