My proposal for you is Bacteria: The Untold story From A Sharks Mouth. Like I mentioned before this is a project that is hopefully going to grow with me as I go through school.
 |
| Unger using his Swabbing Device to get a Sample |
What is known: The known is that a previous study was done in August of 2014. The capturing of the sharks took place in February and April of 2013 while the testing of the bacteria study was done the following the January. The whole study didn't get published until August of 2014. Nathan R Unger and a group of scientists and fishermen gathered together to work on the bacterial infections that are caused from bacteria transferred from sharks to humans when there are shark bite attacks. They based the study in Palm Beach along the Florida Coast. They caught 19 Blacktip Sharks and swabbed their mouths with Transport Tubes and took them back to the lab to e spread on several agar plates. What they found of drug-resistant bacteria in Blacktip Sharks alone is crazy! There was a 12% resistant bacteria found in Blacktips mouths.
Now for the known about the location I am using to catch the sharks at. Ponce Inlet has had an active year last year with shark attacks. In a 4 month span last year, through June to October there were 4 separate shark attacks off of Ponce Inlet. Just two days ago there was a Great White Spotted off of Turtle Mound in Ponce Inlet! A Great White would be the best swab to get !
My Scientific Question: Is Bacteria only common in certain species of sharks or does it vary from shark to shark? If it does vary,is it more extreme in certain sharks then in others?
My Materials and Methods:
Field Materials: Swabbing device, hooks,grade line, wire line, bite down stick, and a Boat obviously!
Microbiological Materials: Transport CultureSwab, petri dishes with the 5 mediums in them, santi-bags, gloves for transport, and an Ice Chest for transport back to the lab.
Methods: There will be 3 methods used for this project that will be hopefully repeated with each shark exactly the same, but we all know that wont happen!
 |
| Pen Fierce 8000 Rod With 50 Pound braided line |
The first method will be catching the shark. Doing this I will be using a Pen fierce 8000 Rod with 50 pound braided line and a 6 pound weight and a 16"in Mustad circle hook.
 |
| 16" Mustad Circle Hook |
The bait will either be frozen mullet caught at High Bridge in Ormond and bait we cast net at Ponce Inlet. We will cut the mullet down its belly and place the hook up through it and around the spine so if there is a hit the shark wont be able to just yank the whole bait off, it will be struggle.
 |
| Mullet being cut down the Belly |
The second method I will be using will be involving getting the samples of the mouth. Once the shark is caught we will have wet towels to place over their eyes, Thank you to Josh for telling me that fun fact, this will keep them calmer then what they are now. One person will place the bite down bar in the sharks mouth so no one is hurt in trying to get the swab and then also so we can place a hose in the sharks mouth to run saltwater trough their gills. I have about 3 minutes to safely get the swab and release the shark. There will be another person measuring the shark and identifying what shark is it and hopefully the sex. Another person will be focusing on taking just the pictures of everything so everything can handled correctly. The two people who are in charge of the test tubes will both be wearing gloves when the swabbing is taking place. One will hold the tube the other will swab the mouth and place it in the tube being held by the other person. Once the swab is in the tube the person holding the tube will place the lid of the Transport tube back on and place it in the ice chest for transport back to the lab. Back to the shark though, the hose and towel will be removed and the shark will be correctly placed Back into the water and accumulated properly before released.
The third and final method will be the microbiological method. So this method is not as finished as the other two because I have been working with Dr. Horikami and she is a very busy lad but she has been nothing but helpfully. She is supplying me with peteri dishes with Sheeps blood, TSA, MaConkey and two others that will have the bacteria spread on them and we will incubate them and watch them grow! Then identify the bacteria that is grown on it. Once this method is properly done then I will inform you guys on this!
Data I can Use: For this project I can either use a table to show my data, a clustered bar graph to show the species of shark and the bacteria they hold or a single pie graph for each shark caught to show the percentage of each bacteria in the sharks mouths.
So let me know what you guys think of the ideas and please share yours!
Jason sec. 23 I've never seen bacteria that have been grown before. what do they look like and how do you tell one tiny bacteria from another? I can't wait to see when you get one!
ReplyDeleteAlexandra H Sec 301W. If bitten by a shark with drug resistant bacteria, is there any type of medical treatment that can be offered and what happens to the bite victim? Seems like a really interesting project!
ReplyDeleteWow! This is a crazy cool undertaking! How many sharks do we have off the coast of FL? Will you have a lot of possible samples to collect locally, or would somewhere else be more conducive to this project?
ReplyDelete-Emma, 21WG