Pictures of sticklebabies!

Now that the feeding performance tests are over, our “sticklebabies” are moving on to bigger and better things. Miguel has taken a good chunk of the fry for his research and has started them on a special diet, each family receiving a specific amount of brine shrimp a day. The other fry will likely be used for other experiments and some populations (Lynne and Willow) have already been moved from their jars and into tanks in the fish room.

While doing the feeding tests, I was able to take some really great pictures of the fry under the microscope (I used my fancy smart-phone). I was surprised to see how good they turned out!

I only have a few more weeks left at Clark and while that isn’t necessarily enough time to perform my own research, I’ve decided to learn more about Kendall’s research. I’ve been looking over papers and posters on life-history traits of threespine stickleback and learning about how certain factors affect egg mass and clutch size in females of reproductive age. I really enjoy learning about the various research projects going on in the Foster-Baker lab and it’s even more rewarding being able to work with the other students in the lab and help out wherever help is needed.

Living in Worcester has also been a neat adventure. It’s always fun (and a little scary) to live in a new place, if even for a short amount of time, but I’ve enjoyed “the woo” and all its quirks. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that Worcester isn’t as far from nature as I thought it was, and I’ve been able to do some birding and hiking on the weekends with a friend from Wheaton. About 3 more weeks left to go! Let’s see how much more stickle-knowledge I can acquire before my time here is over!