Student Projects 2021

One major goal of the striped bass initiative is to provide a forum for students to ask questions, to develop hypotheses and devise experiments to test those hypotheses.

Student Projects

Two volunteer interns were allowed access to the Marine Biological Laboratory docks.  Teddy Koide studied the water quality at two sites in Eel Pond that have populations of striped bass.  The two sites differ in the depth of the water.  He hypothesized that the oxygen concentration would be lower and temperature higher in the site with shallow water as compared to values recorded at the deeper water site.  Teddy measured oxygen concentration, temperature, salinity and water depth 15 times during  July and August.  There was a trend for the shallow water site to have a higher temperature and lower oxygen concentration but no significant differences were found.  Temperature data loggers will be used in the future to provide a more complete profile of temperature at both sites 24/7.

Teddy Koide at the MBL

Lily Hall confirmed that striped bass at one site in Eel Pond are present during the day but leave in the evening.  She wondered when they return in the morning.  She determined that the fish return between 5 and 6:00 am but not all together.  This finding matches depth data that shows a circadian rhythm in movement of the fish from shallow to deeper water in the evening and a return in the morning at about the time determined by Lily.

Lily Hall at the MBL