Learning New Techniques

As a researcher, it is important to learn new techniques that my be useful for future experiments. We started off the morning by learning how to pull larval collectors. Specifically, these collectors monitor the abundance of spiny lobster pueruli (or late-stage larval lobsters) near Long Key. The pueruli can be extremely small, and as we found out, it is often hard to pick them out of the collectors. In the afternoon, we began a trial run of our acoustic tagging project. We activated all of the receivers (the objects that receive a 'ping' or signal from the acoustic tag) and headed out into the field to set up the array and tag juvenile lobsters. After the receivers and tagged lobsters were in the water, the 'pings' began to be recorded by the receivers. This data will be later uploaded into a computer, and the position of each tagged lobster will be calculated. By completing this trial run, we will have a better understanding of the steps needed to set up an array of receivers and the dispersal distance of juveniles.