Stacy and Ben recently traveled to Virginia to collect another nonnative population of Gracilaria for the lab's research. Quite a pretty location to be working in!  

As the scientists return from their travels, more and more samples of Gracilaria appear in the Sotka Lab! Check out the storage containers they are kept in below.

The whole lab came together and ventured out into the field last Friday to collect samples of Gracilaria from the mudflat of Fort Johnson. 

So do they just pick up the first piece of seaweed they see?! Nope! The lab members have a method to collecting their samples of Gracilaria.

Methods:

1. Lab members walked out to the mudflat at a tidal height of 0.15ft.
2. They created a 30m transect and collected algae every 3 meters. So overall, the lab member sampled from 10 different locations along the transect line.
3. After collecting samples,  the samples were rinsed off back at the lab to remove epifauna (the little critters living on the seaweed). The epifauna are saved to later see what kinds of organisms are like to live on Gracilaria. 
4. Gracilaria samples are weighed and data is recorded. 

The whole lab has been collaborating at phenotyping populations of Gracilaria from different regions including the southeast (Beaufort, Savannah, and Fort Johnson), northeast, and Pacific northwest (Washington and Vancouver area), as well as California and Japan! 

The lab members are phenotyping Gracilaria's tolerance for salinity (Aaron’s work), thermal tolerance (Ben and Sarah), and herbivory (Paige). Dr. Stacy with help from Dr. Courtney Murren are looking at the architecture and breakage of Gracilaria. The architecture deals with the structure of plants (where the branches are etc.) They are looking at that to see if there is variation between populations. They are hypothesizing the architecture will change depending whether the populations are attached versus free floating. 

 Traveling is a major theme this summer! Eric and Stacy have returned from Japan and are already prepping for their next trip. Eric is heading to Puget Sound and Vancouver. Stacy is leaving for Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Travels for the rest of the summer include Virginia, the Delmarva Peninsula, and California. 

Congratulations to Alyssa Demko  for completing her MS thesis defense on Latitudinal gradients in seaweed nutritional content and palatability to generalist marine herbivores. Read her thesis abstract here.

The Sotka Lab members have been VERY busy building a tank storage set up for the different live samples that will arrive from Japan. Paige and Lauren helped Stacy construct these bucket structures with filters below.

On May 28th, Stacy is heading to Japan to meet Dr. Sotka for a month of research in the field. They will be collecting live seaweed samples for  phenotyping and to learn more about the genetics of these foreign samples.

While Dr. Sotka has some research supplies already with him, Stacy has been packing lots of things that will help her conduct research!  

What is she bringing?

Stay tuned for more updates about their travels!

Dr. Sotka has traveled to Japan to collect algae samples and conduct research! Stay tuned for updates to come!

Sarah:
"This week I've been busy with finals, but yesterday I had my last one! Stacy worked out a great picture-taking method that reduces the glare on photos of temperature assay samples, here's an example of what one looks like..."