A Good Day in the Field

I'm actually pretty glad I didn't go to Disney World, now, actually. I'm not out $100~ and I think I probably had a better time out in the field today.

We went out because Krista's experiment requires more sailfin mollies, which are just found in brackish waters on the coasts of Florida. Also, Leslie (someone working in the lab next to ours) needed some feeder fish for her water snakes. So, we loaded up two university trucks, and headed out to Cedar Key, which is right on the Gulf of Mexico coast of Florida, almost directly southwest of Gainesville.

But yeah, so the entire time was spent just wading in the mud with nets in hand, catching fish. We also caught this big 3' long snake, which was pretty neat. It was funny, because someone saw it, so Chelsea, a girl in Leslie's lab, goes into hunt mode and immediately leaps for it. Oh biology nerds. And there were some dudes chilling out with their truck there too, selling boiled peanuts. Never tried them before--I give them a 7/10. Pretty good, kind of salty.

Anyway, the best part about all this?

We're going again tomorrow. Then, Monday, I'll either be working on my experiment, or going to the beach with Colette and a few others, and then to a barbecue at her house for the people in the lab.

I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow. It's a really cool marshy area near the coast.

The Waiting Game

So yeah, didn't really do much work at the lab today. The plants didn't show up till the end of the day, so I basically went in at 10, left at 10:30, came back at 2 to talk to Colette, and then put a few plants in tanks. Pretty easy day. But, that's how it goes in Biology research... lots of the time you just spend either
- sitting on your ass waiting for something to arrive
- sitting on your ass waiting for something to happen

Though, actually, I really love that aspect of biology. It mixes things up every once in a while.

But yeah, I mostly chilled out most of today--went out with a few people from the Zoology department for dinner--samantha, natalie, and camilla, which was fun. It's really weird... there's only one other guy working in this lab, and he never talks. Estrogen abounds in the UF Zoology department, I guess. Or at least the labs I'm exposed to.

But, tomorrow I'm going with some people to a little island to catch some fish for Krista's (the other grad student in the lab) experiment. Should be fun, and it makes for a good alternative to going to Disney World. A bunch of the other REU students are going to Disney World tomorrow, but i seriously, seriously don't have the money for that.

More setup... and Pictures!

Didn't, couldn't start the experiment today. Samantha has some plastic plants on order, and they'll hopefully be here tomorrow--we need to put them in the tanks before we put any fish in.

So, because of that, my day in the lab was pretty short, and I was only there from about 10-2. Mostly, I labeled stuff, and took the temperature of the tanks to make sure that they didn't vary too wildly (If there's a huge difference, the fry in the warmer tanks will mature much faster). After that, though, I managed to get something that lets me upload pictures from my camera to my computer.

Without further adieu,

First, the lab. This is where I work every day, and all these tanks are for our experiment. There's another row of tanks in the room, but they're for another grad student's experiment. If you look at the top left tank, you'll see how the Choice tanks are going to work. There are two flowerpots on either side, and the pair will take one side, and the new male will take the other, allowing the female the option of changing mates.

The view outside my apartment.
Troll habitat spotted!

Anyway, that's it for today. I don't know if we'll get started tomorrow or not, I've been reading through a Master's thesis (50 pages! Shit!), because the Methods section will be pretty similar to what I have to do for my experiment. Also, Colette should make an appearance tomorrow as well.

Experimental Setup

First, let me preface this blog: I'm writing it for me. It's basically going to be a log of what's done when as far as my summer research experiment is concerned, so if anyone asks me questions about it when I'm presenting the experiment or something, it'll be easier for me to remember what happened. I'm not planning to talk about my experience at UF very much at all. As such, for you random reader passers-by: Don't expect anything too interesting. Though, if you really want to read it, you might learn a little about how scientific research is performed--I'll be learning it at the same time.

But, on to the entry.

Today was a hell of a day. Got in at 10AM, got out at 6PM. But, I'm definitely happy about it--we spent today cleaning out aquariums, cleaning gravel, and putting said gravel in said aquariums so we can start the experiment (hopefully) on Friday. We've got 7 set up--4 are going to act as pair forming aquariums, the other 3 will be the choice-making decisions. We might end up setting a few more up tomorrow, when Samantha gets more gravel.

Wait, what am i talking about? Choice making tanks? Pair forming tanks? What the hell?

Well, here's how our experiment is going to work. My part of the experiment involves defense response to predation: We're going to have pairs of convict cichlids together in the pair forming tanks, and we'll let them breed and lay eggs, which we'll let hatch and become free-swimming before we initiate the experiment.

In the control tanks, I'll use a predator model (a 3" long picture of a tilapia on an acrylic rod, basically) and simulate a predator attacking without actually taking any of the young out. (This will be our good parents, for the later part of the experiment)

In the experimental tanks, I'll use the same predator model, except I'll slowly take out half of the fry over the course of a week. (This simulates a bad parent)

My experiment will be testing to see if removing the fry causes the parent to attack the model more or less. It could go either way, really--either the parents will think, "Hey, my kids are getting taken away, this sucks, I'm gonna kick this guy's ass", or they'll think "Well, most of the kids are already gone... I'd better save my energy for the next time I mate."

Once that's done, Samantha's part of the experiment begins. We'll take the pairs out, and put them in a "choice" tank with two nests and another male with partitions separating them. We'll let them acclimate to the environment, then we'll take the partitions out. What we hope to see is that, with the bad father (the one where I take out half the young), the female will be more likely to change mates than in the pairs with a good father.

So basically it's all a test to see whether predation affects sexual selection.

My part of the experiment stands alone--that is, it's publishable by itself given good results, but hopefully the whole experiment will work, allowing Samantha and I to put our experiments together, which we can publish as a "full picture" article in a better journal. (Animal Behavior anybody?)

At the very least, this beats what most of the people in this REU have been doing, at least the chemists. I got here Monday, and we might get our experiment underway on Friday. Most of the people I know got here last Monday and still aren't getting started with their setups.