Circle, circle, barnacle

Earlier this fall, I received a very exciting email. A local high school student who had worked with my lab last year wondered if I would mentor him through his science fair project again. I immediately answered yes!

My lab has a lot going on right now, so there were plenty of options to choose from. The student, Erik, is very interested in biofouling, so I decided to entrust him with a dataset from the high Arctic. As some of you might remember, Kharis successfully recovered CATAIN from its spot at 79 N last August. The camera yielded fantastic image data showing settlement and post-settlement mortality in a fouling community over 8 months. It's an incredible dataset with really exciting, novel information hidden within. 

Kharis and Erik working together on CATAIN images.

In order to go from images to numbers to understanding, someone has to sit down and circle all the barnacles. That's right - our images are chock full of barnacles. Beyond just counts, we can use a specialized image analysis program to measure their sizes and tell how large each individual was when it settled and when it died. Once the tedious part is done, we can compare settlement, growth, and mortality rates to all sorts of environmental factors to figure out what's driving the community. 

Erik was enthusiastic about the image analysis and even more excited to study a high Arctic ecosystem for his science fair project! After an initial set-up meeting at the lab, Erik worked independently at home to circle all the barnacles. He checked in with us last week, and he's making great progress! 

Kharis and Erik actually took over my office for a few hours, because I have a large monitor for image analysis. Painstakingly, they went through every pixel of that first image. Every ambiguous blob was reviewed. Barnacles, tube worms, snails, and interesting unknowns were marked. We decided on a method to track barnacle growth. We discussed what analyses might be most interesting. 

It's immensely satisfying to guide a young student through data analysis. Erik has very clear ideas of the scientific questions he wants to answer, and Kharis and I can help him get there. I'm glad to have him involved in the lab, and hopefully, his science fair project will stand out!