Twelve days is not a lot of time to absorb everything you need to know to be a scientific diver, but we spend long days learning and coffee helps us get through. During August we teach a two-week long intensive scientific diving course. Students learn different rescue techniques, get exposed to boating and engines, assist with filling of our SCUBA cylinders, learn basic knot tying, and collect data about fish, algae and invertebrates. During the second week of the class we camp and dive at the magical Big Creek Reserve in Big Sur. The state marine reserve is some of the best diving I have done with large understory kelps that you navigate through like 6-foot tall trees out of Dr. Seuss. The class learns important fish, algae and invertebrate species and completes a Reef Check California survey by the end of the course. We had some great conditions and a great class, see this link for a short video of one of the dives.
Since May, the mammal lab has been as quiet as a post-apocalyptic library (yep, that quiet). For the marine mammologist (and birder), summer time is all about fieldwork — followed by lots and lots of data crunching and thesis writing. So with fall drawing ever closer (noooooo!), I wanted to check in with my labmates to see what they have been up to. Below is a quick summary from each of us. We’ll see you soon!
Ryan Carle: Ryan continued working on Año Nuevo Island, finishing data collection for his thesis on Rhinoceros Auklet diet and reproduction. He spends most of his waking hours on the Island identifying prey, restoring habitat, counting burrows, collecting boluses — you name it. When he’s not on Año, he’s trekking about California and making apple cider!
Casey Clark: Casey has been fervently writing up his thesis as he prepares to defend in the fall. Draft one? Check! Falling asleep on your keyboard? Check! He has also been helping out with seabird research in Astoria, Oregon. He did save time for fun too — camping, hiking, and kayaking. Jealous!
Marilyn Cruickshank: Marilyn spent the summer analyzing BeachCOMBERS data. She’s looking to see if the residence times of stranded birds on Monterey beaches can help with damage assessments and as a predictor of where most birds will wash ashore in future oil spills. Marilyn continued working for the stranding network and learned how to program in Matlab. She even found time to carve a new banjo. Nice wood-working skills, Marilyn!
Emily Golson: Emily has been doing nothing but data analyses. Her sea otter movement model has been developed and now she is fitting parameters of the model using otter re-sighting data. Oil spill forecasting data (from the DFW and NOAA) will allow Emily to run a simulation of sea otter movements to estimate the number of sea otters that could be oiled (using various severities, different surface current circulation patterns, and times of year). Stay tuned, because this fall Emily will be presenting posters at the Oiled Wildlife Care Network’s Annual Rehabilitation Conference (Oilapalooza) and the Society for Marine Mammology’s 20th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals. We can’t wait!
A resting sea otter (Enhydra lutris). Photo by Nicole LaRoche.
Keith Hernandez: Keith started his sea lion diet study this summer. He’s been collecting scat off Año Nuevo Island with his collaborators and working with his summer intern, Ross Johnston, to process the scat; that is, removing and quantifying the hard parts and blending the remaining feces. Strong stomach, everyone, the poop room has returned!
Deasy Lontoh: As some of you may have read, Deasy traveled to Papua Barat, Indonesia (where she did her thesis data collection) to teach Indonesian school children about the threats that the endangered leatherback sea turtles face while nesting in Indonesia. Safe travels, Deasy!
Deasy with Indonesian school children. Photo from MLML.
Suzanne Manugian: Suzanne’s summer update: writing, writing, writing! She’s on chapter two of her thesis and expects her first draft to be done by September. She continues to monitor her seal haul-out sites, count seals for NPS, and will monitor marine mammals for the Bay Bridge project. A defense and marine mammal conference are looming in Suzanne's future. In her spare time, she’s been training for a few triathlons, a bike road race, and a half marathon... She also wrestles bears. Or so we hear. Kick-ass, Suzanne!
Melinda Nakagawa: Melinda is finishing up her thesis using remotely sensed oceanographic data to better characterize the California Current region (and the habitat of Sooty Shearwaters and their prey). Outside of that, her summer was spent chasing her little one around!
