Tracy Grimes, a master’s student in the Lewison Lab, has spent this summer collecting data in Elkhorn Slough (located in Monterey County, California). The goal of this fieldwork is to understand the abundance and size structure of Dungeness crabs that utilize Elkhorn Slough as a nursery ground. She has been setting baited traps along the main channel of the estuary in seagrass and open (non-vegetated) habitat types. Below is a short underwater video clip of a trap in an open site.
Prior to starting her graduate work at SDSU, Tracy worked on the Elkhorn Slough Sea Otter Research Project (read more about this project here http://www.werc.usgs.gov/elkhornotters). Tracy is continuing to collaborate with individuals from this project and will use sea otter distribution and foraging data to better understand how otters are influencing the patterns seen in the Dungeness crab data. Check out the images and captions below for some highlights of the summer field season.
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