Ame Teaderman (UR) - Water Testing and Crabby Pursuits!

Hi again! This week was rather busy, but that means there's plenty to cover for this blog post! Starting out, I gathered a water sample from Long Creek Nature Preserve a couple days back and learned how to test it for salinity (salt levels), turbidity (cloudiness of the water), and suspended solids. I was rather surprised to find out that the salinity levels for the marsh was at 33ppt, which is rather close to the average salinity levels of ocean water! I was honestly expecting more freshwater considering that the area is not so close to the ocean. It's possible that the high salinity levels may be due to weather patterns, though I'm also curious about the possibility for the refractometer's (a device that uses the refraction of light in water to measure salinity) measurements to be off due to the turbidity of the water sample.

A photo taken a year back of the marsh the water sample came from.

Another view of the marsh.

In other news, I've also been looking into more research about crabs, mainly working towards finding information about the native species in Florida as well as invasive species to look out for. It actually took a good while to find what I was looking for, as some sites came to dead ends. However, aside from the two species of stone crabs and the blue crabs, all of which are native to Florida (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, n.d.), I got lucky when one of the websites about the Everglades mentioned that some of the invasive crabs that pose issues for Florida are the Bocourt swimming crab, Indo-Pacific swimming crab, and green porcelain crab (Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, n.d.)! There may be others, though I feel more research would be required to confirm that at a later date.

Lastly, I've been thinking about what I should focus my research on that includes crabs and water quality, and what sites would work to place the crab traps at. So far, answering the question, "What environments are most vulnerable to negative impacts from invasive crab species?" seems like a good start towards the right direction. As far as locations are concerned, there are several ideas ranging from the marsh that was mentioned earlier, to the underside of the Hammock Dunes Bridge, or even Flagler Beach or Flagler Pier, though I would need to double-check regulations to learn more about what locations are safe, and what should be ruled out. Regardless, I look forward to posting soon, and acquiring a fishing license in the near future!

References:
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. (n.d.). Crustaceans - Marine Arthropods. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. https://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/crustaceans/.

 Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health. (n.d.). Everglades Invasive Crustaceans. Everglades Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area. https://www.evergladescisma.org/species/crustaceans/.