A Fun Day in the Mud

This week saw the start of the third chapter of my dissertation, which focuses on how nematodes respond to microplastics pollution. My day yesterday started at 5 am and finished at midnight, thanks to a full day of field work and then laboratory preparations. My field team was amazing and we had a great day out on the water. Although the forecast called for no rain, we persevered through some light rain in the morning, that cleared by the afternoon. It was quite overcast, but very calm water and no direct sunlight made for an easy day out in the bay. We collected just over 40 sediment samples that were quite muddy, which is the easiest type of sediment to work with for my research. While our picture does not show the full extent of the mud, we were covered by the end of the day. It was also quite fun to bring two new researchers in the field and show them how we do research in the meiolab.

Once we brought the sediment back to the lab, I started working on setting up 90 experimental microcosms (small ecological communities) with sediment and water from the bay. These microcosms represent current conditions in the field, as well as some "what-if" situations that I am exploring with regards to how microplastics pollution may affect local environments over time. Today, my undergraduate research technician got started with processing some of the samples, as there is also a time aspect to this experiment. He and I will spend the next week processing all 90 microcosms once their experimental time ends, and then we will spend the rest of the Fall semester looking at the nematodes, and potentially other microscopic animals, to assess what is going on in systems inundated with microplastics pollution. I am very grateful that I have the time to take on such a project, and a big thank you to the FSU marine lab where I work, since I am able to stay in the dorms at the marine lab for the duration of the experiment. I would hate to imagine driving back and forth from the lab every day for two weeks, especially since I need to stop some of the experiments at 11 pm, and the drive from the lab is over an hour.

Stay tuned as I give you a closer look into the cool experimental environment over the next few weeks. Also, if you are interested in other things that I am doing, consider reading the paper that I published along with Dr. Ingels. The link here provides you with free access to the paper for the next 45 days (approximately), if you are interested in reading about the abundances of microplastics in marine sediments in the St. Andrew Bay system, which is the inner bay system of Panama City, Florida, that I study in my research. 

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