Matt Trawick '10

Wetter isn't better: Effects of developmental stress on Pomacea insularum egg clutches

Click on the photo icon above for my own personal image gallery

The video playing within this page shows me in the field collecting eggs that I will use in an experiment about water stress and hatching. DOUBLE CLICK TO MAKE IT FULL SCREEN (sorry it is sideways - blame Dr. Burks).

Research Summary:
The ability to successfully reproduce in an introduced environment represents one of the most important determinants of invasive capability for exotic invasive species. Reproductive plasticity and fecundity play critical roles for invasive success in mollusks. Pomacea insularum, a large freshwater gastropod native to South America that has successfully invaded several Texas waterways through multiple introductions, puts forth great effort to o viposit each egg clutch often containing more than 1000 eggs) well above the waterline, where it fully dries before hatching. My experiments seek to determine the effects of water exposure to clutch hatching efficiency, and to quantify the quality of hatchlings exposed to varying frequencies and intensities of water exposure during development.

For more about my research, check out:

My oral presentation delivered at the Texas Academy of Sciences 2009
OR
The talk I gave at SU Biology Department Seminar:
OR
My recent poster at NABS, the annual meeting of the North American Benthological Society

Where I've been and Where I'm going:

I'm from Magnolia, Texas, but I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. I started conducting research in tbe Burks lab in summer of 2008 and participated in several research projects. For example, I'm a co-author on a field study about the size of snails in Armand Bayou. I also helped out with some statistical analysis about growth of juvenile snails and did a series of experiments looking at water stress and its effect on hatching efficiency of island apple snail egg clutches. I handed this project off to Megan Rice '11 upon graduating.

As to where I am now, I just finished my first year of my Master's in Environmental Toxicology at Texas Tech University. For my master's project, I'm doing statistical simulation models of disease transmission in invasive mosquito species, and looking at how larval exposure to toxicants (it is toxicology work, after all) might affect vector competence. This work is actually fairly similar to my research at Southwestern in that it's exposing developing organisms to stressors to see how those stressors manifest themselves later in development. After finishing my MS, I plan on attending law school.

Southwestern University Dot 1001 E University Ave. Dot Georgetown, Tex. 78626 Dot Tel. 512/ 863-6511