Poster presented at the Long Island Sound Research Conference held March 15, 2019 in Port Jefferson, New York

Mattei, Jennifer

Senbel, Samah

Youssef, Ismael

English

Sacred Heart University: DigitalCommons@SHU

Sacred Heart University DigitalCommons@SHU Biology Faculty Publications Biology 3-2019 An Interactive Application for Tracking the Movement of the Limulus Polyphemus throughout Long Island Sound (LIS) Ismael Youssef Sacred Heart University Samah Senbel Sacred Heart University, senbels@sacredheart.edu Jennifer Mattei Sacred Heart University, matteim@sacredheart.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/bio_fac  Part of the Marine Biology Commons, and the Population Biology Commons Recommended Citation Youssef, I., Senbel, S., & Mattei, J. (2019, March 15). An interactive application for tracking the movement of the Limulus polyphemus throughout Long Island Sound (LIS) [Poster]. Long Island Sound Research Conference, Port Jefferson, NY. This Poster is brought to you for free and open access by the Biology at DigitalCommons@SHU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Biology Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@SHU. For more information, please contact ferribyp@sacredheart.edu, lysobeyb@sacredheart.edu. An Interactive Application for Tracking the Movement of the Limulus Polyphemus throughout Long Island Sound (LIS)Department of Biology, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CTIsmael Youssef, Samah Senbel & Jennifer MatteiIntroduction• Commonly known as Atlantic Horseshoe Crab• Lives in the east coast of North America• High population density in estuaries (Long Island Sound)• Blood used for medical purposes• Used to make Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL)• LAL is used for detection of bacteria• Body used for bait• Used to fish American eel and whelk• The horseshoe crabs are labeled vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN red list• Project Limulus is a project funded by Sacred Heart University• The Project has been ongoing for 18 years• They have been studying and tagging Horseshoe crabs all throughout the LIS• Have tagged and recaptured over 20,000 horseshoe crabsFigure 4. Sign about reporting  horseshoe crabs that are foundConclusion & Future DirectionsFigure 6. Distance travelled by the horseshoe crabsMethodsTagging:• Tagging was done all throughout the LIS• Over 20,000 Horseshoe crabs have been tagged • Project has been ongoing for over 18 yearsMapping:• R was used for data analysis• R is a computer coding language• Mainly used for data analysis and creating different types of plots and graphs• R was used to an interactive application that can plot maps based on the user’s input• The Library Shiny in R was used to create the application• The application allows the user to pick graphs and maps to plot with different variable• These variable are: Distance travelled, Days between captures, Initial Longitude, Initial Latitude, final longitude, final latitude, Number of Recaps, Gender, Tag Date, Recapture Date, Tag State, Recapture state, Initial Tag region and Recapture region• And the user can Plot three factors at once: X-axis, Y-axis and color.Figure 5. Movement of the horseshoe crabs between the regionsResults• Using the application multiple conclusions can be made about the movement of the horseshoe crabs• 82% of horseshoe crabs have traveled under 10 kilometers• Very rarely did the Horseshoe crabs travel over 20 Kilometer• 79.4% of horseshoe crabs were recaptured only once• Generally, the number of males tagged and recaptured was double the number of females.• When horseshoe crabs seem to travel they tend to travel to the north or east rarely to the south or west• This could be possibly caused by the fact that the water in the southern end of the LIS is more polluted than the water in the Northern end of the LISReferencesFigure 2. Screenshot of the interactive applicationFigure 1.  Picture of horseshoe tagFigure 3. A pair of horseshoe crabs mating• Limulus Polyphemus is a species of horseshoe crab that inhabits the LIS• An interactive application was created to map and graph the movement of Horseshoe crabs in the LIS using the coding language R• Data from project Limulus was used• Most of the moving Horseshoe crabs are moving to the north and east for unknown reasons• RCrab Shiny app, https://senbel.shinyapps.io/RCrab/, last accessed on Jan 1st, 2019. • Project Limulus at Sacred Heart University Biology dept. website, https://www.sacredheart.edu/academics/collegeofartssciences/academicpro grams/biology/projectlimulus/, last accessed on Jan 1st, 2019. • Beekey M, and Mattei J, “The Mismanagement of Limulus polyphemus in Long Island Sound: What are the Characteristics of a Population in Decline?”, Changing global perspectives on biology, conservation, and management of horseshoe crabs. Springer, 2015.Figure 7. Tagged Horseshoe crab  found  in Long Island Sound 

An Interactive Application for Tracking the Movement of the Limulus  Polyphemus throughout Long Island Sound (LIS)

https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1145&amp;context=bio_fac

An Interactive Application for Tracking the Movement of the Limulus Polyphemus throughout Long Island Sound (LIS)

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