sinibotia
Aquarium Advice Addict
This isn't entirely aquaria related, but I like to think that the aquarium hobby is a part of the greater picture in marine science. Aquarists are some of the best amateur scientists in the world, as we have to integrate multiple levels of biology and chemistry in order to maintain our plants and animals, and we are constantly observing those plants and animals and learning things that often inspire scientific research. And most of the aquarists I have met are very interested in learning more science! So here, have some!
I wanted to share some information about the internship I just received for the summer, working at my university. It was recently found that there's a parasite that infects green crabs (an invasive species) off the coast of Maine that can also infect lobsters. This parasite's definitive host is seagulls, but it uses crustaceans as intermediate hosts (basically a stopover until that crustacean ends up in the belly of a gull).
We're gonna be researching that parasite in lobsters- it may even be linked to the mysterious lobster shell disease.
Some fun aspects of this: One of my fellow undergraduate interns has the glorious job of literally scaring the poop out of seagulls. When they're frightened and trying to take off fast, they poop to lose weight and escape faster. The poop contains the parasite, so he has to go scare seagulls and collect the poop. Isn't science wonderful?
I'm more of a lab rat, so I'll be doing a lot of running different analysis on samples from lobsters with the parasite- looking at gene expression in the lobsters infected by the parasite and such. Without going into too much detail, there's certain things you'd expect to see as far as how the lobster responds to the parasite on the cellular level- different RNAs coding for proteins that are involved in fighting the parasite- and we'll be looking for those kinds of things. We'll probably have tanks full of lobsters for this part. (Aquaria related, check!)
It's gonna be awesome, and it's also going to be paying for my existence over the summer so that I can continue to work on my thesis on discus! If you've got any questions (about the lobster stuff or my discus thesis) I'll try to answer them! Hope ya'll found this interesting!
I wanted to share some information about the internship I just received for the summer, working at my university. It was recently found that there's a parasite that infects green crabs (an invasive species) off the coast of Maine that can also infect lobsters. This parasite's definitive host is seagulls, but it uses crustaceans as intermediate hosts (basically a stopover until that crustacean ends up in the belly of a gull).
We're gonna be researching that parasite in lobsters- it may even be linked to the mysterious lobster shell disease.
Some fun aspects of this: One of my fellow undergraduate interns has the glorious job of literally scaring the poop out of seagulls. When they're frightened and trying to take off fast, they poop to lose weight and escape faster. The poop contains the parasite, so he has to go scare seagulls and collect the poop. Isn't science wonderful?
I'm more of a lab rat, so I'll be doing a lot of running different analysis on samples from lobsters with the parasite- looking at gene expression in the lobsters infected by the parasite and such. Without going into too much detail, there's certain things you'd expect to see as far as how the lobster responds to the parasite on the cellular level- different RNAs coding for proteins that are involved in fighting the parasite- and we'll be looking for those kinds of things. We'll probably have tanks full of lobsters for this part. (Aquaria related, check!)
It's gonna be awesome, and it's also going to be paying for my existence over the summer so that I can continue to work on my thesis on discus! If you've got any questions (about the lobster stuff or my discus thesis) I'll try to answer them! Hope ya'll found this interesting!
