Program on the Environment

Dungeness crabs (Cancer magister) are found in the chilly waters of Puget Sound and are sustainable and delicious throughout the country. The Dungeness crab larval stages pass through six stages over a 105-to-125-day period and the last two stages are zoea and megalopae. The aim of this study was to understand the different environmental variables and compare the abundance of Dungeness crabs. The internship responsibilities were checking the light trap every other day at Shilshole Bay Marina and counting the abundance of Dungeness crab megalopae and other marine species with my cohorts. The Dungeness crab abundance information is noted on an updated shared PCRG Capstone Google drive. Additionally, I conducted independent research including two different websites to collect additional data. One of the sites contained saltwater tide information, which enabled me to check if the tide was going to be high or low and getting the tide’s height as well. Another website was NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) to check the wind conditions that were recorded the day of larvae collecting – including wind speed and wind direction. The implications are that the Dungeness crabs are likely to change with changing climate, thus understanding how environmental limitations impacts larval abundance will help us predict these changes in the future.