Elizabeth Hassell and Dr. Mark Belk, Department of Biology
I used my ORCA grant for my honors thesis in biology, which has been a great success. The results are not yet complete because the depth of this project goes beyond the one-year time frame of a typical ORCA project; however, our planned schedule is still in place and the final results of this study will be submitted for publication in the coming months.
Mark Belk and I measured and compared the shapes of populations of a species of live-bearing fish from Costa Rica. Our end goal was to shed light on the ontogeny of morphologic differences between populations in different environments. In plainer terms, my mentor and I wanted to find out how fish grow up to be one shape or another. To do this, we measured the shape of fish that are preyed on by bigger fish, and compared our measurements with fish that live in streams without predators. Our initial analysis suggests that, as we expected, the fish that live with predators are sleeker and more streamlined than the fish that live in streams without predators. Presumably, this is an adaptation that allows fish to swim away faster. We intended to include in our project a series of burst-speed swimming tests that would corroborate this assumption, but the shape measurements took so much time that we decided to eliminate the swim tests. In January we will be conducting further analysis that will address the shape, slope, and direction of morphologic change over time; this will answer the question of what process young fish go through in order to achieve their specialized sleek or non-sleek adult shape.
This research is important because adaptation is one of the fundamental concepts of evolutionary biology. This project has focused on a specific type of adaptive response—that is, how prey species change shape in response to predation. Although this response has been studied in many organisms, our approach to this subject is unique because we have been focusing on ontogeny, which covers the growth and maturation process of an organism. Using a shape-measuring technique called geometric morphometrics, my mentor and I have collected data on morphologic change over time. To complete this project, we will use Procrustes trajectory analysis to describe the trajectory of ontogenetic shape change.
We will submit the results of this research to a peer-reviewed journal early in 2009. To more accurately reflect the emphasis and results of our study, the title will be modified to “Ontogenetic Differentiation in Contrasting Environments.”
Although I had expected to learn more about scientific research through this project, I did not foresee that it would completely change my outlook on research. My previous work as lab assistant had led me to believe that research was vaguely interesting but extremely tedious, and I had decided that I might be perfectly happy doing no more research for the rest of my life. My mentored research experience changed all that. I found that when I was thoroughly invested in the research question, I was extremely interested in my work and was even eager to read more about my research topic in my spare time. It was quite a thrill to see data turn into visual figures, figures ready to be interpreted into real conclusions about something in biology no one had known before. This thrill proved addicting, and far from dedicating myself to a research-free existence, this semester I actually sought out opportunities to engage in research projects with other professors. Thus, my ORCA experience has not only allowed me to contribute to biological knowledge, but also opened the door to many more exciting research opportunities.