aerate the aeration

FIELD 8am-8pm

Today we were with Ashley at the Trout Lake research station, owned by the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison. Ashley is conducting an experiment to see if the intense burst of bass eggs (filled with lots of lipids) at the beginning of the summer actually influences juvenile rusty crayfish development. We helped set it up by constructing individual container-homes for the 140 crayfish (white food dish hot glued to the bottom of a tupperware and filled with gravel), labeling the 140 dark-bottle containers, and measuring the carapace length and mass of each individual. It doesn't sound like that much, but organizing homes filled with a glued down food bowl, gravel, air circulation, feedings, and preventing crayfish escape is a lot to figure out.

New Skills I learned today!
- AERATION. So Much About Aeration. I know so much now about now the air stones work, how to fix the airflow when it's not working, etc. You'd think that I'd have more experience than I do with this stuff do to my Aquarium background, but I really didn't. But now I know!
- MEASUREMENT and HANDLING of live crayfish
- PROBLEM SOLVING (leaks, construction)

Since it was so hot and mosquitoey, we treated ourselves to some icecream in Boulder Junction on the way back. I had an incredible coconut-nut flavor.

Interestingly enough, one of the guys I went camping with over the weekend (Ben) actually did a REU at the Trout Lake research station when he was an undergrad 4 years ago researching and collecting lots of crayfish. Their station has a different feel that ours. Ours is much more education-oriented: there is that UNDERC academic class that many times surprisingly has priority over the researchers when it comes to things like truck usage and microscopes. And in general, since there are less people at that station, everyone lives together in more cabin-type houses and is closer in general. I think that there are tradeoffs between the different living situations- I definitely appreciate having some privacy that UNDERC allows, and it's great that we're right on so many lakes itself.