PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 13: Ecology Education I
Monday, August 8, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 520 C, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Limulus polyphemus: A model organism to promote science literacy and conservation.
Mattei, Jennifer1, 1 Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT
ABSTRACT- Limulus polyphemus is a living fossil unique to the Atlantic Coast of North America. In recent years, its numbers have begun to decline throughout its range. In order to examine breeding site fidelity, home range, sex ratio, and general population health a tagging program has been instituted over the past four years in Milford, CT. employing uniquely numbered cinch-up tags and sonar tags. The methodology of this study is to tag and measure as many of the breeding horseshoe crabs as possible between mid-May and early July on the beaches of Long Island Sound. To that end I have developed a community research program entitled Project Limulus. Workshops are run to train K-12 science educators how to participate with their students to promote marine and aquatic science literacy. The area to be covered is vast, but with the help of volunteers, teachers and school children monitoring beaches in Connecticut and New York, the project will simultaneously train future conservationists and provide data required for the project to be successful. The training of undergraduate research assistants is also a vital component of this project. With just over 3000 tagged animals, results show that individuals of the Limulus population in Long Island Sound range extensively throughout the Sound. The population has a skewed sex ratio with more males than females present on breeding beaches. Horseshoe crabs rarely come back to the same beach to spawn in consecutive years. Less than 1 percent of the crabs tagged at Milford Pt. have returned to spawn again. However, 9 percent of the horseshoe crabs tagged return to breed on the same beach more than once in a season.
Key words: Limulus, conservation, education, sonar tracking