I can’t believe that this is the second to last week of my internship! This week has mainly spent in my trusty cubicle with piles of literature. In addition to writing reports and summarizes from my lab work and fieldwork, I have been reading through a lot of literature. Although gill lice and Salmincola species are not the “premier” research topic in the world, I have found a fair amount of interesting literature and reports to comb through. Below is a picture of one of my spread out stacks of peer reviewed literature and reports!
One tangential topic that I have been meaning to write about on this blog is about a question I have gotten asked quite frequently when I explain my reasons for being in Wisconsin. Usually after I have said my piece about working for the DNR the next question is “How did you become involved with fish and parasites if you are interested in health and pre-medicine?” Most of the time I try to give a concise and brief explanation as to prevent myself from talking about research, gill lice, and my project in so much detail that I bore the person to sleep. But… on this blog I have decided to take the time to share my research adventure and how it all began. The very beginning was during my fall semester at Juniata, where as a requirement for my biology degree I needed to take a biology lab that focused heavily on ecology. My instructor Dr. Grant, was not only an engaging professor but also encouraged me to ask questions. I learned about things such as riparian zones, hemlock trees, macroinvertebrates, stream ecology, acid mine drainage, and brook trout. As a person who has never fished or spent much time in streams, I was exposed to a whole new world of biology. In the following spring semester, I had the opportunity to start doing research with Dr. Grant and take his environmental toxicology lab. In the course, we exposed fish to different agricultural chemicals to see if these were potential endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs). This was one of my favorite labs ever because I learned about fish anatomy and physiology, agricultural pollution, and methods of analyzing hormone production in fish. During my time doing research and being exposed to tons of new information in the lab, I stumbled upon the well-known trout conservation organization Trout Unlimited. As I was browsing their website, I saw a blog post about gill lice having just been found on Pennsylvania “brookies” (brook trout). After reading the post and a few google searches, I brought the topic up with Dr. Grant, and asked if he, as a fisheries person, had ever heard of these parasites before. Although he had not, he sent me on a mission to find out more. Soon as I was diving head first into everything gill lice and coming up with future research project ideas to explore and which has ultimately led me to today. Even though I still haven’t learned how to fish and am still on the pre-med track I love the experience I have had with my research project so far. Overall, I think that in science it doesn’t always matter if a research topic is specifically related to your field but rather how passionate and interested you become. Although there have been moments where I wondered if I should continue with this topic, sticking with it has taken me on an amazing and interesting journey and taught me so much.
This a picture from the day we went out into the field this week. Here I am in my waders inspecting a brook trout for gill lice infection.
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