Mike Flunker
Undergraduate Researcher, UAS Whalesong Chief Editor, and URECA Scholar (Spring 2022)
Project Title: “Zooplankton Interactions with Pleurobrachia bachei: Placing Ctenophores in the Local Food Web”
I grew up criss-crossing the country, checking off zoos, aquariums, and national parks everywhere my family and I went. While I didn’t make it to Alaska until 2018, I spent my childhood in rural Wisconsin filling up buckets with frogs, dragonfly larva, and other weird and wild freshwater critters. At least when I wasn’t collecting rocks and looking for fossils or surveying the acres of forest that extended beyond the line of my backyard.
When I arrived in Juneau to study Marine Biology, I never thought I would get all the opportunities I have at UAS. I’ve since also taken up journalism, wildlife photography, and outdoor studies, and it's from my desire to share the natural world with others that I’ve arrived at this project.
Ctenophores are fascinating creatures, but they need to be kept in specialized tanks. Once these tanks are built and running, we can observe and record ctenophores far more easily than we could if we were to dive with them. It’s through these observations that I’m hoping to establish how ctenophores fit in the broader ecology of Southeast Alaska, and I’m excited to capture ctenophores on film and video to share.