Hey everybody! My name is Olivia Trahan, and I’m the 2023 research intern! I’m here for the summer season all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina. Fun fact - I’ve never been up North, so I took a big jump coming all the way up to Maine! I’ve loved my time here so far and I’ve already had so many wonderful experiences, both on and off the island.
Back home, I go to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where I’m majoring in Environmental Science with a concentration in Conservation, and have two minors- one in Digital Art, the other in Coastal and Environmental Writing.
My journey to Hurricane started when I flew into the Knox County Regional Airport on Saturday, June 3rd and then hopped right over to the island the next day. Starting June 5th, the entire staff came on island and we had staff training for a week. Big thanks to our galley staff for keeping us well-fed.
Earlier in June the research team was finally able to get into the swing of things as the island filled with the hustle and bustle that comes with having our awesome school groups. I had a full first day of work! I got to do some knot tying and boat driving practice with Fern, one of our captains. It was my first time learning to drive a boat and it was so much fun. I do have to admit, I was kinda nervous learning how to navigate and understand how boats reverse, as well as how to idle and switch gears. After that, I then went out with Phoebe, Chloe, Esther and Lucy on the skiff to the aquaculture farm to do some much needed cleaning. We took a few cages out of the water, and spent a while sexing and sorting scallops- most of which were for Esther’s stable isotope project (more on that in the next blog)! We deployed some cages that we had re-filled with scallops, and then I accidentally dropped one off of the float at the farm… good thing we’ve got a grappling hook. We’ve been having a lot of fun getting to know each other during our hours spent cleaning on the farm.
I’ve also started brainstorming my summer research project that I would like to complete this season. Since I’m employed by the University of Maine’s Aquaculture Research Institute, I’ll get to travel off-island in August to participate in the Student Research Symposium, held on campus, where I’ll present the findings of my project. Phoebe and I have brainstormed some potential research ideas and questions, and I’m particularly interested in why there’s such a high number of encrusting and stocked tunicate species that settle on our spat bags. From every lantern net filled with spat bags, I’m processing the top and bottom bags- so there’s some super exciting factors there that could be used for comparison. For example, is there a difference in tunicate numbers in the bags closer to the top of the water column, or the bottom?
Either way, it’s gonna be really hard to choose something that isn’t too niche of a research question, and will bring tangible results while also not having a research question that would be too broad and have too many factors that need to be assessed. Either way, I’m very excited about having a project that will be all my own hard work!
Enjoy the photos from the week of cool and funny things we’ve been up to. I plan to make our research blogs a weekly thing, so these will be up as regularly as we can manage. Have a great rest of your week, y’all!
