Tjärnö, Sweden, August 2018. A group of nearly fifty students and a few teachers invade an idyllic island laboratory like a swarm of ants on a quiet summer day in search of scientific enlightenment. Suddenly, there is a lot more hustling and bustling on the grounds. We all have a clear goal in mind – design a perfect short study related to the environment in this area. The stakes are high – all groups will be evaluated at the end of the excursion. Maybe, dear reader, you wonder: Why is this so important to us?
The place where our fate will be decided.
Well, time for a short introduction. All of us youngsters are part of an exclusive cohort called IMBRSea. This is an abbreviation for: International Master of Science in Marine Biological Resources. Sounds fancy, I know. But for us, it’s a dream come true. Here, we get to travel AND to study. What more could we want? As part of the Erasmus world, several universities have formed a network to provide us with exactly what we want to study – individually. We get to choose which countries we go to each semester, what subjects we enrol in, which specialization track we follow. This results in a colourful mix of students from all over the world who are eager to learn something new and all share a common passion: marine science. With, of course, ideally the life goal to become a marine biologist.
World, meet us.
From left: Ayeshya (Sri Lanka), Miguel (Spain), Roy (Bangladesh), Nadine (Germany), Li (China), Luzia (Switzerland).
So, now you know our background. Our group of six call ourselves the Crab Therapists – we decided to do a behavioural experiment on hermit crabs, with the very fine-sounding Latin name Pagurus bernhardus. The goal is to create an ethogram – basically classifying a list of behaviour the hermits have in their repertory - and to see how it changes in low pH and diesel pollution. I feel a little like Frankenstein – maybe we will create supernatural monster hermit crabs?
During brainstorming in our new home, the Yellow Lab, we decided on a fancy experimental design including a lot of separate tanks which we proudly presented in front of our peers, only to be crushed by reality the next day. See, the problem is that we only have four days for experiments – and we need to make do with basic materials and what we can find. Some quick discussions led to the conclusion that we will stick to two tanks with each nine hermit crabs and observe them in one-hour time slots with twenty minutes each, so three crabs per session per person. After two days, we will start reducing the pH and adding diesel. Using the software BORIS, we will create ethograms and record and compare the behavioural patterns. After this was settled, we all felt relieved to finally have a plan, and all looked forward to sample crabs in the field the next day. Which turned out to be quite eventful.
Let’s find these little buggars!
Outfitted with high-fashion waders, shovels and buckets, we happily ventured out into the Swedish wilderness in search of crabs. The first site we examined had none, but proved to be quite challenging as Luzia got stuck up to the waist in the mud. Luckily, Miguel, as the knight in shining armour, rode to her rescue and heroically freed her. Finally, we got lucky on the sand beach of Saltö, our neighbour island in the Kosterhavets National Park, finding crabs by the tons. Carrying back the buckets with additional sediment to recreate a comfortable habitat for our specimen in the tanks was actually quite a challenge – they were super heavy.
Problem solving 101.
The guys then decided to line them up on a branch and carried them on their shoulders. Narrowly avoiding disaster, the branch splintered right after setting the buckets down successfully in front of our lab. Phew. Then, we filled the waiting tanks with ocean water right from the pier outside, but we had to wait to put the crabs in, as they had to be marked and the sediment still had to settle. We also had way too many crabs, so we used a random number generator to select the lucky contenders. Turns out, I am an oracle. The one time I took a guess, I was correct. The funny thing is, the number I suggested was the favourite number of one of the teachers who came by earlier, so I will take that as a lucky omen. May the odds be ever in our favour. Well, maybe that doesn’t apply to Li. He was running around the lab to find his stabiliser, asking everyone where it was, only for me to point out it was right in front of him. I think we are all going a little mad.
Stay tuned during the next days as we continue our lab odyssey to find out what will happen to our crabs and our mental state. Our mascot Bernhard sends his greetings.
Written by Nadine Ofiera
The place where our fate will be decided.
Well, time for a short introduction. All of us youngsters are part of an exclusive cohort called IMBRSea. This is an abbreviation for: International Master of Science in Marine Biological Resources. Sounds fancy, I know. But for us, it’s a dream come true. Here, we get to travel AND to study. What more could we want? As part of the Erasmus world, several universities have formed a network to provide us with exactly what we want to study – individually. We get to choose which countries we go to each semester, what subjects we enrol in, which specialization track we follow. This results in a colourful mix of students from all over the world who are eager to learn something new and all share a common passion: marine science. With, of course, ideally the life goal to become a marine biologist.
World, meet us.
From left: Ayeshya (Sri Lanka), Miguel (Spain), Roy (Bangladesh), Nadine (Germany), Li (China), Luzia (Switzerland).
So, now you know our background. Our group of six call ourselves the Crab Therapists – we decided to do a behavioural experiment on hermit crabs, with the very fine-sounding Latin name Pagurus bernhardus. The goal is to create an ethogram – basically classifying a list of behaviour the hermits have in their repertory - and to see how it changes in low pH and diesel pollution. I feel a little like Frankenstein – maybe we will create supernatural monster hermit crabs?
During brainstorming in our new home, the Yellow Lab, we decided on a fancy experimental design including a lot of separate tanks which we proudly presented in front of our peers, only to be crushed by reality the next day. See, the problem is that we only have four days for experiments – and we need to make do with basic materials and what we can find. Some quick discussions led to the conclusion that we will stick to two tanks with each nine hermit crabs and observe them in one-hour time slots with twenty minutes each, so three crabs per session per person. After two days, we will start reducing the pH and adding diesel. Using the software BORIS, we will create ethograms and record and compare the behavioural patterns. After this was settled, we all felt relieved to finally have a plan, and all looked forward to sample crabs in the field the next day. Which turned out to be quite eventful.
Let’s find these little buggars!
Outfitted with high-fashion waders, shovels and buckets, we happily ventured out into the Swedish wilderness in search of crabs. The first site we examined had none, but proved to be quite challenging as Luzia got stuck up to the waist in the mud. Luckily, Miguel, as the knight in shining armour, rode to her rescue and heroically freed her. Finally, we got lucky on the sand beach of Saltö, our neighbour island in the Kosterhavets National Park, finding crabs by the tons. Carrying back the buckets with additional sediment to recreate a comfortable habitat for our specimen in the tanks was actually quite a challenge – they were super heavy.
Problem solving 101.
The guys then decided to line them up on a branch and carried them on their shoulders. Narrowly avoiding disaster, the branch splintered right after setting the buckets down successfully in front of our lab. Phew. Then, we filled the waiting tanks with ocean water right from the pier outside, but we had to wait to put the crabs in, as they had to be marked and the sediment still had to settle. We also had way too many crabs, so we used a random number generator to select the lucky contenders. Turns out, I am an oracle. The one time I took a guess, I was correct. The funny thing is, the number I suggested was the favourite number of one of the teachers who came by earlier, so I will take that as a lucky omen. May the odds be ever in our favour. Well, maybe that doesn’t apply to Li. He was running around the lab to find his stabiliser, asking everyone where it was, only for me to point out it was right in front of him. I think we are all going a little mad.
Stay tuned during the next days as we continue our lab odyssey to find out what will happen to our crabs and our mental state. Our mascot Bernhard sends his greetings.
Written by Nadine Ofiera
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