Tag: fish science

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2019 OSCAR Student Summer Impact Project

By: Jeremy Williams

This a male Banded Killifish (Fundulus diaphanous). This picture was taken during my first day sampling in Gunston Cove.

Life in the aquatic environment has always had my interest since I was young. It’s just something about life under water that fascinates me. My OSCAR research project this summer has been a phenomenal experience so far. Learning about fish communities and assemblages has shown me a different perspective of life. I never really knew how dynamic and complex a fish’s life could be until I came here. Now, I have developed appreciation, care, and respect for all fishes. In addition to studying about fishes, I also learned how to identify fish on the adult, juvenile, and larval level. I believe that identifying fish can be rewarding because it can get difficult trying find the intricate details to identify each fish at different stages of their lives. Also, being able to go out on the boat every week and seeing the natural scenery of both sample sites is something that the “Average Joe” doesn’t get to see every day.

Our first week at PSC, Ben and I dissected a Remora AKA “Shark Sucker” in Dr. de Mutsert’s fish lab.

Being around other people that are passionate about science and love it just as I do makes me feel right at home. Coming to work and being able to sit in the lab to doing science every day is feeling that I cannot explain. I love every second of arriving to the Potomac Science Center and looking out the window to see that awesome view of the Potomac River. Furthermore, the people in the building are all friendly and are willing to help anyway they can. This might seem small but having key card access to your lab is so awesome! It makes you feel like you are entering in a TOP SECRET room, but it’s just your lab. All this fun and excitement comes with hard work as well. I have taken pride in my research and study and cannot wait to present my project findings at the poster presentation to show what I’ve been working on this entire summer. If I could give advice to future student researchers, it would be to apply to not only just OSCAR internships but to any internship. I guarantee that it will be an experience you will never forget.

In the midst of all this happiness and joy, the entire room smells like fishes!
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Blog OSCAR

Brian Kim: Researching Fish on the Potomac

Students record the length of live caught fish before returning them to the river.

My name is Brian Kim and I am a member of the OSCAR fish team at the Potomac Science Center (PSC). Over the course of this summer, I have been going out to Gunston Cove and Hunting Creek located within the Potomac River to collect fish species. My research focuses on assessing the diet items of the fish species and determining if there is a significant difference between the two locations as well as any differences in submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) and non-aquatic submerged vegetation (NSAV) areas within each location. The most enjoyable part of this experience has been the process of the actual fish collection. There have been two separate trips for each location where we would use a series of seine nets, fyke nets and trawls to catch fish from as little as 10 mm to as large as 530 mm. The trawls were the most thrilling method because we usually caught the largest specimens during each trial. As each trawl was hauled onto the boat, there was a rush of excitement as to see which specimens we caught and how many. Once we had recorded all required data on each fish, the samples were taken back to the Potomac Science Center to begin the process of answering the question “What exactly has each fish species been eating?”

Five juvenile fish that were the last meal of a yellow perch.

The majority of my time at the PSC has been spent dissecting the stomachs from the fish samples and opening them up to see what was inside. Each stomach from the fish species differed in some way both internally and externally. The most exciting stomach contents that I have found so far came from a Yellow Perch that had eaten five juvenile fish within the last day it was caught. I was able to identify the five juveniles as three White Perch and two Spottail Shiners. There have been various different prey items in the stomachs such as amphipods, chironomids, gastropods and aquatic insects that must now be analyzed. Using the stomach contents from each fish species, I will be able to determine which prey items are the most impactful as well as how location, habitat and fish species differ in diets. My time at the PSC and with OSCAR has been the most exciting summer during my undergraduate years and I hope that in the future I will be able to return and continue to work on related projects.

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Blog ecosystem modeling OSCAR

What are Local Fish Eating?

By: Sammie Alexander

As a member of the ecology team for the Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center’s (PEREC) summer OSCAR team project, my research goal is to investigate the predator-prey dynamics between fish and macroinvertebrates in two freshwater tidal Potomac River tributaries, Gunston Cove and Hunting Creek. This means, I examine the stomach content of 15 fish species known to inhabit both embayments in order to construct a food web for each location.

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