iButton Mussels are silicon-filled mussels that record 'body' temperature and simulate what a real mussel would be like in those conditions.
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MusselTracker boxes with temperature, magnetic gap, and acceleration sensors to monitor their shell gaping, movement/orientation, and temperature. This will tell us what their behavioral reaction is to heat stress.
This morning during low tide, we put the cages with juvenile mussels inside. Top Middle - protected site; Top right - exposed site
On the left are juvenile mussels being sorted for exposed vs. protected site cages. We'll put the cages out tomorrow morning during low tide to start our 6 month-long growth experiment! In the middle are empty mussel shells we found on the beach, which are used for iButton data loggers. On the right is our perfect view!
We're building cages for the juvenile mussels to grow in as we monitor their growth rates over the next 6 months. Juveniles collected in the exposed site will be placed in the protected site and vice versa.
Once all of the exposed and protected site groups are labeled, we're doing to switch their environments - the exposed juveniles will grow in a protected site and vice versa. We hope to see if the babies are genetically predisposed to grow in a certain environment or whether inhabiting each site is entirely random in nature.
Adult mussels compared to the juveniles that settle and rest under the protection of a group of adults. Some of them are so little!
Brian Hizon, Emma Strand, and Lani Gleason :)
Preparing to get splashed by the rising tide while collecting data. ID tags (small orange and green labels on their shells) will help us track their growth and population survival rates in different conditions that simulate natural stressors in the environment.
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