Author: mlmlblog

Geological Oceanography: Field Trip to Manresa State Beach

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Kathleen Cieri_Starr LabBy Katie Cieri, Fisheries and Conservation Biology Lab

On Wednesday, September 27th, Professor Ivano Aielloo and GA Tyler Barnes lead the students of Geological Oceanography on an exploration of the fascinating sedimentary record at Manresa State Beach. It was a beautiful day for a beach adventure, and a pod of dolphins blessed the budding geologists with aerial displays.
After bushwhacking their way through invasive pampas grass and ice plant, the students were rewarded with a remarkable record of California's coastal geologic history. The eager pupils got up-close and personal with the marine terraces in order to piece together the fascinating story of sea level rise and fall over the last 120 thousand years.
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The students of Geological Oceanography gather at the base of a marine terrace at Manresa State Beach after a productive afternoon. (Photo Source: Kathleen Cieri).

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Aquacultural Methods for the Restoration of the Olympia Oyster ( Ostrea lurida) in Elkhorn Slough

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By Dan Gossard, Phycology Lab Dan

As I step into the aquaria room at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML), I always notice the abrupt sensory differences between that room and the outdoors. Numerous waterfalls pouring from valved pipe fitting and hoses replenish tanks of various sizes with the seawater that marine organisms need. The continual splashing of this water is overlaid with a mixture of sounds from pumps and bubbling air stones, designed to diffuse bubbled air so it is more easily dissolved into the water. The piped walls and troughed floors provide a strong seawater circuit that controls the temperature and smell of the air - cool and salty. This aquaria room is crucial to the work of the students at the lab. The room's newest occupants may help recover a once abundant inhabitant of the North American West Coast's bays and estuaries: the Olympia oyster (Ostrea lurida; or Olys for short). Although most of the organisms I've cultured in the aquaria room have been seaweeds, I recently had the opportunity to participate in the culturing of these native invertebrates.

VIDEO CAPTION: A compound microscope shows an up close and personal view of one of the Oly larva. After some time having developed within the mantle cavity of the mother, the mature oyster will spew a cloud of larvae into the environment. This larval stage, the pediveliger, is a free-swimming stage that actively feeds on phytoplankton. Quick movement of the ring of cilia, also known as the vellum, directs tiny plankton towards the larva's mouth. This vellum also provides the pediveliger with the ability to move around in the water column. This stage also has a transparent shell protecting its delicate innards that the oyster can withdraw into after picking up environmental sensory cues. (Video Source: Daniel Gossard).

 

Our filled graduated buckets house these small oysters, and sit in a heated water bath in the back corner of the room. The Olys have been observed to release larvae at higher temperatures, and we've determined that conductive heat would be the easiest way to maintain these higher temperatures. Our broodstock, or adults that we are specifically using to produce larvae, are contained within three separate buckets: two containing Olys from Kirby Park and one containing Olys from Azevedo Pond. We have been hoping that some of these individuals are gravid, but there is no way to be sure without prying open the shell and killing the oyster. We instead have been sticking to daily observations using a high-powered spotlight. Every day, Peter Hain, the expert invertebrate aquaculturist, and I switch off transferring these broodstock to clean and preheated buckets. We then pipette in a highly concentrated mixture of diatoms and flagellates that quickly swirl around the bucket following the flow of our added air-stone. The end result is a brownish green diluted soup that is consumed entirely by the following day. Dr. Jillian Bible, from Bodega Marine Laboratory, has informed us that these oysters thrive under a specific density of phytoplankton per liter of seawater. Jill has had experience culturing Olys in the past, and her advice has been crucial for our setup design and maintenance scheduling.

