surge of science

LAB: 5 hours
FIELD: 1 hour
RESEARCH: 2 hours

today bradley and I were left pretty much on our own. the goals of the day were to:
- set up flow through tanks for bluegills
- switch out sand in the 4 individual tanks since it's too murky
- test if ephemeroptera (benthic macroinvertebrate mayflies) will bury into the sand when no rocks are around. it's better if they don't so we can see them in the tanks to determine if the bluegill have been eating.
- find articles saying at what age bluegills start eating rusties.
- sein net 6 more bluegills (mOiSt wetsuit, gross)

While we were on our own, a pretty amazing thing happened: I felt the researcher's wheels turning in my mind. Since this research project i'm leading involving bluegills isn't really my own--Lindsey suggested most of it-- I've been following pretty much her ideas and haven't felt the drive to find the answer to this question as much. She is giving me leeway and not controlling everything of the experiment, but I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up to what she's thinking. As Bradley and I were searching for papers to see how old a bluegill is that eats crayfish, we realized that we just can't find any. None of the papers suggest what age will eat the most, or what size range allows for juveniles to be eaten. I felt a surge of science questions running through my head of possible experiments that could lead to answering these questions. And that's what research is all about: you want to know how and why something is the way it is in nature. We then got really excited about all the potential ways we could carry out this project- aging the bluegills using their scales (sidenote: this is a really cool process. apparently you can look at a fish scale under a microscope and determine it's age from looking at rings that develop, much like rings of a tree). I really need to know the answer to that in order to properly carry out my other research looking to see how the invasive vs. native range crayfish act differently in the presence of a hungry bluegill. It may not be possible because we need juvenile crayfish, a type that we have limited numbers on because they're incredibly small/difficult to catch and Lindsey's been breeding them in the lab for experimental use.

I've also been thinking a lot about My Future As A Biologist, if it exists. Working here has really been the best insight into what my future could hold and the different positions available to biologists of bachelor's and masters/phd levels. I was surprised to learn that you don't technically need a master's in order to go for a PhD- some PhD candidates here are 23 yrs old! I've got to see a bit more if research is what I want to do-- sometimes I feel like it's a lot of focus for not that much benefit in the long run, and it's a lot of DIY construction, which I don't enjoy (L&A know so much about hardware store stuff!). But I think I would like working for the DNR, or conducting surveys, or at least after college working as a field or lab technician, which are titles that quite a few people here hold.

These are just some thoughts.