FEBRUARY 2025
Maren's Blog
Maren Duffy, undergraduate student
1 February 2025
Hello Everyone,
These past couple weeks of the new quarter have been a whirlwind, but they have been good. There have been a lot of different lab activities going on: haul-out site project work, photo ID, molecular work with Vic and Wild EcoHealth, conference planning and some fun sweater/sticker designing! My classes are going well and are interesting, and I have been going outside while the weather is nice to birdwatch, trail run with dogs and relax in my freetime. Also, I have a necropsy volunteer training in early February for my upcoming tech job in Alaska and I am really looking forward to that! I have been continuing to read about the Cook Inlet belugas in Alaska, and to get familiar with the local biologists and their work there, since it seems like it will be a very tightly connected group of people.
Until next time,
Maren
Rachel's Blog
Rachel Strober, undergraduate student
1 February 2025
Hi everyone
I hope you are all enjoying the start to the quarter and staying warm in this chilly weather. I see snow is forecasted for next week and am overly hopeful for some to fall both here and on the mountain! The beginning of the quarter has been very eventful for me as I am taking a lot of very interesting classes while continuing lab work. I am currently in a marine mammals class with Cindy Elliser, the founder of Pacific Mammal Research down in Anacortes. It has been really interesting to dive deep into the anatomy and physiology of marine mammals and I am excited for the boat trips where we will hopefully see some whales and porpoises!
Whatcom Creek observations are still chugging along and although we are entering a less active season, it has been beautiful at the creek with some cold but sunny weather. As it nears spring, our lab is also preparing to host the Northwest Student Society for Marine Mammalogy conference here in may. It has been fun to be involved in the planning of a conference here and I am very excited for the event.
As far as my project goes, I am still working on designing probes for qPCR and started to get trained in qPCR procedures by Victoria! I plan to get more practice performing qPCR and PCR in the next few weeks while I have Vic generously showing me the ropes.
Until next time,
Rachel
Haley's Blog
Haley Recob, undergraduate student
1 February 2025
Hi everyone!
The start of winter quarter has been pretty slow so far. I have really been enjoying all my classes and the labs along with it. Things are starting to pick up with midterms right around the corner.
Whatcom Creek has been very quiet compared to last quarter. The salmon run is unfortunately over, and it seems as though the seals are gone too. We are still out observing during the week but so far, no seals have been seen. Hopefully with the extra time, the MMEL can work on photo cropping and IDing!
After working on google sheets for multiple hours, Maren and I have pretty much rapped up our data collections! Woohoo! We made one last push to collect and condense all of our salmon run abundances. We downloaded the salmon run data from escapement report databases for all the waterways within 30 miles of our haul out sites. We then compiled the data to measure how many salmon were running in each creek during the year of the scat collections. We also found the coordinates of each waterway so we can compare the distance to our haul out sites. Next step is spatial analysis!
The MMEL crew has also started to plan for the NWSSMM conference in the spring! Having weekly meetings with the lab leadership team and getting to touch base with everyone has been super helpful. It’s been really interesting to see what planning a conference is like behind the scenes. I am excited for what’s to come and to see all the NWSSMM members again in the spring!
That's all for now,
Haley
Zoe's Blog
Zoe Hosford, graduate student
1 February 2025
Hi again
Happy Winter Quarter! But also, February?? Where has the time gone! The first month of winter quarter has flown by… getting settled back into the swing of classes, teaching, and proposal writing has been keeping me very busy. Plus, in the midst of so much sickness going around, I have been doing my best to stay as healthy as possible and staying productive!
I have been slowly working my way through my data from the Whale Museum and reading more papers that contain statistical analysis that might apply to my research. Though, a lot of the modeling and analysis is way more complex than anything I have done or learned about before, I am hopeful to work with Dr. Andy Bunn to learn more about non-consumptive predator-prey modeling! But… I fear it is likely going to be a fairly long process as there isn’t a ton of information out there yet that applies to my study.
With the other lab managers, we have also been in the depths of conference planning, which is really exciting! The NWSMM conference on May 3rd is going to be here before we know it… I’m already looking forward to talking about my research and learning about all of the work that students at other universities are completing.
February is going to be a busy busy month. Finishing up a grant proposal, beginning data analysis, lots of teaching and coursework. Let’s see how it all goes!
Until Next Time,
Zoe
Dawson's Blog
Dawson Little, graduate student
1 February 2025
Hi y'all,
The past month has been a whirlwind, to say the least. It started with an unexpected setback—battling both mono and pneumonia—which made for a rough start to the new year. Thankfully, after some much-needed rest and recovery, I’m finally back on track with my project and coursework, and it feels great to dive back into work.
