As I have entered into my second to last week of my experience, the staff at the laboratory has begun to trust me with various tasks. I have mentioned in most of my previous blogs that the community at the FSU Coastal and Marine lab is extremely welcoming and friendly. Through this warm environment, I have developed a bond of trust between myself and the staff. This trust has opened the doors to more opportunities at the laboratory.
The experience I am specifically talking about is being entrusted to measure the eggs of the experimental hatchery’s brood-stock data. To do so, I used ImageJ and measured the height and length of the eggs as well as the diameter of what is essentially the middle of the oyster. This experiment is determining the growth of this larvae over three different temperatures which is recorded by these measurements. Photos of the baby oysters were taken over the course of a few weeks at three different increments, which I then uploaded to ImageJ to record the data. This task took me quite a long time this week because I had to take the average of 10 different measurements from each photo. However, I really enjoyed being able to contribute to the data collection of this experiment and also analyze the data as I recorded it myself.
I also performed more QAQC’s on a variety of intertidal and subtidal samples in the laboratory this week. Overall, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to take and collect data at the laboratory this week. I’m also very excited for Monday morning. Weather permitting, I will be going out onto the bay in kayaks with a few other staff members to collect our oysters in the Indian Lagoon area. Rain rain, stay away.
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