Noel Clark, undergraduate in Marine Science, presented a wonderful talk at this years Western Society of Naturalist meeting! Her talk, titled "Age and growth of the Pismo clam (Tivela stultorum) in California" can be viewed online!
Check out the recording here
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Well, I safely made it to Virginia and finally managed to settle in a bit. The house is (mostly) unpacked. Our new chickens are happily chirping and growing quickly. The garden is tilled and planted. We found an awesome local brewery and a co-op farm store nearby. Our Virginia homestead is coming together.
May day! May day! (literally!) Today is May 1st and this afternoon I successfully defended my Masters research on Pismo clams in California! While COVID-19 required that the defense be virtual and not the format I was expecting, we had a tremendous turn out from collaborators, volunteers, friends, and family. Thank you all for your support and help throughout the last 2.5 years! My next steps are taking me to Virginia! I accepted a PhD position with the Molluscan Ecology Lab at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. I'm so excited to dive into research on another bivalve - the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica). Stay tuned for new developments!
The prompt: can you describe your thesis in the top 1,000 most common words?
Near the big blue water body, there lives an animal with a hard house. They are like rocks, but live rocks. There used to be many live rocks near the big blue water body, but now there are few. People and animals that are in the big blue water body love to eat the live rocks. People love to be near the big blue water body and change the land. Sometimes this is bad for the live rocks. However, we know very little about the live rocks. We don't know how many there are, when they have babies, what the babies look like, how fast they grow, or how far they can move! This makes it hard to manage their numbers. Our study wants to understand the relationship between live rocks and their land. What is important for them to live? Also, we want to learn about how they live. When to they let go of babies into the water? How long does it take for them to become a big live rock? To do this, we find live rocks across the land where they are found. We find out how many there are and how big they are in those places. At one place, we catch live rocks and cut them open. This lets us find out when they have babies inside them during the year and how old they are. All of this helps us picture the possible dream of the live rocks. Can you imagine the land near the big blue water body covered in live rocks? Isn't it beautiful?! Want to attempt the challenge? Check out: splasho.com/upgoer5/ This year WSN was in beautiful Ensenada, Mexico. Our lab group completed a whirlwind trip for the conference. Arriving on Thursday and departing on Sunday. Many hours of driving, a stop for coffee at Handlebar Coffee in Santa Barbara, and multiple driver changes - we made it there and back again! (There and back again, a biologists tale?) The Pismo project had 3 presentations this year!
Noel Clark, Marine Science Undergraduate, presented a poster on the age and growth of Pismo clams in California. Sara Park, Biology Undergraduate, shared an oral presentation on life history parameters in Pismo clams. Her work focuses on annual reproductive cycles and body condition. I presented on our statewide survey work, looking at habitat associations with clam presence, density and biomass across California. Everyone provided us with great feedback and encouragement at the conference! Thank you to all who helped make this project happen! Especially the Bill and Linda Frost Fund, which supported undergraduate research! |
AlexPhD Student. Archives
June 2022
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