“Thus organisms and environments are both causes and effects

in a coevolutionary process.”

—Richard C. Lewontin in The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment.

Thursday, July 19, 2018

Field experiment observations

I'm about to wrap up my field experiment finally! Now that lots of mussels are drilled and empty, thanks to my dogwhelks, I've noticed many lined shore crabs that like to live inside them. I'm not sure if this will be a real result or if it's just a fun observation, but either way, it's cute.

We also found many of these gelatinous, salp-looking creatures in my cages this week. I don't know what they are, but they look really weird!




Pachygrapsus crab hiding in an empty mussel shell. I suspect larger empty mussels 
support more Pachygrapsus. Could this be an interesting result of my experiment?



Unknown gelatinous creature or substance found in my experimental mussel beds.



Monday, July 16, 2018

Field experiment interview

Here I explain some of the details of my field experiment in the mussel beds. Huge thanks to Laura Shields, a former Science Communications student at UCSC for putting this together.