This is for Emily

And anyone else interested in my research, BUT BE WARNED: eel dissection details and lots of parasitology terminology!

Eels: the definitive host (DH) of my study species. So I got to see the adults of my species and collect 20 of them for DNA for my population genetics questions that might get added into my project towards the end. I also found a trematode species in the eels' stomachs! I was surprised but lo and behold, I find out it could be one of two species that reside there...collected and preserved for later IDing...need to fix and stain them. Learning loads about nematodes from the German girl visiting...the eels are really for her project, I just jumped on the chance to collect my species...most of the time I am just collecting and preserving the parasites for her to take back to Germany. So I help her during the week, then work on my proposal in the evenings and all frickin' weekend. This week I won't be able to give her quite so much of my time as I need to finish up my proposal and we're hiring so there's candidate seminars and lunches to go to this week.

Euthanasia of eels is very interesting. As with most fish, the fastest, humane way is to sever the spinal cord by cutting off the head. But eels are so muscular that with the continued nerve impulses, I guess they wrap around your arm while trying to dissect them (new version of "running around like a chicken with its head cutoff"). So instead she inserts a wire into the spinal cord to destroy the nerves...even with that, the local nerve impulses still happen so you see the gills moving.

(I deleted the videos so if you'd like to see them I can email them to you.)

My project: I'm studying a trematode system that uses snails-small fish-eels for hosts. This species is capable of progenesis, ie. can develop into an adult within the metacercarial cyst, self-fertilize and produce eggs all while in the 2nd intermediate host (IH). My study will examine what environmental cues affect the probability of progenesis and the role of genetic determinism. So I will be investigating whether the parasite can perceive cues about transmission opportunities and then make the decision on whether to take the 3-host path or the 2-host path. Factors my experiments will focus on: the condition of the 2nd intermediate host (diet, temperature, population density - all affect the chance of the parasite making it to the DH), presence or abundance of the definitive host or non-host predators (again if no DH, best strategy is to produce eggs in 2nd IH), location of encystment within the 2nd IH and point of reproduction of the 2nd IH (we assume the trematodes eggs leave the fish when the fish spawns - I hope to verify this if possible). For the genetic determinism part: I will immediately collect metacercariae in order to develop microsatellite markers (I hear this can be a really frustrating), then I can determine if a snail is shedding only one clone and use clones to infect the 2nd IH to determine the role of genetics in the probability of progenesis. Then I will do population comparisons - comparing the level of homo/heterozygosity among popns which should give insight on whether they are outcrossing within eels or selfing within the 2nd IH (I will also need to verify that outcrossing is occurring in eels as they could easily be selfing in eels as well), then I will compare other factors of these populations (eel abundance, 2nd IH density and body size). Lastly, I hope to repeat some of the environmental cue experiments on a related species in Australia and New Caledonia (might be the same sp. - I could determine that with some mtDNA work as well)...the collaborators there have not found progenetic worms in natural infections, but that doesn't mean it can't be triggered under the right environmental cues...this would require traveling to labs in these countries and running the experiments!