Senior CapStone research has led to the discovery of never-before-published information about climate change in the Northeast of the United States, particularly in the state of Maine. Senior students have undergone research in New Hampshire marshes to discover the impacts of invasive species in the environments of New Hampshire and Maine.
Patrick Driscoll ’25 and Tommy Walker ’25, two Environmental Science majors have chosen the research route of their CapStone project. The two are researching the migratory patterns of Fiddler Crabs, “which are typically only found south of Cape Cod, but because of warming waters they are moving up this way,” Walker said.
“There is either the senior thesis or direct research, and the senior thesis is too much writing for us so we opted for the research,” Walker said. “We get to present our findings at the SOAR presentation, with a bunch of research posters that they show, so it’ll be fun,” Driscoll said.
“It’s two different sites that we go to, one of them is Bunker Creek in Durham, NH, and the other is the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, NH,” Walker said. Both locations are saltwater marshes, home to a specific species of Fiddler Crabs, which are their object of research, “and we have found the crabs at both of these sites,” Walker said.
“It’s the first recorded sighting of them in New Hampshire, there’s no published sightings [of them] north of Cape Cod,” Driscoll said. These brand new discoveries, never-before-seen, are hoped to be published by Driscoll and Walker after the completion of their research. Though not completed with their research, Walker said “it’s still cool” that they will hopefully publish their findings and be the first ones to do so.
“We have some helpers that do research with us,” Walker said, but in the field, the main bulk of the work is “me, Tommy, and Prof. LaPlante,” Driscoll said.
The research and physical work put into it has taught Driscoll and Walker about the environmental processes of uncovering aspects in an ecosystem. Tools and resources have been issued to the students to adequately survey the environment and the species that inhabit the environment. “The main thing we’re looking for is Fiddler burrows,” Walker said, “and if we find one of those…we use a burrow scope to find if a crab is down there.”
For their work and findings, the students of this research project do get paid for their research, and they are funded by the Undergraduate Research Fellowship. “The school funds our mileage to and from the sites, we get paid hourly for our research a couple hours a week,” Driscoll said, which “entails going through the pictures, making sure the data is correct, [and] taking care of the crabs that we take care of in an aquarium.”
Though crabbing is not necessarily within the career aspects of the two, “I kind of want to do research [now] to determine if it is something I want to pursue as a career,” Walker said. The research opportunities offered allow the students to get a feel for the potential fields that they want to pursue after graduation.
“It’s a good stepping stone into the world of academia and environmental science,” Driscoll said, “and it’s just a good opportunity.”
The data that Driscoll and Walker are uncovering is important to the protection “of our coastline from erosion and flooding,” Driscoll said. As climate change continues to run rampant, Driscoll and Walker are the first to potentially publish data and research on the implications of the migration of the invasive species and how it will affect our local environment.
“They could harm the environment to the point where it causes economic effects to those that live near the coastlines,” Driscoll said. “The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest warming bodies of water on the planet,” Driscoll said, so the invasion of this crab species is out of the ordinary, and the two are looking into the possible ramifications of the species’ presence.
“As water temperature changes faster and faster, it acts as a catalyst for invasive species, and since the Gulf of Maine is the fastest warming body of water, the future is really unknown for wetland communities,” Walker said. “It’s hard to tell the impacts of the invasive species on the cycles of ecosystems,” Driscoll said.
Though still in the process of conducting research and analyzing data, Dricsoll, Walker, and the other environmental science majors conducting research are learning important impacts of climate change and how it will affect our environments, economics, and properties in the Northeast. Saint Anselm College will hopefully be the proud school of the students to publish the first sightings of these invasive species this far north of Cape Cod.