Gillian Rhett: Gillian is finishing up data collection and plans to graduate in the fall. She is using an epifluorescence microscope and scanning electron microscope to quantify and meiofauna (really small benthic invertebrates) from sediment cores that MBARI collected at whale fall sites in Monterey Bay. Gillian hopes to determine whether the meiofauna community is different under the whale bones versus the regular seafloor. Sooo cool, right?!?
Whale fall in Monterey Canyon from February 2002. Photo by MBARI.
Jacqueline Schwartzstein: This summer Jackie bade us farewell and moseyed up the Pacific Northwest to the evergreen state — Washington. Once there she kicked off her fieldwork, collecting gray whale prey data (benthic invert goodies, yum!) and got married. All in a days’ work. Congratulations, Jackie! Now get home because we miss you and your new hubby.
Angela Szesciorka: I started shipboard surveys in April. I’m basically a glorified ocean hitchhiker, riding vessels that are going between San Francisco and Los Angeles to survey for whales. Just me and the binos... well, and datasheets, food, and a helper, if I’m lucky. I’m hoping to do hotspot analysis with whale and ship distribution data to predict where ship-whale interactions might occur. Keith and I had an amazing journey on R/V Point Sur when we traveled from Oregon to Moss Landing in June. This August and September, I’ll be teaming up with John Calambokidis to tag humpback whales in the Traffic Separation Scheme off San Francisco. I hope to find out if humpback whale dive and foraging behavior is affected by the presence of large commercial vessels.
Surveying for humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) off California. Photos by Angela Szesciorka.
Lisa Webb: Lisa spent her summer working on her thesis on the foraging ecology of Brandt’s Cormorants in Monterey Bay. A thesis defense is in her future. Stay tuned!
*Update from Lisa: Between trips to the beach with her almost two year old daughter, Lisa has been preparing to present her thesis results on Brandt’s Cormorant diet in the Monterey Bay area at an upcoming workshop, Predators and The California Current Preyscape. The focus of the workshop is to gather information pertinent to management of forage fishes in the changing California Current System. Presentations will span a wide spectrum (invertebrates, fishes, seabirds, and marine mammals) and will highlight short and long-term changes observed at the scale that predators forage and compete. The adequacy of ecosystem based management will be discussed at the end of the workshop. The Brandt’s Cormorant is endemic to the California Current, forages nearshore, and the central California population is increasing, yet only a few diet studies have been conducted in Monterey Bay. Lisa’s study indicates a major shift from rockfishes and squid in the 1970s to a coastal pelagic, northern anchovy, and sanddabs in the 2000s. Additionally, due to greater sampling frequency than previous diet studies, Lisa has documented short-term prey switching in Brandt’s Cormorants, exemplifying their ability to capitalize on a sudden influx of prey.*
Kristine Williams: Kristine is finishing up her thesis looking at the effects of different health conditions on hematology and serum chemistries in California sea lions. She worked with The Marine Mammal Center, collecting her data from their Sausalito facility while becoming a registered veterinary technician. Way to go, Kristine! She is currently working on final revisions of her thesis. Expect to see her defend in the fall!
It's that time of year again, summer. The glorious few months off from classes we graduate students have to catch up of research, work, and sometimes even fun things. Me and a few of my fellow labmates took some time off from work this past few weeks to play hooky for a cause. We volunteered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Young Women in Science program to help middle school girls in this summer camp monitor the beach for sand crabs and learn how to boogie board. The camp's aim is help empower young girls interested in science to be guardians of the ocean. Many of these girls have never been swimming in the ocean before and we enjoyed showed the girls the fun of splashing in the surf.
Invertebrate Lab student Melinda waiting for a wave.
You may remember me talking about this event from last summer, but since it is such a wonderful program I had to post it again. This year even more women from MLML and MBARIs summer intern program came out to help local girls learn more about the ocean. We spent half of the day using the scientific method and sampling along a transect to look for sand crabs. The campers were encouraged to form hypotheses about where the crabs were living and use results to think about larger food webs and ecosystem processes. After lunch and a safety lesson on currents and waves from the lifeguards, girls rushed towards the ocean with boogie boards in tow ready to conquer this new frontier. We ran in after them and helped them learn to catch a wave and dive under ones that were too big.
