A group of three people gathered on a sandy coast for a selfie, one of them holding up a large white bucket — Natalie Kozlowski (left), Keira Monuki (middle), Caroline Donohew (left), and a bucket of snails after an early morning in the field.

Growth of Snails and a Person

An SRJC-BML Internship Story

by Natalie Kozlowski
November 26, 2024

My Name is Natalie Kozlowski. I am a third-year Biology and Chemistry student transferring to Cal Poly Humbdolt in the fall of 2024. This summer, I had the joy of working with Keira Monuki, a 5th-year PhD candidate.

A close up of a snail being measured by calipers — A snail being measured by a caliper with its floyd tag stating 246 visible.

This internship made me feel at home with the idea of my future. Over the past few years, I have become more attached to working in academia and life as a graduate student after finishing my undergraduate degree. However, the fear of the unknown has plagued me. This internship allowed me to experience what it was like to be a graduate student before I committed, and for that, I could not be more grateful. I participated in field work, lab work, and how to communicate these findings, which gave me a realistic perspective of my future in scientific research.

During my time as an intern, I was able to start an independent study within my mentor’s research, looking at how various populations of the marine snail Acanthinucella spirata that were captured have grown under controlled conditions as well as separate hot and cold treatments. For two years, these snails have been kept in clean, temperature-controlled tanks with access to food. Looking at how each population has grown over the past two years can show differences in lifestyle and survivability between the four populations tested. To test this hypothesis, we measured the sizes of the snails using calipers and compared this data to the sizes recorded when they were captured. I was able to ascertain that while there was no statistically significant difference between growth across all of the populations, there was a difference between the hot and cold treatments, as well as by sex (p=0.055, p=0.00073, p=0.000025, respectively). The cold treatment and female snails both were shown to grow larger than their counterparts.

Being an intern at BML under Keira’s guidance has truly given me an unparalleled look at what my future may hold. I feel much more confident about proclaiming myself a future graduate student and researcher. My confidence in the scientific field has grown over this summer in unparalleled ways, and everyone at the laboratory has shown me guidance and kindness that I hope to pass forward in the future.