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.
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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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