Current Spotlight: Climate Change and Larval Stone Crabs
Will Climate Change Alter the Swimming Behavior of Larval Stone Crabs?: A Guided-Inquiry Lesson
Abigail Smith completes geotaxis experiments in a dark room in 2022.
About the Authors
Abigail Smith; Summerland Key, FL; Keys Education Coordinator at Mote Marine Laboratory in the Florida Keys. Abby creates and implements curriculum focused on Florida's coral reef tract and Mote's coral reef research and restoration efforts.
Dr. Philip Gravinese; St. Petersburg, FL; Assistant Professor of Marine Science at Eckerd College. Dr. Gravinese's research focuses on determining how climate stressors may impact Florida's commercially and ecologically important species.
Additional Authors:
Educators who participated in the piloting phase: Emilie Solomon, Casie Farrell
Contributing authors: Jessyca LaBadie, Aly Busse, Daniel M. Holstein, Zuo George Xue
Summary
Examining climate threats to the ocean such as warming and ocean acidification, this high school level guided-inquiry lesson challenges introductory marine biology and oceanography students to determine how future ocean pH and temperature projections could impact the swimming behavior of Florida stone crab larvae. A subset of data from experiments that assess how Florida stone crab larvae respond to gravity when reared in end-of-century ocean conditions are included in this lesson.
All photos above were taken by Abigail Smith. Left: Adult female Florida stone crab with egg mass. These eggs are considered late stage and will hatch out soon. Center: Adult female Florida stone crab in tank with larvae during hatching process. Right: Early stage Florida stone crab larva under the microscope.
Next Steps
This inquiry-based lesson focused on one year of a multi-year Florida stone crab research project, which is still ongoing. This research is funded by the National Science Foundation and in collaboration with faculty from LSU (Holstein and Xue). The five year grant will use the larval swimming data to create a dispersal model for the stone crab fishery under different climate scenarios. Gravinese and his team will develop another inquiry-based lesson that incorporates modeling exercises for students that are based on the dispersal model they develop.
Do you have an amazing lesson to share? Submit it to Current!
Current: the Journal of Marine Education explores the latest in marine and aquatic education research, ocean literacy, classroom and free-choice learning activities, marine science, art, maritime history and literature.