One of my major focuses this month has been wrapping up the processing of river otter scat samples. With the invaluable help of my labmates, Ellie and Chloe, I’ve been working through the last of the samples, ensuring they’re properly prepared for molecular analysis. We’re now in the final stages of sending them off to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) molecular lab, where they’ll be analyzed for dietary content—including the presence of European green crab remains.
In addition to finishing up scat processing, I’ve also begun trials with Dietmar to determine river otter sex using qPCR. This has been an exciting step forward, as sex determination will allow us to examine potential dietary differences between male and female otters. To validate our methods, we’ve been running trials using tissue samples received from the UW Burke Museum, giving us a solid foundation before applying the technique to our scat samples.
Looking ahead, I’m preparing to give a talk at the upcoming National Park Service (NPS) Science Days. I’ll be presenting on the efforts I helped lead in detecting European green crab within the borders of Olympic National Park. I’m excited to share our findings with the broader scientific community and discuss the implications of our work for future conservation effort.
After a challenging start to the year, it feels incredibly rewarding to be making progress again. I’m grateful for the support of my cohort and labmates, and I’m looking forward to what’s ahead in the coming months!
Dawson
Ellie's Blog
Ellie Taylor, undergraduate student
1 February 2025
Hi all and Happy 2025!
This year has been off to a busy start in the lab. Log pond observations are running consistently again, as everyone took some time off over the holidays. While there is less seal presence right now at the Log Pond, we are still seeing a few seals within every observation.
This month has been filled with extractions and lab work. I’m still working through the scat samples for Erin D’Agnes’s study, but we’re nearing the end! And I’ve gotten some time in the lab with Victoria and Dawson to learn some new skills and get a refresh on protocols. I love getting the chance to see what everyone’s lab work looks like and learn more about their research.
We’ve also been talking a lot about the upcoming Northwest Society for Marine Mammalogy conference that we will be hosting! Although it’s quite intimidating to plan the conference, I’m very excited to meet everyone in the society and hear about all the research being done in our area!
Cheers,
Ellie
Victoria's Blog
Victoria Vinecke, graduate student
1 February 2025
Hi everyone!
Happy February all, time flies when you are working hard! This past month I have focused my time on editing my thesis, continuing with lab work, and data analysis. I have completed the last of my controlled mixed samples qPCR to test for possible contamination. I am now working through analyzing the data to see what differences there may be when running mixed versus unmixed samples in a controlled environment via qPCR amplification. Once that is done, I will move onto doing the same for my wild samples to compare differences.
Along with working on my thesis, I have been assisting with putting together the Northwest Student Chapter Society for Marine Mammalogy 2025 conference which our lab is hosting! There are a lot of moving parts that go into putting on a conference and I am excited to see who the keynote speakers are going to be!
Lastly, I have been assisting with breaking down fish for Wild EcoHealth. Pictured below is a lingcod that was around 13 pounds without the head attached! It was interesting seeing the different parts of the fish. I really enjoyed examining the giant pectoral fins.
Victoria V. holding lingcod. Photo by J. Lochner.
Until next time,
Victoria
Alexandreas's Blog
Alexandrea Otto, graduate student
1 February 2025
Warm Welcomes,
Progress on my thesis is still going well as I continue in my writing and data analysis. I’m currently in the thick of my sequencing results with formulating my exploratory stats and creating my PCA, principal component analysis.
A little “Stats Session” if you will: a PCA helps reduce or simplify the dimensionality of your data in a visual way to reveal any patterns in your data and compare variability or differences between samples. In my data’s case, a PCA will help reveal any potential patterns of groupings between harbor seal samples with less genetic differences or variability between each other. In other words, a PCA will be one of the primary steps in revealing any genetic population structure in my data and investigating whether seals genetically alike, group up with each other. Then in the PCA we can overlay geographic location data to see whether the genetically alike groupings correspond to location. PCAs are quite cool, visual statistical tests to grasp a summary of your data; but beware as PCAs reduce or simplify your data. So you must perform other tests to investigate further into possible hidden complexities or axes of variability.
In other news, the MMEL is going well as we were finally able to receive our merch! Shout out to Camyrn and others for taking the lead and creating lab sweatshirts as it had been a to-do item we’ve been wanting to do for two years now but hadn’t found the time yet. Also, as a lab we are organizing and planning the upcoming NWSSMM conference that is set to be hosted by Western this year which is another exciting way to kick off the 2025 year! Additionally, my cat, Calleey, and I have officially made the full move/transition down to Tacoma, WA as to cut my commute down to my new job/internship with WDFW Marine Mammal Investigations and the Stranding Network that I started in October. I’d love to share more about everything I’ve recently learned and have been learning about marine mammals in this new internship as well sometime-perhaps next blog post!
Sleepy Sea Otters,
Alex