This week has felt unreal as everything is finishing up. I’ve been a little stressed finishing my poster (thank you Nicole for letting me re-print when the first thing I noticed about my beautiful printed poster was an error!) and I’ve also been so sad about leaving this wonderful place and these wonderful people. It hasn’t quite hit me yet that I have to leave, but I know the connections I made with the mentors, researchers, and especially the other interns and UO students will last beyond these 9 short weeks. This week was the final week of intensive crab trapping for the long-term monitoring project, so I got to visit every site again and do one final round of green crab measurements. On tuesday we caught over 300 green crabs between two sites, so I recruited some help so I wouldn’t be stuck in the lab measuring forever! Because the other interns are pretty much done, it was fun to show them a little bit of what I’ve been up to. Thank you to Sofia, Megan, Matt, Adrian, and Phillip for helping me with various things this week! I finally caught a predation event on camera! I have a time-lapse of pictures that show the full interactions. It was good to watch all the photos of various trials and confirm that the red rock was the predator, and the green crab would never also participate in predation. This helps to back up some assumptions that I was relying on, and strengthen my experiement.
On Friday we had our poster symposium, presenting all our hard work and research that we’ve done this summer. It felt good to show off our projects, and some amazing discoveries have been made this summer. I’m so impressed with the other interns projects as well, and I know we all wish we could stay and do what we love in this special community. Thank you to everyone who made this summer possible, I have been incredibly grateful for this opportunity, and already know that I have furthered my career in exciting ways! Here is my final poster with the experiment that I researched, designed, and carried out:
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On Saturday, we got to present our research/organisms of interest to the public at the Charleston Marine Life Center. It was such a great experience! So many people were really interested in crabs, and I was amazed at how many people didn’t even know that there is an invasive crab species establishing itself in the estuary near where many of them live. I really like outreach, so I was glad to interact with people and had a fun time wrangling my crabs to show them the different species. Last week I had difficulties getting all 3 species of crab in the right size and weight classes, which meant that I had quite a few red rocks that starved for 7 days. I made sure they were active and alert each day, but decided not to feed them and stick with my original procedure. It seemed to pay off as 6 of my trials that I started this week only took 1 day to culminate in a predation event! Over the course of the experiment I have learned that the red rock crabs need to be very hungry, and they need a small enough size class of prey to initiate predation. I have also become pretty good at predicting which crabs are ready to eat, and finally caught a predation on camera. Unfortunately the other cameras had battery problems or were not set correctly, so I still do not have as much visual observation as I would like. This week has really been crunch week! For the culmination of our REU internship, we hold a poster symposium to present our research projects, which is next Friday. I always forget just how much time putting together a poster really takes, and this week has been no exception. While preparing the final poster product, I am still running my last predation trials, as well as starting to collect data that measures carapace hardness. I know we all wish we had more time, because a full research project in 9 weeks is no small feat, especially when the last part has to be data analyzation and presentation. On top of all this, I came down with a pretty bad cold, so all I want to do is sleep! I decided not to trap at all this week, because going out into the field would be too taxing. Hopefully I can get enough crabs next week that I will be able to analyze some last minute data to add to my poster.
I can’t believe it’s already August! I wish I had more time to do so much more with my research project. I started by running trials that standardized for prey carapace length, then conducted trials that matched prey weight, and have now started to trials to see just how much smaller the green crabs need to be compared to the Dungeness to present an easy meal by predation from the red rock. As I have gotten to know the system more fully, I see many ways that could expand and carry forward my research concept. Of course, it is difficult to get a lot done in 9 weeks, and I think I would always want to do more, no matter how much time I was given. One thing I started this week was using game cameras to catch a predation event on film. I mentioned last week that it could give good insight into the crab interactions, and it would be nice to have the evidence on camera. The cameras I am using are equipped with IR to film at night, as the crabs appear nocturnal and commit most predation events overnight. Unfortunately, the cameras do not appear to be sensitive enough to pick up on the crab movement under water. I am trying to troubleshoot this, so hopefully next week I will have a better report. I have also come to realize the difficulties with working with live specimens. Most weeks I have had trouble catching enough of all three species. I usually have to trap at different sites to get abundant specimens in order to sift through and find enough male crabs with no missing limbs in the correct size. Early in the season I needed more red rock crabs, and have done extra trapping with crab rings off of docks to supplement. This week, I caught plenty of red rocks in the traps and crab rings, and have struggled to find Dungeness in the correct size class. Those that I bring back from the field have a slightly larger carapace width, missing limbs, or are not hard enough when I feel under their chelipeds, or claws, indicating that they may have recently molted. This means I am not able to run all 16 trials at the same time, leading to fewer results On the subject of molting and carapace hardness, I have determined that a factor in the weight difference between green crab and Dungeness of the same carapace width could be the hardness or thickness of the shell. Green crabs appear to be much better defended with a thick outer carapace. I am hoping to develop a method to measure and quantify this difference, which would indicate another factor that favors green crab survival and dominance. In other news, I got to go tide pooling on Friday! It was an early morning, but a beautiful low tide which allowed us to get out to Qochyax island, an island just off the coast near Sunset Bay. Because the tide was low enough, we crossed an exposed land bridge and explored the island. There was a tunnel through rock in the middle of the island, and many ridges and pools on the far side that were rich in invertebrates and algae. I was so happy I got to go and feel lucky to be in such an amazing place this summer. Being so busy with work, I sometimes forget the incredible sights that exist all around me, and wish I could take some time to just explore like this more often. Megan, Hannah, and I also participated in a women's surf clinic. What an awesome opportunity and we had the best time!!
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AuthorHi! My name is Renee and I am a rising junior at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. I am a double major, studying Biology and Dance. I am so excited to be a part of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology’s summer REU program and to work with Shon Schooler and the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. Archives
August 2019
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