In my various posts I have mentioned my interest in two locations within Volusia County, Dunlawton Bridge, Port Orange and Spruce Creek, Port Orange. This post I want to dive into the full reasons of these two locations. In my past experiences at both locations I have noticed various similarities, but also plenty of differences. These reasons mentioned down below is how I came to the conclusion that these locations would be the best fit for this research.
Dunlawton Bridge, Port Orange:
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| Dunlawton Bridge (2) |
As mentioned in one of my earliest posts, I am very familiar with this bridge, fishing off of it multiple times and catching a varity of salt water marine life. A handful of times I had seen decent size crabs floating across the surfaces, leading me to believe if I deploy a trap I could catch an abundance. Additionally, due to this location being just of the shore of the ocean, the salinity will contrast to my next location. The oceans salinity is 35ppt. Female crabs tend to like higher salinities, causing me to believe there will be more females here vs. Spruce Creek. I could see the male to female relationship between the two locations.
Spruce Creek, Port Orange:
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| Spruce Creek (1) |
Similarly to Dunlawton, I am familiar with the Spruce Creek park. I have been on multiple field trips to this location alone because of its environment. As previously mentioned last week when I explained the water quality testing kit, Spruce Creek is an estuary. Simply put, an estuary is an environment where fresh and salt water mix, providing a hypothesized lower salinity level than the ocean. Additionally, when visiting this location a few years back, I had seen crabs hiding in the mangrove roots. Mostly they have been smaller crabs compared to Dunlawton, but this will add a variety of species to my experiment. Also, because the crabs are using the mangrove roots as housing, I hypothesize that there will be more present then the above location. As of the salinity last year in my Ecology lab we tested salinity of about 19ppt. Causing me to believe more male crabs will be found within this location.
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Spruce Creek Results from September 11, 2019
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Also, when looking back at my Ecology field notebook I have an entry from when we compared ocean water. I have attached it to show the contrast in the temperature (F) as well as the percentage of dissolved Oxygen. The entry in the notebook is from Grace K. Brack Park, but I do believe it would be roughly similar to Dunlawton because both are the ocean.
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| Grace K. Barck Park Results August 8, 2019 |
References:
2012. Retrieved from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4b/4d/1e/4b4d1e72abf54d6d04d54cade30505bb.jpg
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