American sand lance

NSF-REU student Elizabeth Estrada had a busy summer

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8 August 2025. For 10 weeks in summer 2025, Elizabeth Estrada, a rising junior at Riverside City College in Riverside, CA, joined our lab to experience fish ecology research. She applied herself to two contemporary topics - (a) the morphometric relationships between Black sea bass predators and their crustacean prey and (b) the diurnal behavior of juvenile American sandlance in captivity. Ever curious, Elizabeth learned what motivates this research, contributed valuable data and observations, and shadowed other graduate students to observe molecular techniques.

And Elizabeth's artistic talents in drawing animals will leave a truly lasting legacy at our lab!

Thank you so much for your hard work, curiosity and inspiration, Elizabeth! The whole Baumann lab wishes you all the best for the future!

EEstrada
2025 NSF-REU student Elizabeth Estrada studied predator-prey size relationships between black sea bass and 3 species of shrimp - and put her artistic talents to great use!

Elizabeth summarized her summer research findings during one poster and one oral presentation.

  • Estrada, E., Siegfried, E., and Baumann, H. 2025. Diurnal Burying Behavior of Ammodytes spp. REU final colloquium, Avery Point 6 August 2025
  • Estrada, E., Roby, H., and Baumann, H. 2025. Breaking it down: do bigger fish eat bigger shrimp? REU outreach event to the broader public at Mystic Aquarium. 22 July 2025

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Elizabeth (l) and Hannes (r) looking at the fish in the Rankin Lab

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On 21 July 2025, Elizabeth (r) and Hannah (l) are having fun working on data plotting

You can reach Elizabeth at eestrada75@student.rccd.edu

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Artistic rendering of sand lance swimming at night (credit: E. Estrada)

Beachseining at night. In a snowstorm. For sandlance.

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10 December 2024. Emma and Hannes just returned from another trip to Wells Harbor in Maine, where we had been sampling and monitoring a local population of American sand lance (Ammodytes americanus) over the late summer and into fall. This was definitely a trip for the history books. Not because of the sand lance, mind you (we caught a total of 7), and certainly not for the beauty of the scenery either. We had hoped to catch these fish close to the begin of their spawning season (which starts around December) at low tide in the harbor, reasoning that our chances would be better at night. What we hadn't in mind was the snow storm that began walloping coastal Maine just as we arrived at the site. But what's a (slightly nutty) biologist to do? We gritted our teeth, hoped for the waders not to leak and braved the elements ...

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On the night of December 9th, 2024, Emma stands on the docks of Wells Harbor - incredulous of the idea to go beach seining ...

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Snow falls on the Christmas "tree" of Wells Harbor

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The forecast was off by a few degrees ... and a lot of snow

Luckily, we were able to find a bed and a warm shower afterwards in the Alheim Commons of the Wells NERR. On the morning after, we walked into a frosty winter land, still somewhat incredulous that we actually went beachseining the night before. We believe that the drop in temperature has made the fish move to slightly deeper water that are not accessible via beachseine anymore. We learned something. Did we? But that's how science - sometimes - works.

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On the morning of December 10th, 2024, the beach seine stands in front of the Alheim Commons dorms of the Wells NERR.

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Snow dusts the lobster cages at Wells Harbor

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We found out that sand lance do not like the coldness of the Wells Harbor much either