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Peter Hain, from the Monterey Abalone Company (MAC), holds up a custom designed rack made to supply clam shells for swimming Oly larvae to settle on. The tank below houses a plethora of swimming larvae - upwards of 300,000. The shells and tank need to be cleaned regularly in order to maintain a relatively sterile environment to minimize larvae mortality. Once the larvae decide to settle on these shells, they will be fed greater and greater amounts of phytoplankton until they are large enough to be transplanted into Elkhorn Slough. MAC's hatchery within Moss Landing Marine Laboratories' aquaria room was graciously provided as some of the baseline infrastructure responsible for larval-culture associated with this restoration project. (Photo Source: Daniel Gossard).

Before I switch out and feed the last oyster containing bucket in the bath, I click on my spotlight. This Azevedo bucket, which I've observed has a partially foamy sheen, seems to have less water clarity than the other buckets. By shining this spotlight through the side of the bucket, I will be able to illuminate whatever larvae are swimming around within the bucket. Much to my surprise, I spot thousands of slowly moving larvae within the beam. Using a mixture of sieves and buckets, I gently siphon the young oyster pedi-veligers (the specific free-swimming Oly larval type) to minimize the oyster waste and various other organisms that may have hitched a ride during transfer from the slough. The grayish moving mass of water contained above the 100-micron sieve contains about 150,000 larvae, based on a few samples I examine under the dissecting microscope. This is the first step toward deployment of new juvenile oysters that may help bolster the population of Olys within Elkhorn Slough.

Populations of these small oysters were plentiful until the late 19th century. Early Native American middens on the west coast contain traces of a variety of seafood, including the shells of the Olympia oyster. Olys are much smaller, and would require three or four to match the meat of the other two more popular Crassostrea, the Pacific and Eastern oyster. A mixture of human consumption and anthropogenic stressors, such as sedimentation from the Gold Rush in San Francisco Bay and pollution from industrial runoff, drastically diminished population sizes and transformed the habitat of these oysters to decrease likelihood of recovery.

UC Santa Cruz's Dr. Kerstin Wasson, along with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, has been monitoring the Elkhorn Slough Oly population over several years. They have concluded that these Olys have experienced half of a decade of unsuccessful spawns. Although the reason behind the failure for lack of successful spawning has yet to be elucidated, an older population may be more susceptible to mortality due to age. In addition to compiling multiple reviews and conducting studies on various populations of Olys, Kerstin's expertise and familiarity with the slough has also led her to observe a size difference between oysters at two sites in the slough: Kirby Park and Azevedo Pond. These size differences have been attributed to differences in dissolved oxygen content between the two sites.

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These larvae were present within our Oly broodstock (gravid adults) tank one morning. They were released into the water in a massive event from one or more individuals. They are only visible with the use of a high-powered spotlight. This is the life stage of the Olys that is the most susceptible to the dangers of the natural environment; in the wild, only a few of these hundreds of thousands of larvae would survive. Eliminating mortalities associated with predation and minimizing mortalities associated with disease and other abiotic stressors provides a much greater likelihood of these larvae successfully recruiting and growing into adults. After a careful filtering process, we isolated these larvae from their parents in order to provide them with a specific regimen of phytoplankton. (Photo Source: Daniel Gossard.)

Dr. Brent Hughes, postdoctoral researcher and fellow from Duke University and UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Lab is an alumnus of MLML and has conducted extensive study on another inhabitant of Elkhorn Slough that has been deleteriously impacted by humans: seagrass. Seagrass and Olys cohabitate the intertidal and shallow subtidal regions. Seagrass can be characterized as a foundation species: it provides shelter for organisms seeking refuge from predators, organisms such as small crustaceans feed on it, and it disproportionately impacts its system compared to other marine plants and algae. Photosynthesis by seagrass is a vast contributor to dissolved oxygen concentrations in the surrounding water and the root system of the seagrass stabilizes the sediment and makes the mudflats more habitable by the Olys.

