Two parasite ecology interns at Shoals Marine Lab this summer 2021!

With my fellow colleagues, Amy Fowler at GMU and Carrie Keogh at Emory, we were able to recruit two undergraduate interns this summer for our parasite ecology internship at Shoals Marine Lab. The students are Grace Loonam (GMU) and Amanda Wolf (Emory). They did an excellent job getting acclimated to the island and also the parasites! They worked together on a joint project looking at signatures of trematode infection in Littorina spp. snails and have independent projects on the influences of temperature on cercarial shedding (Grace) and grazing/infection (Amanda). Super interesting findings so far! Because of COVID, they weren't able to be on the island the whole summer, but they were able to spend 3 weeks in June, go back to their home institutions and continue work there, and then return to the island for 2 weeks in July.