Snail mail in your feed once more! To provide you with more news and recent findings of one of the most intriguing experiments in Tjärnö bay: our ongoing research project on Littorina saxatilis. Our team decided to look at the possible impact of light and plastic pollution on these little guys - they are so small - Or well, at least one of the ecotypes is small: the wave ecotype only reaches a size of approximately 5mm and have a stronger grip on the rocks compared to the crab ecotype. The crab ones can get a little bigger, reaching approximately 15mm.
So, as we were wondering what we had to wonder, and what this periwinkle was wondering, we eventually decided to stop wondering and started planning our experimental set-up. For the light experiments, the first idea we came up with was to separate a small amount of both ecotypes in gridded boxes – imagine a grid pattern drawn on your lunch box – and see if there would be any difference in movement of the snails between boxes exposed to artificial light, and boxes kept in darkness. We are measuring the movement after sunset, since they are most active at night, and in this way, we have a higher chance of disturbing our victims, since light exposure at night probably disrupts their diurnal rhythm.
Plastic! For the plastic experiment a choice experiment was set up. We pasted strips of plastic in a glass aquarium, in such a way that the walls of the box alternate between glass surface, plastic surface, glass surface, plastic surface, … By introducing both ecotypes inside the box, we are able to see if they prefer to sit on one of those 2 options – or if they don’t care at all –.
Deep thoughts concerning the experimental set up have been penetrating our minds 18 hours a day, and this has resulted in some breath-taking breakthroughs in behavioural experiments so far. One of our findings is that conducting experiments on L. saxatilis has one absolute requirement: collecting the shnails. Sampling our buddies did not always go as easy as you would expect from catching a slow gastropod like this one. Collecting the wave ecotype – found in areas with high wave exposure, you can already guess – was often a real challenge. We undertook several attempts to replenish our stock of wave ecotype L. saxatilis, one not always as successful as the other. Therfore, me and the team would like to end this update by thanking Sara and Aisling, who (almost) endured the scandinavian waves swiping all over our sampling area!
Expect an updated snail mail in the coming days!
So, as we were wondering what we had to wonder, and what this periwinkle was wondering, we eventually decided to stop wondering and started planning our experimental set-up. For the light experiments, the first idea we came up with was to separate a small amount of both ecotypes in gridded boxes – imagine a grid pattern drawn on your lunch box – and see if there would be any difference in movement of the snails between boxes exposed to artificial light, and boxes kept in darkness. We are measuring the movement after sunset, since they are most active at night, and in this way, we have a higher chance of disturbing our victims, since light exposure at night probably disrupts their diurnal rhythm.
Plastic! For the plastic experiment a choice experiment was set up. We pasted strips of plastic in a glass aquarium, in such a way that the walls of the box alternate between glass surface, plastic surface, glass surface, plastic surface, … By introducing both ecotypes inside the box, we are able to see if they prefer to sit on one of those 2 options – or if they don’t care at all –.
Deep thoughts concerning the experimental set up have been penetrating our minds 18 hours a day, and this has resulted in some breath-taking breakthroughs in behavioural experiments so far. One of our findings is that conducting experiments on L. saxatilis has one absolute requirement: collecting the shnails. Sampling our buddies did not always go as easy as you would expect from catching a slow gastropod like this one. Collecting the wave ecotype – found in areas with high wave exposure, you can already guess – was often a real challenge. We undertook several attempts to replenish our stock of wave ecotype L. saxatilis, one not always as successful as the other. Therfore, me and the team would like to end this update by thanking Sara and Aisling, who (almost) endured the scandinavian waves swiping all over our sampling area!
Expect an updated snail mail in the coming days!
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