Applied ecology PhD student, Madi Polera, is collecting data to help to answer a basic question about mussels: how y’all doing? Scientists don’t currently have a good way of measuring the overall health of mussels, so Madi and her team are set on figuring out how to take the temperature on the wellbeing of these imperiled–and important–creatures.

Come dive in to this question and snorkel the Neuse River in this brief video on Madi’s research: