Alright, so after running the experiment for over 24 hours, 7 crabs fed (6 of which only ate 1-2 mussels). 6 crabs escaped completely. Luckily, 3 were from each treatment (although the only crab that fed in the short turf was one of the crabs that later escaped). While we have to fix the tanks, collect more crabs, and run the experiment for a longer time period (since the feeding rates were so low), the results were very promising. Six of the crabs that fed were in tall turf!

I have some mussels settling on plates that we can put in the field. That means sitting out in the cold and the dark and trying to observe feeding on our turf/mussel outplants. It will be interesting to see if we can make it work.

Other things I have learned: The boards I took so long cutting warped really quickly. Apparently, (according to my Mom) they make interior and exterior (CDX) plywood. The glues and such are different… Sounds like we have interior plywood (darn!). At this point I just hope they will work well enough. I really should have taken a few extra dollars and days and sealed them with something.

I went with Evie to Santiago on Friday. I saw the Catolica’s Santiago campus. I love the old architecture and beautiful tiling! She had paperwork to drop off, but it went really quickly since the office woman was going to take care of delivering some of it. We went to a cafe with fresh juice and great coffee, toured the city a bit, and had dinner before we left for the station. I love the bus prices here! (~$7 to get there – a 1.5 hour ride)

Yesterday was a trip to the grocery store in San Antonio. We passed a number of processions for this holiday (no one seems to really know what it is, just that it is some Catholic day…) which had school bands, huasos (the traditional cowboys), a bunch of people, and a statue which was being carried. They were heading to their church, I think. It was very interesting. I want to go to Valpariso next. Interestingly, since this Monday is a holiday, it doesn’t seem that anyone is in the office. I was under the impression that people were working today (here, that is). I think they must be, but I guess everyone is still tired from the weekend and the dreary grey sky.

I made it out in the field again on Saturday to help with a different project. I should be out sometime this week collecting crabs and checking out how well observations will work in the field. The ocean is incredibly calm right now.

So, that’s how the experiment went. It didn’t work or fail, really. Just gave enough hope to make it worth trying again. I really hope we can get it working soon since there are so many variants we can try (clumping the mussels to see the difference there (encounter rates), using multiple crabs per enclosure (competitive interactions), etc.)!