Brent and Kerstin received a generous donation from the Anthropocene Institute to help restore the Oly's in the slough and approached Professor Michael Graham of the Phycology Lab to collaborate with MLML in the process. Brent and Kerstin intend to study the effects of dissolved oxygen and other abiotic (environmental) variables on the demographics of Elkhorn Slough's Oly population. Studies have shown that Oly (and other oysters) are most susceptible to succumb to stress mortality in their larval stage. Olys have evolved to produce hundreds of thousands of larvae per spawn to attempt to pass on their genetic heritage and overcome these mass larval mortalities. By taking some of the Olys from the slough and spawning them in a controlled environment, we may be able to minimize larval stress related mortalities. Peter and I are currently working to achieve this goal with the utilization of controlled and responsible aquacultural methods.

These larvae that were just released need to go through a few more steps before we can deploy them back in Elkhorn Slough. Although Oly larvae will "settle", or transition from their motile to sessile life stage, and become affixed to any number of substrates, they have a chemical preference toward settling on calcium carbonate. Although there are a number of natural calcium carbonate fixing organisms in the system, we plan on providing butter clam and gaper clam shells for the Olys to settle on. By attaching these clam shells to wooden stakes, we essentially create a multiple oyster unit that can easily be deployed into the intertidal zone in Elkhorn Slough. We can deploy a number of these units to multiple sites to aid the recovery of these small oysters. Wish these larvae luck as they spend the next few months in our aquaria room before they are reconnected with their native Oly population in Elkhorn Slough.

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The Hydrous

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Kenji_Foldable_KayakBy Kenji Soto, Benthic Ecology Lab

It’s 6pm on Thursday August 25th and somehow I find myself in a sharply dressed gathering of people on the second floor of Steuart Tower in the financial district of San Francisco, one block away from the Embarcadero.  Making up the crowd are people from Autodesk, Google, 3D modelers, educators, artists, and scientists.  There’s a bartender serving beer and wine, a snack table filled with a variety of mini meat and vegan kabobs paired with corresponding dipping sauces, an assortment of focaccia samplers, and toast with even more sauces.  This is all too fancy for me, a humble jean wearing graduate student, and I feel a bit out of place even in my dressy-casual button up shirt that I luckily remembered to bring (I did however forget my jacket!).

I am at this swanky event to attend The Hydrous’ first ever happy hour.  It took place in the Autodesk Gallery, which is filled with the many beautiful and innovative creations that an Autodesk program was used to create: a soccer ball with a battery inside that is charged by playing with it, an ultra-light, but super protective race car frame, a kayak that folds into a carriable box (see picture), and intricate golden artwork the size of your hand to name a few.  From week to week the gallery features different projects from companies like Nike, Lego, and Ferrari.  But today it’s the Hydrous’ turn to show off its work.

What is The Hydrous, you might ask?  It is a non-profit comprised of scientists, engineers, and artists who love the ocean and whose goal is to provide the public with a meaningful connection to the ocean which they hope will inspire people to explore, understand, and protect the ocean.  “Providing a meaningful connection” is a phrase that really spoke to me and is one reason why I find the work at The Hydrous especially inspiring.  In her opening statement, Erica Woolsey, the CEO of The Hydrous, stated how during her PhD and PostDoc she published a number of papers about coral reefs, but none of it seemed to make any difference in protecting the reefs that she loved.  And for the most part all of the things that she learned stayed within academia because “the facts don’t speak for themselves.”  Due to these shortcomings of “traditional” science, she, Nora Hall (COO), and Sly Lee (Co-Founder) started The Hydrous as a better approach towards ocean advocacy, protection, conservation, and education.

A core belief at The Hydrous is that if you want people to care about something, they have to be able to see it and even better if they can touch it.  In order to achieve this they are using different 3D modeling techniques to bring the ocean to everyone.  On display today, are physical models of corals created with a 3D printer, a virtual reality (VR) exploration simulator of three different ocean experiences, a drone and plane camera rig used to create 3D maps of islands, an education and outreach desk, and information on how you can get involved with The Hydrous’ tropical reef photogrammetry (more on this in a bit) trips aboard a luxury ship for the price of $5000 (maybe one day).

