Trip to San Francisco Bay: 10 year return to investigate Littorina saxatilis (rough periwinkle snail) there, along with sampling for the white-fingered mud crab (Rhithropanopeus harrisii), both non-native in the bay. (September 2019)

In 2008 while I was a postdoc, I took part in a bay-wide sampling with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center for the non-native snail, Littorina saxatilis. I have been back a couple times since (2010 and 2011) but haven't since then. So it was time to return! I am very interested in the parasite diversity and prevalence of snails in the Bay (non-native species often escape many of their parasites when they invade new locations). We also take demographic measures: population density, size and sex distributions, and brood counts in females. It was a fun trip, and lots of help from Dr. Amy Fowler and my student Chris Moore. We were also sampling for the non-native white-fingered mud crab (Rhithropanopeus harrisii), and very conveniently, one of the field sites was in Napa Valley. So even though we were a little dirty from sampling in the mud, we had to stop and do a short little wine tasting. ;) It was a fun adventure but pretty intense... lots of early morning and late afternoon tides with lab work in between! Oh and we even got to see former undergrad in our lab, Christofer Brothers who is just starting a PhD at UC-Davis. See pics below!