Lifeguard explains how to safely dive under a large wave to girls at YWS, they also learned about rip currents and water safety.
This camp is a weeklong and the girls get to do some amazing activities like kayaking the Elkhorn Slough and playing with us in the ocean. Many of these girls might not otherwise get these experiences so the camp aims to bring them new knowledge of the ocean and coastal environments as well as making science approachable and fun.
Our fearless leader Pamela, also an invertebrate lab student and MBA employee, keeping watch over the girls in the ocean.
Classes at Moss Landing are a lot of work but they can also be a lot of fun. We get to go on cruises through the bay and learn coastal sampling methods. This past spring semester the Invertebrate Zoology class, while attempting to learn >30 phyla of invertebrates we took time out to visit my favorite Monterey Harbor. Here we looked at some PVC settlement plates I had put out earlier in the semester. They collect may groups of settling animals such as Bryozoans, Chordates (Tunicates), and Barnacles. Students took time to examine these sessile (not moving or semi-permanently attached) animals under some dissecting microscopes we brought with us. These sessile animals are part of the marine fouling community, generally known for their ability to attach to almost anything in the water including piers, floating docks (like the one we were standing on in the above picture), and even the bottom of people's boats. Thanks to a little sunshine and fun things to see, we had a great afternoon on the docks.
Students sampling settlement plates from Monterey Harbor with Professor Jon Geller (white hat).Fouling organisms common to floating docks of debris. Note: not all of these animals can be found on the Pacific coast, but below you can see a picture from Monterey Harbor of a few. Illustration by: New England Aquarium
Local fouling community with many invasive tunicates, clear vase like solitary tunicate (Ciona savangyi); star or flower colonial tunicate (Botryllus schlosseri); and the yellow colonial tunicate in the center and orange tunicate in the bottom left (Botryllodies violaceus).
We are lucky enough to be at the center of the Monterey Bay, and summers are the perfect time to take advantage of the large marine research community in the area.
This summer I am working as an intern at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), just across the water from Moss Landing Marine Labs in Moss Landing. MBARI’s research focuses on the development and use of marine technology as well as the exploration and monitoring of the ocean. As an intern there, I am working with Drs. Jim Bellingham and Julio Harvey on correlating optical measurements of zooplankton with molecular methods in the laboratory. These measurements will allow us to have a better understanding of the data sent back from in situ instruments as well as giving a better idea of the effects of confounding factors in both the optical and molecular measurements.
In the few weeks I've been here, there have been a lot of familiar faces around MBARI. Several other MLML students are taking advantage of MBARI's facilities to work on projects related to their these, including a couple of my fellow interns, Vignesh Soundararajan and Diane Wyse, who are working with Francisco Chavez and Jim Bellingham respectively.
The R/V Rachel Carson with a few of MBARI's interns: Larissa, Miguel, Nettie, Kendra, and myself. Photo: Heather Fulton-Bennett/MBARI 2013
All the technicalities of the work aside, one of the best parts of working at MBARI is getting to go out on research cruises. MBARI has two large ships, the Western Flyer, which goes out for weeks or months at a time, and the Rachel Carson, which hosts the daily cruises out of Moss Landing.
Myself and four other interns were able to join a cruise with Dr. Jim Barry’s lab deploying several instruments, as well as collecting urchins (Allocentrotus fragilis) with the ROV Ventana for experiments involving ocean acidification.
Collecting the fragile urchin, Allocentrotus fragilis near a resting rock fish, Sebastes sp. Photo: Heather Fulton-Bennett/MBARI 2013
As part of my time on the cruise, I conducted net tows to collect zooplankton. I had hoped to isolate several organisms from these tows to run molecular analyses on, however the taxa I had wanted were absent from the samples.
Collecting zooplankton in a small net with MBARI Research Technician Patrick Whaling. Photo: Larissa Clary/MBARI 2013
Unfortunate, but it just means I’ll have to go out on the Rachel Carson again sometime.
The R/V Rachel Carson heading home after a sunny and successful cruise with the ROV Ventana safely on deck. Photo: Heather Fulton-Bennett/MBARI 2013
I'm looking forward to many more adventures this summer, both with my internship at MBARI and my thesis research at MLML.