I first talked to Elle Stapleton, a fabrication artist, about the physical 3D coral models on display.  She explained how the process of photogrammetry stitches together multiple pictures to create a single image, in the case of one the corals on display, 250 pictures were taken to create a digital 3D model which was then printed out with using a 3D printer.  A particularly cool coral on display was one made out of calcium carbonate.  I had seen plenty of models created with a 3D printer using different types of plastics, but I had no idea that CaCO3 could be used as a printing material.  The Hydrous partnered with architect Professor Ronald Rael (UC Berkeley) in order to make this cool powder based printing material.  Unfortunately, this coral was too delicate to be handled.  But, it was created in hopes to use in ocean acidification tests compare rates of CaCO3 decay in different ocean conditions.  In addition to these physical models of 2” to 12” corals, The Hydrous wants to use photogrammetry to create 3D maps of entire reefs.

I then stopped by the next table to learn how drones and Cessnas were being used to map tropical islands and island chains, respectively.  Both drones and planes were equipped with GoPros to take pictures along their flight paths, but the planes used a special camera rig with three GoPros on it.  After this, I used their VR rig to explore a deep sea whale fall community and coral reef.  It was my first time using VR and I got completely immersed in the experience.  I am pretty sure that if I put on noise canceling headphones, I would have started holding my breath.  After being kindly reminded that there were other people around waiting for their turn (sorry, I forgot!).

Lastly, I talked to Nora, who explained how The Hydrous is working with educators to create “kits” of lesson plans, activities, 3D models, and VR to be used by teachers in their classrooms.  Additionally, they offer presentations and workshops to be used at company events, conferences, or museums.  She hopes that this outreach will help them make those meaningful connections with the ocean and create a community that is inspired to “make positive differences for the ocean.”   

And thus concluded my evening at The Hydrous’ Happy Hours, thank you Nora and Erika for such a fun evening. Maybe one day you can present at MLML.  For more information on The Hydrous, you can go here: https://www.thehydro.us/ .

A Season of Faith’s Perfection

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By Drew Burrier, Physical Oceanography Lab

That title was used in a movie to describe the hope that springs eternal at the start of a new baseball season and it has always stuck with me. Perhaps it comes from growing up in Cleveland, Ohio a city famous (until recently) for middling sports performance. And yet, every year, that first day of the season possesses a certain magic. The idea that this is the year, this is the year that it all comes together. On the first day of the season, teams and fan bases alike truly believes that they are headed to the World Series. That is the beauty of a season of promise, not yet touched by disappointment or shortcomings.

You might find it odd to be talking about the start of baseball season as the leaves are starting to change colors and falls cool morning are upon us and as pennant races are all but settled. Or for this subject to appear on a graduate student marine science blog, however for students all over the country strapping on their backpacks, the fall carries with it a spring sense of rebirth.

Students, Faculty and staff join for the annual barbecue to welcome the incoming students.

Here at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories this spirit is upon us once again. For the newest cohort, it is perhaps most obvious. They have come from all over the world to start their graduate work in marine science. It is an exciting time filled with promise. Some have come straight from the undergraduate programs and others have come from internships and full-time jobs. Yet they all carry with them the promise of a life remade by the commitment of time and energy they are about to dedicate to studying the earth’s ocean environs. For all of us Moss Landing marks the beginning of our careers as marine scientists. For the returning students, fresh off a summer mired in thesis work, the fall is also a time for shifting gears and buckling down to accomplish a new task. Our data collection has wrapped up, and now it is time to analyze what we’ve done in the field, and coalesce that into a polished, cogent work of science.

For me, it is my last fall here at the labs. And as my emerging crow’s feet and increasing waistline elicit a fall spirit, I am once again gripped by the promise that this new school year holds. Now the labors of 4 years come to fruition as I prepare to defend my thesis. At the same time I am planning for a life outside these walls, (as tough as giving up my office view will be), as critical a component of one's graduate work as defending it.

