This past weekend consisted of roughly 12 hours being spent in the library on Saturday working on Calculus 2. Riveting, I know. Sunday was a more interesting day, however, starting off with Colleen and I attending one of Sylvia Yamada’s talks on European Green Crabs. This was a treat, as Sylvia is an expert on the organisms. She was here at OIMB to give a talk to the marine bioinvasions course taught by Jim Carlton, another superstar in the marine invasives world. She took the class out to show them the trapping process, and allowed me and Colleen to take back the crabs to measure for the regular South Slough monitory data collection. I learned a lot from her in such a short time. The rest of the day consisted of more math work. Volleyball with a lot of the OIMB students and some of the other interns has been another very welcomed way to pass time. Out of every sport to play recreationally, volleyball has got to be my third favorite (wrestling and racquetball are one and two, respectively). Over the week, the trials of my study have begun! The results have not necessarily been what I was hoping to see, but that is not what science is about. I did ten trials, and found that the crab went into the LED lit trap three times, went into the dark trap twice, and simply stayed inside of the tub five times. I was hoping to find overwhelming evidence of attraction to light, but no such luck. I will continue some more testing to see if the crabs are behaving as expected within the experimental setup, however, to validate the results of this testing. I will use the same setup, but this time will be using bait in one trap, and nothing in the other, akin to the light setup I previously described. We can safely assume that a crab will go towards the bait versus no bait when given an option, so if we see this, then we know the design apparatus is not an issue and that the crabs simply seem to not be attracted to the light! Thursday went nothing like I had imagined it would. Colleen and I had to walk up the street to Chuck’s Seafood, where we typically grab the tuna offcuts that we use as bait for the green crab trapping. Usually, the workers put the offcuts to the side for us over the hours they work throughout the day. Today, however, Colleen and I were left to our own devices, and were dug through a container of dead tuna, removing the guts and skin of the fish with our hands. Gnarly. On the bright side, Richard taught us about some gelatinous blobs that we found growing on some green crabs. What we initially thought were some weird growths, turned out to be a genus of bryozoan called Alcyonidium! It’s fascinating how much people, like Richard, know about biodiversity to be able to identify something so small, so fast.
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An eventful week has passed since my last blog post. On the morning of Saturday, July 9th, myself and the other interns found ourselves on the R/V Pluteus, the research boat here at OIMB. The boat ride started a little chaotic, with a near crash in the marina, but it was (relatively) smooth sailing from there on out. The goal of our ride was to dredge the ocean floor to catch invertebrates for our examination, and to bring them back to campus. As excited as I was for this, my body had other plans. I felt a little under the weather on the boat ride out to the sight for dredging but as soon as we had stopped moving, the up and down motion of the boat set in, and my stomach contents wanted out. I had to lay down, even falling asleep at one point, but catastrophe was averted. The overall experience was very cool despite the sickness - seeing the coast of Oregon from the water, helping out on the boat, and holding starfish. I had another, much quicker boat experience this week, as well. I helped Adam, one of the environmental monitoring specialists here with a sonde run, replacing a probe that's used to collect information about the water, such as temperature, salinity, turbidity, pH, and more. No sickness this time, plus I got to learn more about how boats work up close. All around great time. Outside of my experiences with OIMB, I also have started taking Calculus II online, hence the “notes” section of the title. It has admittedly been rough, but hey, I’m here to learn. This week was one of our field work intensive weeks over here for the green crab monitoring program with South Slough (The “coats” part of the title comes in here, as I wear a black rain coat every time we sample - It’s a bit of a stretch, but cut me some slack, three rhymes is cooler than two).We set and collected our traps throughout Coos Bay and South Slough every morning, releasing native species, and taking the green crabs back. It’s cool to see how much quicker Colleen and I have gotten with the process. I’ve grown quite fond of the crabs we catch, as well. This time when we catch the crabs, however, we are no longer immediately euthanizing them by freezing. They’re now being used for my study! In short, the crabs are being put in a tub where they will be subjected to two choices - a trap that has an LED light, and a trap that has no light- to see if they’re attracted to the lights. If they are attracted, studies will be done to figure out which color of LED they are attracted to the most by allowing them to choose between two colors. The experimental apparatus looks quite goofy. Colleen pointed out that it looks like a minion, and I have not been able to unsee it since. I’ll update y’all with some results next week! The crabs will still be euthanized, by the way. Just after the testing. Invasive species, and all. The weekend of the fourth has passed. It was a much needed time to recharge after a stressful and eventful week. On Saturday Catalina, Flynn, Sherlyn, Ytxzae and I used the taxi service for the first time to go out to Coos Bay. We hit the grocery store where I reupped on some much needed toiletries, stood in the drive through of a Dutch Bros (there is no inside, living the true West Coast experience), and hit up 7 Devils Brewery Co. for a late lunch. I don't remember much of Sunday, though I think I spent that day finishing up Ozark and