Thursday, November 18, 2010

Childress Lab Presents Work at Multiple Meetings


The Childress Lab presented research at numerous meetings this semester. Kirk Parmenter presented his posted titled "Drought and the Decline of South Carolina Blue Crabs" at the 2010 SC Water Resources Conference. His poster was selected as the runner-up for best student poster.

Click here for the 2010 SC Water Conference Proceedings


Katherine presented her poster titled "Do Octopus Exhibit Optimism or Pessimism" at the 3rd annual Clemson Biology Student Symposium (CBASS). The research was Katherine's honor's theses project at Millersville University.


Michael presented an oral presentation titled "Modeling the Decline of Blue Crabs using an Individual Based Model" at the Southeastern Evolutionary Genetics and Population Ecology meeting in Cherry Lake, FL and at the 2010 SC Water Resources Conference in Columbia, SC. Michael also presented an oral presentation titled "Impact of Mass Sponge Mortality and Juvenile Density on Spiny Lobster Recruitment in Florida Bay" at the Linking Science to Management: Florida Keys Ecosystem Conference in Duck Key, FL.

Click here for the Linking Science to Management Conference proceedings

We have larval crabs!


In a monster sampling effort this fall, Kirk and Kylie completed the first study of blue crab recruitment in the ACE Basin. They made 11 round trips to the coast and spent 22 days on the water.


Kylie then processed 480 jars of plankton spending over three weeks straight at the dissecting scope.


But the effort paid off by documenting the arrival of first stage juvenile crabs.


And the arrival of megalopae. The results of this recruitment study will be Kylie's project for the 2011 Benthic Ecology Meeting.