Welcome to Haley Hagemeier, a new MS student in the Blakeslee lab

A warm welcome to Haley Hagemeier who joined the Blakeslee lab in August 2021 as a MS student. She has hit the ground running, helping us in the field in late August and presently doing an independent biogeography project on parasite diversity in invasive Asian shorecrabs (Hemigrapsus sanguineus) from sites ranging from Maine to North Carolina, which is part of a larger collaborative project. She is also developing her masters research project which will examine physiological tolerances to salinity of two native mud crabs that are infected by the "body-snatching" rhizocephalan parasite that we study in the lab: Loxothylacus panopaei. We want to determine if the crabs can survive low salinity waters that could provide a refuge from this castrating, impactful parasite. She will be also be investigating whether there is differential susceptibility to infection in the two crab species using lab experiments.