Week 1 in the Maslakova Lab
My
name is Leeah Whittier and I am a recent graduate from Umpqua Community College
in Roseburg, Oregon. I will transfer in the fall of this year to the University
of Oregon where I will study to earn a Fine Art undergraduate degree and a
degree in Biology with a Marine emphasis. When I applied for the COSEE-PRIME
internship I was mostly interested in the experiences that it would provide.
This is a very hands-on program that gives community college students the
opportunity to do real field studies and research that they wouldn’t normally
be able to do. As part of the PRIME internship this summer I will be working in
the Maslakova lab on the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology campus.
This
week I learned mostly about how the lab operates on a daily basis. I met my
mentors over lunch on Monday, Dr. Svetlana Maslakova, Dr. George von Dassow and
PhD students Terra and Laurel Heibert. The Maslakova lab focuses primarily on
a phylum of invertebrates called Nemertea, their development and taxonomy. In
the coming weeks I will be working on a project to identify nemertean larvae
and match them with their corresponding adult forms. So far I have become
familiar with collection techniques of larval stages of nemerteans via plankton
tows. In addition I have learned how to collect the adult nemerteans by digging
in various mudflats in the area. On day three of my time here, Laurel showed me
how to make a culture of pilidium larvae. These are hat-shaped larvae that
belong to the species Micura alaskensis, the "bread and butter of the
nemertean world" as George puts it. I was given a small culture to look
after and see through to the end of their development.
Below
are some pictures that I have taken over the week of my developing culture.
From left to right and top to bottom are days 2 through 5 of my culture's
growth.
Next week on Monday I will be
learning how to do DNA extractions on some specimens that I had caught and
frozen. I am also learning a lot of the names of the plankton and the members
in the lab have been very helpful in teaching them to me. Below are four of
the five specimens I preserved over the last few days.
Finally for this week I have been
drawing some of the adult nemerteans that are currently undefined in this
area. Terra requested that I draw both a Micura and a Cerebratulus adult. I
scanned some of my drawings from this week to share.
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Hi Leeah, those are fantastic illustrations. You will probably have quite a nice lab notebook by the end of the summer. I look forward to seeing more. Say hello to Terra from all of us at Shannon Point - she was here as a grad student a few years ago. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteWell done for setting up the meeting with John Megahan. He is the Senior Biological Illustrator at the University of Michigan's Museum of Zoology. We are very lucky to have him here each summer to teach our biological illustration course. He was very impressed by your work and you should feel free to contact him for advice as you progress in your career.
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