Today, February 14, 2017, we spent the day working on our questions and presentations. After a brief rundown of the day’s schedule, Cameron let us loose to work on our projects. When we reconvened at 3:45 (with the mosquito group coming in a bit late) we recapped the day’s activities.
Spider Group
Question: how does the spread of high intensity urban lighting affect community composition and predatory dominance of spider communities?
Synopsis of the Day: the spider group did research and started working on their presentation. They also went out and collected spiders. On Monday they went to Putah creek and collected as well. They I.D’d their collections today as long jawed orb weavers.
Methods: they have taken out insects as a variable and are just looking at light variable or looking at an urban area. They discussed looking at more lighted vs less lighted areas, species that fill similar niches, and nocturnal vs diurnal. They proposed setting up boxes in different locoations, varying the level of light in each box, and measuring how the level of light affects community composition and spider behavior. They said that they need to figure out how many species spider are in thier study area.
Followup questions: Could you use a clear box as well? What type of light bulbs?
Mosquito Group
Question: none yet however they discussed some options, like, looking at the bigger picture, tritrophic interactions, cascade effects of removing some member of the community, the interaction between protozoa and bacteria communities and how they might affect Aedes sierrensis.
Synopsis of the Day: the mosquito group worked on nailing down their question. On Monday they put out sticky traps near tree holes at bee bio, then collected the traps today. However, they found no mosquitoes. They also collected water today and possibly found A. sierrensis. They talked with an expert on tree holes Dr. Tommy Z, who pointed us towards A. sierrensis as the probable mosquito in the bee bio tree holes. He explained the different between each of the 2 mosquitoes, A sierrensis and Orthopodomyia signifera. He told us that neither of the mosquitoes are predacious. They also did a bunch of researching and found that a lot of the research has been done in the lab, not in the field.
Methods: the mosquito group proposed several methods including, making our own tree holes because existing tree holes vary in size, which affects community; opening artificial tree hole lid for a certain time to ensure cohort age; we can count particle using sedgewick-rafter container; we can count bacteria using L-leucine titration.
Follow up Questions: Have we found study that manipulated tree hole size? Does organic matter matter? Is there a difference between leaf litter and sticks? A. albopictus, the asian tiger mosquito, present in Davis?
Squirrel Group
Question: What physical characteristics of acorns affect squirrel and scrub jay dispersal distance?
Synopsis of the Day: the squirrel group did a lot of research today to smooth out the kinks; they found the scientific name of the weevil they found, they did a literature search, and they worked on their presentation.
Methods: their first thought was to use screws or nails; then they thought of radio tagging, but it is too expensive; instead they plan to buy a bunch a cold rolled steel to put it inside each acorn and propose to find the tagged acorns with metal detectors.
Schedule for Thursday:
Spend about 1 hr for each group, with about 30 minutes for presentation and about 30 minutes for lots of questions and workshopping.
We agreed on a tentative schedule for Tuesday, when we will present concise (ca 10 min) proposals, then vote for our class question, and then begin planning. The concise proposal should include a solid question, brief methods as refresher, and answer any questions addressed from Thursday.
With anticipation,
John Schroder
Ecology 180 