Amphipods are everywhere

Hey, today was basically just like yesterday- I collected some more mud and algae samples from the harbor and sorted through them in the lab (found another species!). The water was much colder today. After lunch we went out to the docks to scrape the organic matter off of plastic plates that were hanging down into the water. There were lots of colonial sea squirts and amphipods. We'll sort those samples tomorrow morning in the lab. While we were at the docks we also measured dissolved oxygen content and water temperature and took a water sample to test for chlorophyll levels (part of an ongoing study). Back at the lab I used plastic cuvettes in some machine to get readings for the chlorphyll levels from each site, and I recorded them in this cool waterproof notebook.

Ethics module 1 took place from 3-5 this afternoon. We watched a video on plagiarism and fabrication of data in science and then had a short discussion. Dinner was early, which everyone was thrilled about. I have been looking for amphipods for basically two days straight, so I thought I was seeing amphipods in my pot pie for a second! After dinner I read through another paper and wrote down some possible research questions. I'll discuss what I want to do for my project with my mentor tomorrow morning.

I went for a run around 8:00. I ran almost all the way through the town of Bodega, which was really nice. It was foggy, kind of dark, windy, and kind of cold. I had a nice view of the harbor from the top of a hill in the town, though. And I passed a skunk on the way back- nothing happened, though. I also saw a bunch of endangered white pelicans on the mud flats, which was cool.