UCLA MARC: Summer on the Texas Coast

Greeting from Texas ya'll,

This is Matt Pimentel, and this is my first summer with MARC. I have spent the past 7 weeks at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, TX with the REUfest program. UTMSI is such a small, wonderful, supportive community, and I love that I am at an entire institute dedicated to research!

Port Aransas, TX

UTMSI

REU-ers at the Port Aransas Pirate Pub Crawl

I am working with harmful algal bloom (HAB) research professor, Dr. Ed Buskey, and am investigating the potential use of molecular tagging in detecting ingestion of the red tide dinoflaggelate, Karenia brevis, particularly by protozoans. The main protozoan I am using in my research is the heterotrophic dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans.

K. brevis

Noctiluca

Protozoans have been found to play an increasingly important role as grazers of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and are thought to assert top-down control on HAB dynamics. A species-specific molecular tag would enable us to determine HAB-grazer interactions and identify potentially important grazers involved in suppressing and/or controlling HABs, and understand how potential grazers change after ingesting HAB species (i.e. behaviorally, growth, reproduction, etc.). Ultimately we will be able to quantify protozoan importance as a grazer in natural plankton assemblages involved in top-down control of HABs and, in the future, investigate HAB food chain dynamics to concretely establish how red tide toxins travel through the food web.

Outside of lab I have been going to the beach regularly, completed reading the Harry Potter series (so Amazing), become a ping-pong junkie(my only means to physical activity after I sprained my ankle), caught up on many movies (Doubt is a must-see), spent a lot of time with UT students and fellow interns, and delved into the Texan culture from the food (chicken-fried steak, crayfish, hamburger-steak) to roller derby and Austin's infamous music scene. Even this far through this program I feel like I have a much better understanding of the entire research process and I feel equipped to return to UCLA and make the most out my MARC experience. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and I'm looking forward to meeting everyone in the fall and the next two years in MARC!

More Photos!