Continuing Prioritization/ Task Management & Biomarkers
Planning
Task Management
Mussel Biomarkers
Plan of the Week: April 6 - April 12, 2026
High- level outline for the week. Adjusted daily to reflect progress of the day before
- This week’s plan is to continue to move forward with the methylation analysis, refresh mutual goals, expectations and priorities with Steven, and set goals for April.
Monday - Planning the week & Setting April Goals
Tuesday - UW-RUA, No Science
Wednesday- Friday: Will Outline post Steven 1v1
Thursday - Task managementFriday - Biomarker Manuscript - ‘Clarify’ edits
Saturday - No Science
Sunday - Reading
Plan of the Day
Granular level task list to accomplish the high- level goal outlined above
- Pull the individual manuscripts from the WDFW reports to identify the original work, not the synthesis.
- Start working through the ‘Clarify’ list of edits on the biomarker draft
Projects Touched Today
- Mussel Biomarkers
Progress Notes
- Working through the 2021-22 WDFW and 2014 and 2016 reports is the first task of the day.
- I skimmed through the sections I was most interested in, matched what I could to the references in the reports, and made a list of topics/ writing within the reports where the citations may not be enough for what I need.
- The goal here is to cite the original papers alongside the report for any sentences in the manuscript that incorporate more than just the ‘outcome’ of that section of the report.
- For example, the sections that talk about mussel biology and their role as a monitoring tool is basic organism biology, so the report is not aligned with that as a citation. I have used Gosling’s tome on mussels, but Puget Sound specific information should include the papers that have come out of here.
- The further I went with this, the more my side-notes running doc was populating with better, cleaner ideas to translate the biomarker work. I shifted to working on the edits and put the citation work aside.
- I skimmed through the sections I was most interested in, matched what I could to the references in the reports, and made a list of topics/ writing within the reports where the citations may not be enough for what I need.
- Moving over to the clarify list of editing needs, my goal was to identify the quick fixes over the more complex ones.
- Right out of the gate, the overall narrative of the manuscript was everywhere but where it should have been. I found myself asking what I was trying to convey and I did the damn work. So I forced myself to write out what I wanted to say, a single (maybe two) sentence that explains the most important part of each section.
- That was harder than it sounded…
- Introduction: We tested integrating contaminant concentration data and paired, traditional (and validated) biomarker response to evaluate the extent to which biomarkers can inform ecological interpretation of contaminant data.
- Method: This part is solid!
- Results: The contaminants, by class, were highly spatially correlated, however the biomarker response and IBR were less only moderately correlated.
- Discussion: The complexity of biological impact requires multiple levels of assessment, including the traditional biomarkers, to clarify the contaminant- organism relationship. Adding molecular, and environmental layers of evaluation can improve the capacity of existing monitoring programs.
- By the end of all of this, I managed to get a drafted abstract, a few bits for the introduction, and a few bits for the discussion of the P450 and SOD biomarker responses in contrast to the contaminant indices.
- I was also able to identify my lack of enforcement around the choice to use an IBR, and my lackluster discussion of potential confounding or collaborative effects of the contaminant mixtures in the biomarker responses.
Outcomes: Products & Word Count
- Biomarker drafting: 1078 words
Today’s total: 1078 words
Monthly total to date: 2799 words
Annual total to date: 35,472 words
Annual target total to date: 49,500 words
Next Up: Tomorrow’s Plan
- Saturday is a day off.