Aaron Nelson~ Greetings from Friday Harbor Laboratories!
It’s been a week and half on San Juan Island for me and
everything is going great so far (I had an earlier start date than the rest the
group). I traveled up here at the end of finals week at Lane Community College
in Eugene, OR. Soon I’ll be transferring to the University of Oregon to get a
bachelors degree in environmental science.
This is my first experience with formal research and it has
been exciting to see how much creativity and problem solving is involved. It
definitely works the brain a little differently than the memorization and concept
building that we’re all used to in classes. I decided to pursue a COSEE
internship in order to get general biology research experience. In fact, the
marine biology aspect didn't play too much into the decision. That said, I’m certainly a leisure admirer
of the sea and I’m glad to be so close to it for the summer. Maybe I’ll be
converted from my forest-centered focus of the past....
I’m working with Dr. Kelly Sutherland (from Univ. of Oregon)
on determining the effects of small-scale turbulence on the movement and
predation of jellyfish (hydromedusae in particular). Sutherland and
others have performed previous research focused on jellyfish movement and its function
in feeding, escaping predators, etc. However, this is the first study to be
done that observes jellyfish in turbulent conditions; all the rest took place in
still water tanks. It feels good to be doing research on a totally new aspect
of things... nobody can tell us we’re wrong!
My lab partner, Clare, and I are just starting to get into
the routine of conducting the tank experiments. Dr. Sutherland has allotted us
the task of conducting a series of experiments in one of the 10-gallon
turbulence tanks. Most of our time is spent looking at drops of water through
microscopes and harvesting food for the jellies (various copepods and Artemia
salina [also known as “sea monkeys”]). This is surprisingly fun! Since these
tiny prey are still alive in the Petri dishes, they are moving targets, and
it’s a bit like a game of “Asteroids” to chase them and draw them up into our
tiny pipettes. We count up exactly 100 of each and then toss them in the tank
to spend two hours of turbulence (or stillness for control data) and then see
how many remain afterwards. I’m afraid that if I say much more there
won’t be anything to reveal next week!
Aaron
I look forward to meeting you when you come to OIMB for the second half of your internship. When we meet we should talk about opportunities at the University of Oregon to continue undergraduate research. I am sure Kelly will also be able to tell you about great opportunities at the main campus.
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