Bukowitz-Portfolio

Final Project Part I

Outline

High-Level Summary

Horseshoe crab blood is hyper-sensitive to bacterial toxins and consequently is used to test the safety of many medical devices and vaccines, including the Covid-19 vaccine. Horseshoe crab populations are declining, in part due to over-harvesting for biomedical purposes, which is detrimental to their ecosystems.

Story Structure

Set-Up: This section will focus on why horseshoe crabs are super cool. I will write about how horseshoe crabs have saved countless lives due their use by the pharmaceutical industry, and also how they play a key role in their ecosystems. Specifically, their eggs are a vital food source for many bird species, including the threatened red knot which depends on horseshoe crab eggs to fuel its 9,000-mile migration from South America up to the Arctic.

Conflict: This section will focus on the threats that horseshoe crab populations face, specifically the increase in biomedical harvesting over time. Conservatively, of the 600,000 horseshoe crabs that are harvested for biomedical purposes each year, 15% of them die at some point during or after the bleeding process. This is one contributing factor as to why American Horseshoe Crabs are identified as a vulnerable species. I will also write about how horseshoe crab population declines have negative impacts on other species, like the red knot.

Resolution/ Call to Action: The great news is that a synthetic alternative to horseshoe crab blood, recombinant Factor C (rFC), has been developed. Some pharmaceutical companies have already begun to switch their operations to using rFC instead of LAL, the component of the horseshoe crab’s blood used in safety testing. I will also provide a link to steps that a reader can take to get involved in horseshoe crab protection efforts. The Ecological Research and Development Group has created this website to promote individual action towards horseshoe crab conservation, which I plan to include a link to in my final project.

What I Hope to Achieve

I want to provide readers with more insight into the value of horseshoe crabs so that they can become informed advocates for horseshoe crab conservation.

Initial Sketches

Please note, the data shown in these sketches is not accurate as these are only the preliminary sketches used to show the overall concepts for the final visualizations.

I plan to use a network diagram for my first sketch to emphasize how many species depend on horseshoe crabs. An initial sketch is provided below.

Next, I plan to use a line graph to show the rising biomedical horseshoe crab mortalities over time with a dotted line estimate of the 2020 mortalities. I will also include a reference line to show how much mortalities have exceeded the mortality threshold determined by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. An initial sketch is provided below.

Finally, I plan to include a bar chart showing red knot’s declining population over time. An initial sketch is provided below.

The Data

For my data on horseshoe crabs’ role in their ecosystem, I will be drawing from a chapter in Biology and Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs, called The Ecological Importance of Horseshoe Crabs in Estuarine and Coastal Communities: A Review and Speculative Summary. This chapter is freely available from SpringerLink. It provides an in-depth discussion of horseshoe crabs’ interrelationships with other species, which I will use to create my full network diagram.

My data on horseshoe crabs’ mortality will be sourced from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 2019 Horseshoe Crab Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report (May 2019). I am particularly interested in the Table 15 page 119 of the report (shown below) that provides data on the number of horseshoe crabs that were collected, bled, and died as part of the biomedical harvesting of the crabs. I will use this data in at least one of my visualizations during the conflict portion of my story to show that horseshoe crab mortality from biomedical harvesting has increased over time. This data is freely accessible from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s website.

Image source: ASMFC. 2019. 2019 Horseshoe Crab Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report. ASMFC, Arlington, VA. pp. 119

I may also use data from the Delaware Bay Horseshoe Crab Survey if I decide to narrow my story to the Delaware Bay, an important horseshoe crab habitat. The survey reports provide seasonal estimates of the horseshoe crab populations in Delaware Bay from 1999 to 2019. It may be useful to incorporate this data into my narrative about the vulnerability of horseshoe crab populations. This data is freely available.

In addition to horseshoe crabs, I also think it is important to include red knots in my story since their migration survival is linked to the availability of horseshoe crab eggs. Right now, the best data source I have found for red knots is the Species Status Assessment Report for the Rufa Red Knot, prepared by Wendy Walsh of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, New Jersey Ecological Services Field Office. This report includes a table with aerial counts of red knots dating back to 1982 (shown below). This report is freely available online at this website.

Image source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2020. Species status assessment report for the rufa red knot (Calidris canutus rufa). Version 1.1. Ecological Services New Jersey Field Office, Galloway, New Jersey. pp. 22.

Method and Medium

I will present my final project using Shorthand to create an online compelling story narrative supported by data. I plan to start my project with a background paragraph on horseshoe crabs and their significance in the pharmaceutical industry as well as within their own ecosystems. I will then embed a network diagram showing horseshoe crabs relationships to other species. I plan to use flourish.studio to make the network diagram.

As readers continue to scroll through my Shorthand site they will reach the “conflict” portion of my story. I will show how horseshoe crab mortalities from biomedical harvesting has increased over time, and additionally how horseshoe crab and red knot populations have decreased over time. I will make these visualizations using either Tableau or flourish.studio. I will also include a few paragraphs of text to provide more detail and context to this portion of my story.

Finally, I will end with the good news: a synthetic alternative to horseshoe crab blood has been developed for biomedical tests, and it is being implemented by some pharmaceutical companies! I will also leave readers with a call to action by including a button in my Shorthand page that links to individual actions for protecting horseshoe crabs, including volunteer efforts and educational campaigns.

Please use this link to see Part II of my project: Final Project Part II

Please use this link to see Part III of my project: Final Project Part III

Please use this link to go back to my portfolio: Rachel Bukowitz Portfolio