And so to the new cohort joining our ranks I bid you welcome, and best wishes as you begin this new chapter. To those of you returning from a summer spent fleshing out thesis projects I wish you happy hunting as you progress. Finally to my fellow fall defenders I wish you happy resolutions and fond memories as you put the finishing touches on this chapter and start the next. May this truly be a season of perfection.

 

Collecting Kelp Data in Waves

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By Vicky Vásquez

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Beautiful morning at Stillwater Cove to deploy a newly constructed instrument for measuring waves in a kelp forest. (Photo credit: Dr. Colleen Durkin)

What do you get when a wave hits a kelp bed? The attention of two different labs at MLML! To better understand wave behavior as it meets a kelp bed, graduate student Steven Cunningham from the Phycology lab is partnering with Physical Oceanography professor, Dr. Tom Connolly.

Understanding this physical process will help components of Mr. Cunningham's thesis work on kelp forest ecosystems. The instrument needed for this work is an Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV), which obtains high resolution water velocity and pressure. The ADV will allow Mr. Cunningham to see when waves pass over the instrument and then get direction as well as velocity of wave orbitals.

 

 

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Dr. Tom Connolly tests out the ADV technology with his laptop before field deployment. (Photo Credit: Steven Cunningham).

Mr. Cunningham and Dr. Connolly have recently built a prototype housing for kelp bed deployments. Their ADV's unique design includes legs that fold up to reduce entanglement when the instrument is retrieved by line. It is this feature that has led to the ADV's nickname- the Virus.

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Meet the Virus! An ADV created by Steven Cunningham and Dr. Tom Connolly. (Photo Credit: Steven Cunningham).

 

Taking Up Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS)

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DCIM100GOPROGOPR2741.By Amanda Heidt, Invertebrate Zoology Lab

It's been a bit...vertebrate-y on the blog lately, so today we're going to hear about one of the ongoing projects of the Invertebrate Zoology lab here at Moss Landing! Our principle investigator, Dr. Jonathan Geller, is a coauthor on a recent paper to come out of our collaboration with the Infinite Diversity project, whose members include representatives from NOAA, the Smithsonian, San Diego State University, UCLA, and international scientists across Indonesia. With funding provided by the National Science Foundation, the ultimate goal of this project has been twofold: to foster international collaborations among marine scientists and to better understand marine biodiversity along geographic and anthropogenic (human-induced) stress gradients, with specific interest in tropical coral systems.

A thorough understanding of the ways in which we affect our environment and how these effects might play out under future climatic scenarios is of increasing importance, and it requires a method that is both standardized and tractable over time. So, let me tell you a little story. When I first started imagining this post almost a year ago, I had just spent a month at sea, diving at remote sites to collect field instruments that could then be brought back on board and analyzed. They were essentially stacks of PVC plates, held apart by small plastic spacers, which were anchored to the reef and left to "marinate" for years until they became nearly continuous with the reef itself. These pieces of equipment were ARMS (known in longhand as "Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures"), and they represent the answer to the question "How do we provide a systematic, consistent, and comparable method for analyzing biodiversity across broad scales?"

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ARMS structure, deployment, and recovery after a few years out on the reef.

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Working with “mer-dogs” aka California Sea Lions

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mason cole profile pictureBy Mason Cole, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

This post is part of Dr. Gitte McDonald’s marine mammal class blog series.

MLML Director Dr. Jim Harvey likes to say that harbor seals are the “cats of the sea”.  If that’s true, then California sea lions are the rambunctious young puppy dogs of the sea.  But not those little baby fluff-ball puppies; no, more like that almost-full-grown, 90-pound wrecking ball.

Many a commercial fisherman would cringe to read this, but I love working with sea lions.  They earned their place in my mind as “mer-dogs” for more than just their energy and enthusiasm: they are also particularly intelligent, with striking personalities and an impressive capacity to learn trained behavior.

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Nemo with his prize herring - good boy!  (Photo credit: Mason Cole.)

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Disentangling a Difficult Situation

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By Bradley Wilkinson, SJSU Graduate Student

This post is part of Dr. Gitte McDonald's marine mammals class blog series.

