By Hannah Sullivan My name is Hannah Sullivan and I am going into my third year of studying Biology at Santa Rosa Junior College. The opportunity to learn more about marine biology through the SRJC-BML Internship Program was a great experience that solidified my decision to pursue a career as an aquatic veterinarian. My mentor, Ashley Smart, a marine ecologist and PhD student at UC Davis inspired me through her research to gain a deeper understanding of marine animals and their behavior.
Over the course of the summer, I learned how animals have a tendency to change their behavior when their environment changes. Specifically how a species of sea slug known as Aplysia californica changes its behavior when in the presence of anemone, a predator of Aplysia. We then compared these reactions in both current ocean environments and acidic ocean environments to gain an understanding of how ocean acidification can affect animal behavior. Before diving deeper into the predator experiment, I had a chance to conduct a literature review and then have a discussion with Ashley. Through this, I was able to solidify an understanding of what ocean acidification really is, as well as its effect on marine animals. During our discussion, I learned that oftentimes in science the answer is, “it depends”. I struggled with this at first because while I was reading articles I learned that even among closely related sea slug species, their behavior and anti-predator responses are very different, with no concrete explanation as to why such similar animals could behave in such different ways. I felt frustrated with this until I talked with Ashley and learned that sometimes there may not be a “one size fits all” explanation, and that that is okay! Next, I got a chance to learn both image analysis and data analysis skills. My first project was to use the software ImageJ to measure the distances of the various body parts of Aplysia to see how far they moved during the experiment. I found it useful to learn the different measuring and analysis tools that are a part of ImageJ. I also really enjoyed getting to visualize the data and discover how some of the stimuli and conditions affected the movements of the slugs. When looking at the our resulting graphs, we were surprised to see that when the sea slugs were placed in the ambient anemone extract environment did not show a fleeing response from the predator scent. Since anemones are a known predator I thought that they might have felt a greater instinct to get away. We also noticed that they moved the greatest distance when under the acidic anemone extract conditions, suggesting that this environment may have made them feel threatened. In conclusion, we determined that more work would need to be done to determine what these results really mean. Overall, I value the experiences the SRJC-BML Internship Program and Ashley have given me. I am thankful for the encouragement, inspiration, and opportunities I was privileged with this summer. Although COVID-19 prevented us from going to the lab in person, I was still able to gain both professional development skills as well and scientific research skills that I know will benefit me as I continue on in my education! Hannah Sullivan is a 2020 intern for the SRJC-BML Internship Program and going into her third year of studying Biology at Santa Rosa Junior College. She spent the summer researching how stressors like ocean acidification affect marine animal behaviors with her mentor Ashley Smart.
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Semiconductors to Seagrass: An Electrical Engineering Student’s Summer Studying Marine Ecology11/30/2020 By Ben Hoffman Seagrasses, specifically the species Zostera marina (or eelgrass), provide vital ecosystem services, such as nursery habitat for fish, sediment stabilization, and increased water clarity by slowing down waves. Unfortunately, seagrass populations have been in severe decline over the last century. Some of this is due to seagrass wasting disease, but much is due to human influences. A type of algae called epiphytes grows on the surface of seagrasses, and normally causes their hosts no harm. But when nutrients flow into the ocean (for example, fertilizer runoff), epiphyte blooms can block light from reaching seagrasses, killing them. However, mesograzers, small invertebrates that live in seagrass beds, eat epiphytes and can control epiphyte blooms. As nitrogen pollution continues, it is important to determine what properties of mesograzer communities, such as diversity and species composition, allow them to control epiphyte blooms. To investigate these dynamics, a group of scientists from fifteen sites around the world formed ZEN (Zostera Experimental Network). They all conducted the same experiment, applying combinations of a chemical deterrent (as a way to remove mesograzers) and fertilizer (which epiphytes take up), then observed the consequences for seagrass communities. To help my mentor study how mesograzers control epiphyte blooms, I wrote two R scripts that produce visualizations of ZEN data. Crustaceans like gammarids, tanaids, and shrimp seem to be negatively affected by the presence of the deterrent, but the additional presence of the fertilizer seems to weaken the effect. Mollusk populations seem to be either not affected by the deterrent or enjoy a population boost. The deterrent is an insecticide, and therefore mollusks may be less susceptible. Weirdly, in plots with no deterrent, mollusks seem to do better if there also wasn’t any fertilizer added (Fig 1). The second script compared the concentration of Chlorophyll A (a proxy for epiphyte populations growing on eelgrass blades) across sites and treatments. There was surprisingly little variation in epiphyte load among treatments (Fig. 2). R was my fourth programming language, so I was able to learn quickly, which meant I got to start making cool graphs almost right away. In between hours of forgetting basic syntax, I was learning new skills in R like data wrangling, improving older ones in coding and writing, and getting important educational and career tips during our weekly professional development meetings. I’m an engineering student, so I initially was looking for engineering internships, but when those opportunities winked out one by one as the pandemic surged, I decided to give a marine science internship a try. BML may not have been directly tied to my major, but I learned new, interesting things, and rounded out my education. In the end, I’m thankful I had the opportunity to participate in this internship. Ben Hoffman is an SRJC alum transferring to UCSD for Electrical Engineering. His mentor, Jessica Griffin is a 2nd year PhD student in the Stachowicz lab and Hovel lab, Joint Doctoral Program in Ecology at UCD and SDSU.
By Allie Vann Over the summer I had the privilege and pleasure of working as an Intern at the Bodega Marine Lab. Ever since I was a young girl I have been fascinated by marine science, which meant binge watching ocean documentaries, and reading anything I could get my hands on about marine science. As soon as I heard about this program’s hands-on research experience, I was eager to apply. Although this summer was different with adapting to safety protocols put in place due to the Covid pandemic, I still felt fully immersed in this program and am thankful that this program was able to continue remotely.
I worked with my mentor, Angela Korabik who is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in Ted Grosholz's lab, which focuses on invasion ecology and management in coastal ecosystems. My semi-independent project was to construct a record of historical Tomales Bay Algae Communities. We did this by utilizing online herbarium records and other online databases. We then compiled detailed and organized spreadsheets of information about the algae communities, which included where the seaweeds were collected in Tomales Bay, the date of collection, and the phylum in which the species of seaweed belonged. We then used that data to further analyze the relationship between invasive seaweed species and their phylum, where particular algae communities thrive in Tomales Bay, and if the number of invasive species in Tomales Bay has increased over the years. Being a marine biology student, particularly interested in marine mammals, studying macroalgae (or seaweeds) was very different for me. I soon discovered a whole other world of interest in marine science. Angie indulged my interest by spending some of our meetings teaching me about kelp reproduction, sending me scientific articles about my interests in macroalgae, and encouraged me to participate in other opportunities such as seminars and attending virtual conferences. Some of the highlights from this experience was being able to still participate in this program in light of COVID-19, being able to network with my mentor and other Ph.D. students, and the weekly professional development meetings with speakers who are scientists from all over the world, in various stages in their career. Allie Vann is a biology student at the Santa Rosa Junior College who is applying to transfer in the fall to pursue a degree in marine biology. She then hopes to further her education by going to veterinary school to work with marine mammals and to add to the growing research in marine ecology. |
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