Επομενη σταση (next station): Greek islands!

 

Dear project backers!

After months of planning and waiting for spring to come, I am happy to inform you that on May 3rd, my team and I will start to work on the Greek Islands, officially starting the project which you have all helped funding. This is really exciting that the expedition can now set sail, and I wish to thank you again for helping making it possible! 

The plan is to collect gravid females from several populations on the islands and the mainland, and bring them to the lab in Athens University, where the mothers and the hatchlings would be reared and cared for with the help of our wonderful Greek collaborators. When the hatchlings are around three months old I will return to Athens to perform the experiments with the help of the students. During these three months I will also do the same procedure in Israel, on local populations of the same species.

I also wanted to tell you that I am currently running preliminary experiments in Athens to test the experimental design and get some data that will hopefully help me perform the actual experiment in a more effective and informed way.

The photo I attached shows the experiment set up here in the University of Athens. I am using two arenas, each covered by two cameras simultaneously. This is quite low tech (note the paper table-balancing technique), but does the job well. Once I sort the videos I will share with you an example of the footage.

I'll keep you posted on the progress,

Rachel