Three Foot Waves and 20 mph Winds? Sound Like a Day for Research

All fish collections were possible under MDMR Scientific Research Permit SRP-008-26 and fish sampling protocols under approved USM IACUC 25082602.

We welcomed two undergraduate interns to the lab this week as part of our 8-week summer research experience for undergraduates program. While REU is an NSF program, many universities across the United States have adopted the initialism to refer to any paid opportunity for undergraduates to work in a laboratory or field setting supervised by a faculty member. As part of a grant I was awarded to increase workforce development opportunities for undergraduate students in Mississippi, with a specific focus on Mississippi HBCUs, Kim and I were able to hire two students to work with us for eight weeks this summer to complete a diet composition study for 8 fish species that are somewhat data limited for our ecosystem model. We will be collecting fish, dissecting them, and analyzing their stomach contents to determine what they are eating and in what proportion. 

This week, I planned on training the undergraduates in our water quality methods and then we were expecting to go to do our bimonthly water quality work on Wednesday, Thursday, and today. However, due to a small craft advisory and coastal flooding, we were unable to go out for this water quality work and we have pushed it to next week. Instead, we took our seine nets out and completed our first round of fish collections at three sites across the Mississippi coast. While the winds and waves were strong, we pushed through and caught a lot of fish, including a lot of our target species, which we brought back to the lab for the summer projects. You can see a snapshot of our frozen samples here. We also answered lots of questions from curious community members, including questions about the mating horseshoe crabs at one of the beaches. One of the biggest learning moments of the fishing trip was the importance of fishing multiple times at the same location. At our final site, we caught more than 100 fish on our first replicate and then less than ten on our second replicate.

Next week, we will spend most of the week in the field for our bimonthly water quality research, but we will be back to complete more fish work throughout the summer. We have multiple trips planned so that we can collect data at various times across the summer, at multiple locations, and using a few different sampling methods to try and generate as comprehensive a data set as possible. Stay tuned for more adventures on the water!

All fish collections were possible under MDMR Scientific Research Permit SRP-008-26 and fish sampling protocols under approved USM IACUC 25082602.

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