Friday May 13 was my first day back out at Manchester. This summer I will be conducting an acidification stress experiment on Olympia oyster larvae from San Francisco Bay, CA, Coos Bay, OR, and Ladysmith Harbor, BC. Wild adults were collected from each site in December and January and shipped in coolers to a quarantine room at the Manchester Research Station so that the parents may experience the same over-wintering conditions together. They were kept in the same large tank in separate, triply labelled clam bags and fed a mix of live algae from the hatchery and algae paste.
Since arriving in Washington, I’ve mostly been getting my experiment system ready and conditioning my broodstock for spawning. There have been some logistical issues, as a rock scallop project also housed in the quarantine room hasn’t completed yet so we’ve had to adapt the OA system for the possibility of both experiments running at the same time. With many Home Depot/Harrington’s Plastics runs and hours of fitting PVC pipe together, it has felt like slow going. At the very least, if science doesn’t work out I think I’m now qualified to be an assistant plumber!
Attached below is a todo list document I made at one point to help keep track of all the things that needed to be accomplished.
One great improvement for this summer over last is the help of a part-time intern, Sean, who recently graduated from the University of Washington. As someone who has extensive experience building and running shellfish experiments through his work with the Friedman lab, I’m sure I couldn’t complete this project without his help.
Getting My Genes Wet 