During the third week I continued to help Stephanie with her project, all of the containers of carbon-13 enriched phytoplankton have been fed to the organisms so now it is time to start testing the impact of the feeding. We collected samples of the organisms that have been fed the enriched phytoplankton and samples that had not. Then we continued by dissecting each organism and retrieving from the scallops and mussels tissue samples from the mantle, muscle and gut contents, and from the styela tissue samples from the bronchial basket, muscle and gut contents. Then we proceeded by storing the samples in little aluminum containers and leaving the containers in a drying oven for over 24 hrs. The next day or so we came back and hand ground the samples, put the powder in sealed vials and are going to send the ground tissue samples to the analytical lab so that the levels of carbon-13 can be measured.
As Stephanies project begins to wrap up in terms of hands on work, Bob Miller has begun to introduce me to other possible research topic ideas that I could perform in my remaining time as an intern. On thursday I went to a class that Bob, his partner Mark and a PhD student named Nick teach together. The class deals with organisms on the beach and that day we specifically studied critters that feed off of the washed up kelp reefs. I got to catch a couple of bugs or “beach hoppers” and take them back to the classroom where the undergrade students showed me how to identify the sex and inspect the bugs for mites. Possibly this upcoming monday Stephanie and I will start a little side project collecting beach hoppers, inspecting them for mites and then eventually testing the nitrogen isotope levels of the mites and hoppers to help the lab develop a better understanding of the trophic levels of these organisms.
Bob and Stephanies work is all starting to make sense to me now. Initially I was kinda just thrown into helping Stephanie with her project and had very little background information on what the project actually was. With the help of Stephanie and Bob and just a lot of time spent listening to their conversations I think I’m finally starting to grasp how analyzing isotope levels in different organisms relates to the kelp forest that the lab is most concerned with. By measuring the isotope levels of basic and necessary elements like nitrogen and carbon, scientists can better understand the trophic levels of multiple organisms within the kelp forest ecosystem and that information is extremely important to monitoring the kelp health as well as comprehending the forest’s impact on the ocean ecology.
I also got to spend a fair amount of time at the beach this week in the afternoon which was great! The weather has been so incredibly sunny down here and it seems like the “june gloom” or foggy season is already over. There’s lots to do in Santa Barbara and it’s been challenging and thrilling exploring the city and all its activities. Living away from home and my parents has taught me almost as many new lessons as being in a professional lab has. This experience has been HUGE in so many ways.
Mikaela Balkind
University of California Santa Barbara
Marine Biology
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