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Alex presented a talk with an update of her Master research on Pismo clam presence, habitat associations, and reproductive patterns in California. This conference is an annual meeting for the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association and West Coast Section of the National Shellfisheries Association! This year the conference was held in Portland, OR. She thanks the National Shellfisheries Association which provided travel funding for her to present at this conference and revel in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest! 
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Our lab is excited to welcome Erin Johnston as a Master student in September of 2019. Before joining the lab at Cal Poly, Erin worked on yellowtail (Seriola dorsalis, formerly Seriola lalandi) distribution, life history, and age in the Southern California Bight in San Diego, where she received her BS in Marine Biology from UCSD. She then worked on recreational fisheries catch data in Orange and LA County for the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife. She will be investigating the effects of climate variability on nearshore groundfish species of the Central California coast in collaboration with the Wendt lab.
Welcome Erin! :)  Hannah was awarded Best Poster Presentation at the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean! Congratulations Hannah! Check out the poster here.
She is grateful for the AMLC Student Travel Award and a Cal Poly Graduate Presentation Award that allowed her to attend this conference! Hannah gave a great lightning talk on 'Integrating R & Google Drive for Collaborative Research' to make research more user-friendly for less tech savvy collaborators at the SatRday LA 2019 conference! Alex went to the joint National Shellfisheries Association and World Aquaculture Society Meet last week, and came home with the Best Oral Presentation Award. Congrats, Alex!  Alex Marquardt just returned from the Triennial meeting of the World Aquaculture and National Shellfisheries Societies in New Orleans, LA! She presented her first year of data collection on Pismo clam population trends in Central and Southern California! The presentation was well received! Lots of great comments, questions, and ideas for future research! Thank you CSU Council on Ocean Affairs, Science, and Technology (COAST) and the National Shellfisheries Association for travel funds which made this trip/presentation possible!  We are excited to announce that Madelyn Roycroft received the 2019 California Sea Grant State Fellowship! The purpose of the California Sea Grant's State Fellows Program is to provide a unique educational opportunity for graduate students who are interested both in marine resources and in the policy decisions affecting those resources. This year, 24 fellows were selected and matched with 17 different host agencies throughout the state. Through a rigorous selection process in Sacramento, Madelyn was matched with the Port of San Diego-Aquaculture and Blue Economy Program. As the aquaculture and Blue Economy fellow, Madelyn will assist with a variety of current and upcoming pilot projects to support the growth of shellfish and seaweed aquaculture in San Diego Bay through the Port's Blue Economy Incubator program, In addition, she will participate in the San Diego Ocean Planning Partnership to collaborate on an ocean planning pilot in the ocean space offshore San Diego County, and will assist with mitigation banking projects and drafting grant proposals and planning documents (e.g. CEQA, Coastal, Army Corps of Engineers, Regional Water Quality Control Board). Madelyn is looking forward to having the chance to contribute to a variety of projects that share a common theme to promote sustainable ocean activities for the Port of San Diego and San Diego citizens. Congratulations Madelyn!!!  Hannah gave a public talk on 'Conservation, Corals & the Caribbean' at 7Sisters Brewing Co. She presented on her previous research studying the patterns of coral predation and coral healing on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, and future research conducting a comparative study on Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean.
Thank you to everyone who came to hear about our research! Emily K., Senior in Biology, started a pilot mark-recapture study for Pismo clams on Pismo Beach! Mark-recapture studies are a tool to estimate population size. In the simplest form, you “mark” a number of individuals and release them back into the environment. You later return to “recapture” individuals. Based on how many individuals are marked vs. not marked, you can estimate how large your population size is, understand individual growth rates (i.e. how much does a clam actually grow in a year?), and get an idea of mortality rates. For her senior project, Emily tested several tagging options to mark Pismo clams and be able to identify individuals. Ultimately, she found a metal tag paired with a numbered tag was easy to detect through the sand. On December 8th, we set up a pilot study! A total of 50 clams were marked using Emily’s methods. In the coming months, we will attempt to find these clams again. If all goes well, this will be the start of a longer mark-recapture study. This is an exciting step towards understanding how far Pismo clams move across the beach and how quickly they grow on Pismo Beach!  Emily burying the last marked clam!  The survey team helping rebury clams. Start your day with a cup of conservation! We are fundraising for our summer research by selling a medium roast coffee blend from a small farming cooperative in Kenya. $20/lbs. Each bag covers the cost of one of our research dives this summer!
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AuthorWell, we're a collection of science-minded marine misfits Archives
September 2019
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