kicking it back. Monday, the day of the fourth, the wonderful dining hall staff cooked us up a much appreciated picnic with fried chicken, and hot dogs. Some of us went over to OIMB beach and soaked up the (rare) UV index 9 sun. Despite the warmth, the ocean was still cold enough to make my feet numb just about instantly. In other news, the inevitable has happened - I had to change my project. I am disappointed I had to move away from the biotoxin testing, but it allowed a new project to be developed. I really enjoyed the process of using ELISA kits and the patience, focus, and precision that they require of you. Maybe one day I'll get another try with them. My new project is taking me in quite a different direction. While digging through some literature related to crab traps, I found a study that used LED lights in addition to, or in place of bait when trapping snow crabs. They found that when only an LED light with no bait is used, the catch rates were similar to a trap using bait! These findings inspired my new study. My new study is going to consist of two parts. First, a behavioral study where we will determine what color of LED lights the crabs are attracted to. I will have more information on this in the following weeks, as I build the setup, and flesh out the methods! The findings of the behavioral study will then be used in a field study. I will be doing a similar setup to our normal trapping routine, but at each site will be using traps with our normal tuna baits, traps with only LED lights and no bait, and traps with dog food as bait. This will help us to compare their catch rates and determine what works most effectively for the convenience each type of "bait" offers. My new study is going to consist of two parts. First, a behavioral study where we will determine what color of LED lights the crabs are attracted to. I will have more information on this in the following weeks, as I build the setup, and flesh out the methods! The findings of the behavioral study will then be used in a field study. I will be doing a similar setup to our normal trapping routine, but at each site will be using traps with our normal tuna baits, traps with only LED lights and no bait, and traps with dog food as bait. This will help us to compare their catch rates and determine what works most effectively for the convenience each type of "bait" offers.
The goal of this study is to help streamline the baiting methods used. While the tuna scraps used at the moment are effective, they are smelly, require freezing and thawing, and could drive away potential volunteers who (very understandably) don't want to take scissors to tuna intestines from helping. The ability to use either cat food (much more pleasant), or LED lights (reusable, cheaper in the long run than cat food), could help make a difference in green crab trapping for management or research purposes. I am very excited about the LED idea, if you could not tell. The past weekend we went camping at Sunset Bay State Park. We got there on Friday, the 24th of June, and stayed through Sunday. We spent some great time outdoors surrounding the bonfire, listening to good music, and getting to know each other a bit better. A beach day was in store for us on Saturday after a beautiful hike through the park. It was a landscape unlike I've seen before coming from Pennsylvania. Dazzling cliffs overlooking the ocean, seals and sealions littered on rocks, and massive trees growing all around. That Saturday was the warmest day I have seen in my time on the Oregon coast so far, up to 75 degrees! This beach trip was spent playing spikeball, and getting sunburnt. I slept in a hammock both nights after refusing shelter in a tent through the cold night - for the experience. Following the beach trip was a return to our normal work schedule. One of the things I was looking forward to all weekend was the field work we had planned for Monday. We were to continue the decomposition rate study, but this time, we would be accessing the sites by kayak. We were out on the small boats for about two and a half hours, battling the wind to make it up the estuary. The views out here are absolutely awe-inspiring. While I was initially skeptical of the cold that I am still not entirely used to, the sun came out and welcomed blue skies. Another great time in the field was teaching some volunteers how to set out traps to catch green crabs. They managed to catch the biggest green crab that I've seen yet, 100 mm wide and about 263 grams! This week was a whole lot of getting the methodology for measuring the biotoxins of green crab meat down. The process has been slightly grueling. There's been a lot of messages back and forth with Taylor, a PhD candidate from Portland State University who uses a similar process to characterize Harmful Algal Blooms, to figure it out. I will not go down without a fight, however, and am giving it all that I can to figure it out. I have been getting some wonky results, and have been trying to get to the bottom of it. One of the difficulties with this is balancing the time-sensitive hours-long process with other commitments I have with OIMB programs. A slight project change may come in the future, but I am proud to say that I did all I could with the knowledge I've gathered so far. This process of using ELISA kits and working to develop skills in the methods has been an eye opening experience for me, in a good way. Research and science is not always a straightforward path. There will be many detours, taking us through routes we wouldn't have otherwise pictured, for a chance at success. The OIMB professional development sessions and talks with Shon have been invaluable to me for a similar reason. I am starting to understand the endless opportunities there are in ecology and environmental sciences, and the many paths to them.
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AuthorHey! I'm Sebastian Velazquez, a Biology (Ecology) student from Spring City, Pennsylvania. I am spending the summer studying invasive European Green Crabs under the guidance of Shon Schooler. Archives
August 2022
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