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The lighthouse on Southeast Farallon Island offers an amazing view of the surrounding Gulf of the Farallones for whale observations. Photo: Bradley Wilkinson

I had never seen so many whales before in my life. Standing atop Southeast Farallon Island, bracing against the rails of a relic lighthouse, I commanded an unequaled view of the surrounding seascape. To the northeast, Pt. Reyes stood before Bodega Bay, forming an extreme limit to my far-reaching gaze. The Golden Gate Bridge was blatantly obvious to the east, framed nicely against the hustle and bustle of San Francisco. To the south and west, endless blue. Huge container ships waiting for port entry outlined the invisible lanes of industrial traffic.

But the whales. The whales were everywhere, stealing the proverbial show. Spouts popped off in every direction, grouped in conglomerates of nearly a dozen on occasion. In total, I counted over eighty whales of three species that afternoon, in only one hour of effort. The extreme productivity of the Gulf of the Farallones had attracted this concentration of cetaceans, a predictable patch of food nested with the dynamism and variability of the oceanic environment. But just below the surface, sharing the water column with swarms of krill and schools of anchovy, lurked a lethal threat. I had seen them while onboard the sailboat to the island. Although only a small part of each one was visible at the surface, I knew much more lay beneath. This paradoxically obvious yet invisible threat was both insipid and borne of abandonment. Derelict fishing gear.

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Humpback whale with damaged flukes. This animal most likely had these injuries inflicted by an entanglement event that cleaved the tail. Photo: Bradley Wilkinson

And of course, threats breed consequence. A few days later, I witnessed this firsthand. While conducting a seabird diet assessment on another end of the island, a group of whales fed a bit offshore. Taking a break to observe the diving giants, one of the members of our party suddenly exclaimed that an individual in the feeding group was missing a tail. Surely not, we thought. Perhaps the flukes had been seen at an odd angle, performing an optical trick. We studied the group further. Then we all saw it; a whales spouted, rolled, and began to dive. As it arched its back and raised its tail, it was all too obvious that both of the flukes of the animal were gone. It was as if they had been sheared off by a gigantic pair of scissors. But of course we knew that wasn’t the case. The most likely candidate was an entanglement event with derelict fishing gear.

Unfortunately, this is not a rare occurrence along the California coast. In fact, statistics point to 2016 as the most frequent year of entanglement events on record. Whales, unable to detect the long lines of nylon suspended in the water, become trapped in gear as it wraps around body parts ranging from mouths, to flukes, to flippers. Fortunately, there are people who are trying to help. California Whale Rescue is a group of dedicated professionals who not only free entangled whales when reported, but work with both the industry and the public to solve this issue from the start. Together, they look to help stem the tide of increasing entanglements. To learn more about this group and how you can do your part to prevent whale entanglements like the one described here, please visit http://www.cawhalerescue.org. Thanks also go to Point Blue Conservation Science and Farallon National Wildlife Refuge for aspects of this post.

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A passing blue whale takes a breath, leaving a signature blow. Photo: Bradley Wilkinson

A Day on the Water Tagging Whales

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IMG_20170428_070106_011By Brijonnay Madrigal, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

This post is part of Dr. Gitte McDonald's marine mammal class blog series. 

Tagging marine mammals is a highly difficult procedure and a skill that requires extreme finesse from scientists. Due to the high speeds that large baleen whales travel and the short amount of time their dorsal side is exposed at the surface, it requires a quick deployment and impeccable timing. When a whale is at the surface, it usually comes up for a few breathes before diving down. Therefore, there are only a few moments when tagging is possible. Being able to participate in such fieldwork was very exciting for a group of MLML students. This April, students in MS 211: Ecology of Marine Turtle, Birds and Mammals had the opportunity to aid Dave Cade in his research in Monterey Bay.

