Two students awarded Ruth D. Turner Scholarships
Nadège Aoki and Kharis Schrage were both awarded Ruth D. Turner Scholarships for 2021.
Nadège’s proposal was titled “Documenting the effect of exposure to impulsive pile-driving noise on behavior of a temperate coral species, Astrangia poculata”. She’ll be exposing local corals to noise recorded from an offshore wind farm construction project and measuring their behavioral response (specifically the retraction/extension of their polyps from their protective skeletons).
 Nadege setting up an experiment with corals |  Northern cup coral (Astrangia poculata) |
Kharis’ proposal was titled “Coupling of Life History Strategies of Benthic Invertebrates During the Polar Night.” The award will fund a field trip to the Arctic in January to study the seasonality and spatial distribution of larval and adult benthic invertebrates in an Arctic fjord.
ice from the bow of the Polarstern during a summer trip to the Arctic
Kharis seeks to identify not just species composition in larvae and adults but to couple these data for a more comprehensive understanding of the bottlenecks affecting invertebrate settlement success and survival. She is specifically choosing to focus on species reproducing in the polar night as there is next to nothing known about reproduction during this time period.