"It was surreal. The discovery of this egg predator-a tiny crustacean called a nicothoid copepod-has major implications for local Santa Barbara-area crab fisheries, she noted; and the experience of finding and identifying this creature changed the course of her career for the better."
"Little did they know that routine lab instruction in the class of parasitologist Armand Kuris would do more than make up for lost time-it would lead to the discovery of a new crab egg predator and a highly regarded paper in one of the field's preeminent journals."
UC Santa Barbara undergraduate and doctoral students returned to campus in late 2021 after pandemic-related remote work and discovered a previously unknown crab egg predator during routine parasitology lab instruction. The tiny crustacean, a nicothoid copepod, lives in and feeds off developing crab egg broods while laying its own eggs within them. This discovery led to publication in Ecology, a preeminent journal in the field. The students, including Sophia Lecuona Manos, Gabrielle Plewe, Carson Gadler, Zoe Zilz, and Jaden Orli, became world experts on this newly identified species. The findings have major implications for Santa Barbara-area crab fisheries and significantly impacted the students' academic trajectories, particularly for those pursuing advanced degrees in related fields.
#copepod-discovery #crab-egg-predation #marine-biology-research #undergraduate-research #fisheries-impact
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