We departed on the John Martin early on a clear, sunny morning. Our role that day was as the support boat for the tagging boat, the Musculus. Aboard the Musculus was a small tagging team comprised of Dave, the tagger, and John Calambokidis, the boat driver. John Calambokidis, a research biologist and founder of the Cascadia Research Collective, is one of the world’s most experienced whale researchers. The Musculus remained in close proximity to the Martin as the support vessel and we maintained corresponded with the tagging team as the day proceeded.

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A group of students in the marine mammal field class enjoy observing whales from the top deck of the John Martin [Photo Credit: Jennifer Johnson, MLML student]

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The tagging boat is approaching two humpback whales to deploy a tag under the NMFS permit # 20430 and ONMS permit MULTI-2017-07 [Photo Credit: Jennifer Johnson, MLML student]
We scanned the horizon for any blows to indicate the whale’s presence. Alas… there she blows!!! Once a whale was spotted, the Martin traveled towards the animal to see if it was a potential tagging candidate. A group of students were situated at the top deck of the boat with the best view in order to take photos for photo identification purposes. Pictures taken were compared to photos in a photo identification guide of known humpback whales in the Bay. Students were able to compare identifying features like dorsal fin shape and flukes patterns to identify specific individuals. Detailed notes were recorded on number of whales in the area, distance between whales and the boat and tag information.

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MLML students Heather Barrett and SJSU student Olivia Townsend record data from the top deck of the John Martin [Photo Credit: Jennifer Johnson, MLML student]
Although we were constantly on alert for whales, the students on the support boat had various roles. A few students ran the echosounder, an instrument that uses sonar to determine depth and produced pings at three frequency ranges in order to map the prey within the water column. Once a whale was found, the Martin traveled in small and large square shape tracks around the whale, echosounder pinging continuously, in order to map prey in the area around the whale.

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MLML student Jennifer Johnson and MLML faculty member and instructor of the course, Gitte McDonald, deploy the CTD [Photo credit Mason Cole]
During the day, we had the opportunity to witness the tagging process from a distance. As a whale surfaces, the boat must be positioned in a precise manner and approach the whale at a fast-enough speed to come alongside the whale parallel for the tagger to place the suction cup tag on an animal the size of a school bus. As the whale surfaced, the boat sped up to get in line with the whale. The tagger extended the pole with the tag attached to the end and…WHOMP! The tag hit the whales skin and detached from the pole. The suction cups on the bottom of the neon colored tag kept it adhered to the whale’s back. Success!! Once the tags were on the animals, students used telemetry to find the tagged animal. The tags emitted a ping at a specific frequency which the telemetry instruments could detect. With arm extended, students would move the instrument 360 degrees to hear beeps. When the beeping got louder, this indicated the presence and directionality of the tag. At the end of the cruise, CTD deployments were also conducted to collect salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen levels. As we headed back to Moss Landing harbor at the end of the afternoon, I think all the students could agree that it was a very fulfilling day. Not only did we contribute to ongoing whale research, but we had the opportunity to aid a fellow graduate student with his PhD work that will yield insightful information about predator-prey dynamics of humpback whales in Monterey Bay. This collaboration between Hopkins Marine Lab not only benefits the Moss Landing students that are able to partake in local research efforts but also gives Hopkins the opportunity to operate out of the Moss Landing harbor and have access to the MLML vessels. Goldbogen lab research is conducted in close collaboration with MLML director, Jim Harvey, and research faculty Alison Stimpert.

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SJSU student Brad Wilkinson is stationed at the bow using telemetry to find the location of the deployed tag [Photo Credit: Jennifer Johnson, MLML student]
Dave Cade, a PhD student in the Goldbogen Lab at Stanford, studies predator-prey dynamics of humpback whales and ecosystem ecology in Monterey Bay. The goal of his research is to study the kinematics and success of foraging Humpback whales on different prey types. To do this, he used suction cup tags to collect accelerometer, magnetometer, basic audio and gyroscope data. This is a collaborative project involving researchers from Hopkins Marine Station, Cascadia Research Collective, and Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. This work was completed under permits NMFS permit #20430 and ONMS permit MULTI-2017-07.