When did you first become interested in science? Do you remember the first time you got excited about learning something new? In the wake of my first year of graduate school, I am practicing a little metacognition.
In the past few months I've been hearing and reading some interesting ideas about how we learn:
1. A TED talk about how to get out of the way and let students learn, unsupervised. (Click the link and watch it!)
Still from Mitra's TED talk
If you are reading this blog, you are already participating in a self-teaching, Internet-based learning opportunity. Sugata Mitra's talk proposes a system of teaching in communities where Internet cafes are not the norm, and undereducated youth lack the teachers they need. With his hole in the wall computer Mitra watched groups of students learn complicated scientific concepts in foreign languages, with no regular instructor or grade based incentive. In concert with the new idea for world wide Internet distributed through weather balloons (see this site), could Mitra's inspiring concept be our future?
2. A research study popularized by my Facebook wall, about how cute baby animal pictures help you think. (Click the link to read for yourself!)
If these authors are right, you will be much more productive with your office work after reading this article. Pictures of baby animals helped study participants perform both fine motor and visual search tasks, "interpreted as the result of a narrowed attentional focus induced by the cuteness-triggered positive emotion that is associated with approach motivation and the tendency toward systematic processing". Baby animal pictures improved task performance more than either adult animal pictures or photos of tasty food. Remember to glance at this page again before you shut your computer in the evening and drive home - it will make you a better driver!
3. An article about how Americans are learning outside of the classroom. (Click the link to read!)
A learning opportunity outside of the classroom. Photo from the above article.
This article suggests a theory to explain why American students perform poorly in math and the sciences (during K-12), compared to the rest of the world. It turns out that we might be learning more after we get out of school, bridging the gap later in life. The authors suggest that we can continue to bridge gaps in our public science education by improving science learning outside of the classroom, during "the other 95%" of our lives. The US has a good basis for this type of public education, with more natural history museums, aquariums, libraries, and science centers than most other developed countries.
"Insufficient data exist to conclusively demonstrate that free-choice science learning experiences currently contribute more to public understanding of science than in-school experiences, but a growing body of evidence points in this direction."
All in all, this seems to support what we are doing already at MLML. Students of marine science do a lot of their learning outside of school. Just look at our blog posts! Hands on field courses are what get us really excited here at MLML! And we even get the chance to look at cute baby animals from time to time.
Baby Puffer Fish. Photo from http://www.thecutereport.com/index.php/2007/09/06/baby-puffer-fish/
Hope your summer is full of exciting things to learn!
By Michelle Marraffini, Invertebrate Zoology and Molecular Ecology Lab
Artist illustration of coral reef. Photo from library.thinkquest.org; illustration by Gina Mikel.
Conservation science can sometimes feel like it is all doom and gloom stories with reports of have few of a species are left or what factors may lead a species to go extinct. Dr. Knowlton, a career scientist with the Smithsonian, realized that after attending conferences and taking surveys of conservation scientist, people tend to think of conservation science as a losing business. Nancy Knowlton and her work on a project called "Beyond the Obituaries" is trying to change that image. She highlights stories of groups that make conservation work; they include fishing villages that enact their own Marine Protected Areas, species saved by local activists, protecting turtles and sharks by reducing by-catch, and many more success stories of ocean science. "I felt it was really important to give people a reason to think that there is something you can do" Dr. Knowlton explained when asked about her recent work. By focusing on solutions rather then failures, hopefully she will reassure people that there is still time to save the coral reefs and safeguard marine biodiversity around the world.
Dr. Knowlton recently gave a seminar at MLML and in an hour inspired many of our students to take a more positive outlook on science. By focusing on the victories and learning what works we can help preserve more of the world’s oceans for the future. So now I am challenging you to listen to Dr. Knowlton's talk (linked below) and do your small part to save the world's oceans and inspire those around you to do the same.
