A while back I promised to post a little description of what I'm doing for my thesis research. It's taken quite a while for me to get around to it, but here it is.
I'm researching the movements and behaviors of white croaker in the Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors. What I'm doing is surgically implanting acoustic transmitters inside the peritoneal cavity of the fish, which allow me to follow both the fine-scale and long-term movements of tagged individuals.
24 individual white croaker are to be tagged with transmitters that ping every 2 seconds. These transmitters can be followed in real-time using a small boat equipped with a hydrophone and tracking receiver to detect the signals from the transmitters. This is a technique known as "active tracking" and yields very high-resolution data regarding the fine-scale movements of the fish. Active tracking will be performed for multiple continuous 24 hour periods for each fish.
100 individuals are to be tagged with transmitters that ping every 30-90 seconds. These transmitters are designed to be detected by 12 automated acoustic monitors placed in strategic locations throughout the harbors. This is known as "acoustic monitoring". The battery life of these transmitters last for approximately 6 months, so the tagging effort will be split into two separate efforts of 50 tags each separated by about 6 months in order to characterize the movements of the species over the course of roughly a year.
Using these two methods in conjunction will allow me to characterize the movements of these fish within the harbors on both fine and broad scales. All movement data will be uploaded into ArcGIS for analysis.
I hope that answers a few questions in case anyone was curious about what I'm up to. If there's anything else anyone wants to know, don't hesitate to ask.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Here's an update for once!
Hey everybody (which right now means you, Lotti)! I know I've been completely useless in updating this thing so far, so here's a quick attempt to keep you interested.
I just finished up my third semester, which means I've been living in southern California for about a year and a half now. Where does the time go? I guess I've been pretty busy down here, so the time has kinda flown by.
Another thing that means, hopefully, is that I'm about half done with this program. When I think back over how much I've learned in the time here so far, it's honestly kind of staggering. I don't think I could even begin to list here all the things I now know and can now do that I didn't and couldn't just a short 18 months ago.
It hasn't been all learning and work, however, even though I have been busier here than any other time in my life. I've managed to do a lot of surfing since I've been here, and I'm finally starting to get kinda good at it (finally!). It's a lot easier to progress down here than it was back home in Oregon. For one, I only have to drive about 10 minutes to get to the nearest break, so it's worth it to go even if I only have an hour or two free. Beyond that, the surf in general really is just better down here. I've seen some great days on the Oregon coast, but the wind just tends to ruin it more often than not. That's much less of an issue down here. The abundance of clean, well-formed waves really allow for a lot more practice.
I've made a few friends down here, too, although not very many. As busy as I am, it's really hard to meet anyone outside of research/school, and a lot of the people in my program really aren't the kind of people I can get to be very good friends with. If nothing else, I finally have a pretty good roommate situation. It was really hit or miss (mostly miss) for me for the first year or so I was down here, so I really appreciate the guys I live with now. And in case I never mentioned this to you before, I live about 50 yards from the beach...
On that note, I guess I should get some sleep. I have to be up before dawn to go out and catch more fish to tag, all in the name of science. I'll try my damnedest to remember to write another update before the week is out so I can give you some details/updates on the research I'm doing. Thanks for reading!
I just finished up my third semester, which means I've been living in southern California for about a year and a half now. Where does the time go? I guess I've been pretty busy down here, so the time has kinda flown by.
Another thing that means, hopefully, is that I'm about half done with this program. When I think back over how much I've learned in the time here so far, it's honestly kind of staggering. I don't think I could even begin to list here all the things I now know and can now do that I didn't and couldn't just a short 18 months ago.
It hasn't been all learning and work, however, even though I have been busier here than any other time in my life. I've managed to do a lot of surfing since I've been here, and I'm finally starting to get kinda good at it (finally!). It's a lot easier to progress down here than it was back home in Oregon. For one, I only have to drive about 10 minutes to get to the nearest break, so it's worth it to go even if I only have an hour or two free. Beyond that, the surf in general really is just better down here. I've seen some great days on the Oregon coast, but the wind just tends to ruin it more often than not. That's much less of an issue down here. The abundance of clean, well-formed waves really allow for a lot more practice.
I've made a few friends down here, too, although not very many. As busy as I am, it's really hard to meet anyone outside of research/school, and a lot of the people in my program really aren't the kind of people I can get to be very good friends with. If nothing else, I finally have a pretty good roommate situation. It was really hit or miss (mostly miss) for me for the first year or so I was down here, so I really appreciate the guys I live with now. And in case I never mentioned this to you before, I live about 50 yards from the beach...
On that note, I guess I should get some sleep. I have to be up before dawn to go out and catch more fish to tag, all in the name of science. I'll try my damnedest to remember to write another update before the week is out so I can give you some details/updates on the research I'm doing. Thanks for reading!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Welcome to my blog!
Hey everybody, this is the first post in my new blog (as much a test as anything else). I wanted to set this up to make it easier for people to follow what I'm doing in grad school; especially those of you who aren't on facebook. I've been meaning to do this for a long time now, and I'm at home for a visit right now so I figured there's no time like the present. There isn't any real substance on here yet, but I promise it's coming soon and I hope to keep up with at least somewhat regular updates (or at least whenever something exciting happens). Keep an eye out for a more substantial post to come soon!
Mike
Mike
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