Since my last post I have been working intensively on examining the videos for my research project on Diodogorgia feeding. This has really been a HOOT!!! Lotsa fun!
I am actually getting data! What I never let on was that there was always a possibility that I would have no useable data from the videos. After all these were taken by a very “jury-rigged” apparatus. Well, judging from what I have seen so far (and as of yesterday, I had looked at 89 videos), it must have been a pretty good jury, indeed, that did the rigging. The images are surprisingly clear, and I am being able to see all that I want/need to see. Not only that, but I also am getting enough instances of the polyps capturing prey that I should be able to do some pretty good statistics about the process. Of course, the caveat at this time, is that I have only examined in detail those captures at the 2 cm/sec current velocity. I still have 4 cm/sec (which I will start looking at today), 8 cm/sec, 16 cm/sec, 24 cm/sec and 32 cm/sec. However, given that I used the same technique to make videos for all of them, I don’t a priori see any reason why I should not be getting good images from those speeds.
Incidentally, I took a lot of trial recordings at the 24 cm/sec current conditions before I took the slower ones, and made sure the video techniques worked for those higher velocities. So… I really don’t foresee any problems with the videos, themselves.
Of course, the videos may show that my hypothesis is not valid – but, I think if that is the case, they will show that clearly and unambiguously. 
I am pushing to get these videos to be looked at ASAP, so that I can start on the statistics and subsequently the writing of the final articles – including my presentation at MACNA 2010. However, the most important target is one or more articles for the peer-reviewed professional press. I think it will be a real coup to be able to publish something in a good journal, and to be able to say in the Acknowledgements section that the work was NOT done at any university and was NOT supported by any federal $$$.
I will not post any of the actual feeding videos for the time being. I haven’t yet discovered a way to internally label the videos, and without some things like ”arrows” to point out what is happening, they don’t seem to show much. If I find the time to dissect a movie and put labels and titles in it, I will defiitely post it.
I have deleted my facebook account. I am not really sure what I expected when I set up an account there a year or so ago, but whatever it was, didn’t happen. It didn’t develop into something that I found useful or terribly enjoyable, so given the probems with Facebook’s privacy issues, etc., it seemed prudent to bail. If anybody who reads this, also was a Facebook “friend,” – - Well… Sorry about that. Really, the bottom line is that I guess I am simply too antisocial for the facebook milieu.
Just a short note this morning, so until later…
Cheers!!!!
Tags: azooxanthellate, Diodogorgia, facebook, gorgonian, invertebrates, laboratory research., resesearch, soft coral