Help create a wave of change this World Oceans Day! Today is a day to spread the word about conservation and our responsibility of improving the health of the oceans. To find out ways to celebrate go to worldoceans.org. Your promise to the oceans could be to start using a reusable water bottle or bringing reusable grocery bags to the store. We will have a large positive impact on the health of the oceans if each one of us reduces the amount of plastic we use. You can read in this article about MBARI's observations of trash in the deep sea. Of 1100+ observations of garbage in Monterey Bay, 32% were plastic and 23% metal. Our impacts were detected as deep as 13,000 feet and 300 miles offshore. We need to reduce our reliance on single use items! Celebrate in your own way to rise up and be the voice of the ocean!
Our shipping container was delivered, John Douglas and James Cochran worked on placing it in its final resting spot.
We have been working hard on completing the new nitrox compressor system here at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. This project is about 5 years in the making. Our facilities group constructed new tank racks for up to 90 SCUBA cylinders and Nitrox Solutions has created the compressor system housed inside of a shipping container. This new system will be quieter and have the ability to increase the percent oxygen in air by separating nitrogen out using a membrane. Our new high pressure tanks can be filled to greater pressures and fit more cubic feet so divers can stay down longer. These changes will help get students dive for longer periods, dive more in a day, and ideally more safely as we will have less total nitrogen in our tissues over the day compared to air. Our 100 cubic foot tanks are filled with air that would fit into a box 4.64 feet x 4.64 feet x 4.64 feet, and can now fit into something you put on your back!
One of the best parts of classes at Moss Landing Marine Labs are the field trips. The Biology of Seaweeds class makes numerous trips around the Monterey Bay area to examine different algal habitats and to learn more about the ecological niches of algae in the intertidal. Every year, Professor Mike Graham, leads the phycology class on a trip south of Point Conception to discover the similarities and differences in southern California algae. This year we camped at El Capitan State Beach and enjoyed some beach combing, s’mores, and late night Phyctionary, where we attempted to illustrate terms related to seaweeds.
Our teaching assistant, Sarah Jeffries, Dr. Mike Graham, and phycology student Bobby San Miguel examine one of the boulders still visible above the sand.
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn chasing a very low tide to Coal Oil Point, on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. This site was very different to our usual intertidal excursions around the Monterey Bay, as the area was highly inundated with sand, and only the largest boulders and outer parts of the rock reef were exposed.
Phycology student Jarred Klosinski examines the drift algae around a boulder covered in fucoids and mussels.
California, in terms of marine algae, is made up of two distinct floristic areas; a northern community that stretches from British Columbia to Point Conception, California, and a southern group of species that stretches from Point Conception to the Baja California peninsula. There are quite a few groups that inhabit both areas, but different oceanographic nutrient and water movement regimes mean that there are unique to the areas north or south of Point Conception.
Taonia lennebackerae, a brown algae in the order Dictyotales, commonly found south of Point Conception
Zonaria farlowii, also in the Dictytales, that grows in the subtropical waters south of Point Conception
Along with some cool genera of algae we had not seen before, Taonia and Zonaria, it was also interesting to see different morphologies in algal species found both north and south of Point Conception. South of Point Conception, the ocean temperature is higher, there is less circulation due to upwelling, and nutrients can become limited during some parts of the year. These environmental differences can lead to local adaptation in morphology, physiology, and reproduction.
And for those less interested in algae, we also saw plenty of cool invertebrates.
A young Egregia menziesii recruit is grazed on by a sea hare (Aplysia) in the low intertidal.A kelp crab, Pugettia, tries to hide in the Phyllospadix wrack.
And even a marine vertebrate!
A Gray Whale heads north towards Point Conception.
Twelve days is not a lot of time to absorb everything you need to know to be a scientific diver, but we spend long days learning and coffee helps us get through. During August we teach a two-week long intensive scientific diving course. Students learn different rescue techniques, get exposed to boating and engines, assist with filling of our SCUBA cylinders, learn basic knot tying, and collect data about fish, algae and invertebrates. During the second week of the class we camp and dive at the magical Big Creek Reserve in Big Sur. The state marine reserve is some of the best diving I have done with large understory kelps that you navigate through like 6-foot tall trees out of Dr. Seuss. The class learns important fish, algae and invertebrate species and completes a Reef Check California survey by the end of the course. We had some great conditions and a great class, see this link for a short video of one of the dives.
