This fin whale was photographed in our bay on May 2, 2016. Photo by Giancarlo Thomae. Check out more of his photographs at: http://www.thomaephotography.com/
These are some exciting times in the Monterey Bay! Recently, five different species of whales have been spotted within our bay! We all have probably seen the humpbacks that have been hanging around since there is still available food for them. Normally, they are only here April to October and are otherwise migrating south to their calving grounds, but the last few years they’ve been staying put as the water has been warm and the food has been plentiful.
Additionally, as straggling gray whale moms with their calves head north to Alaska (usually they're here in January and February), orcas are chasing the moms in hopes of separating them from their calves. "When I find a dead gray whale the first thing I do is I go look at the tongue, and if it is missing, I know it was killed by a killer whale," our very own director Jim Harvey told the Monterey Herald.
These three species of cetaceans (science-y word for dolphins, whales, narwhals) have also been joined by blue whales and fin whales. It's not uncommon to see blue whales along our coast, but they are often seen further offshore. However, this week a blue whale was spotted only a mile or two offshore of the Monterey Bay Aquarium eating krill.
As for fin whales, not much is known about this elusive species. They are said to have a “cosmopolitan” distribution, meaning they can be found in most oceans around the world. As a result, their migration patterns aren’t well known. Scientists believe that the North Atlantic population may migrate south past Bermuda and into the West Indies. On our coast, fin whales are more often seen in the Gulf of California year round, with more appearing in the winter and spring.
Fun Facts About These Five Cetaceans:
At least 3 different species of barnacles are commonly found on both the flippers and the body of the humpback whale.
The Gray whale was designated as the California State Marine Mammal in 1975.
Gray whales used to be known as Devilfish. They were named so by early hunters who noted the gray whale’s intense fighting behavior to protect themselves and their young while being hunted.
The orca, also known as a killer whale, is actually the largest member of the dolphin family. They have the second largest brain of any animal, and it is almost four times the mass of a human brain (the sperm whale has the largest brain).
The blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived! And the fin whale is the second largest!
Fin whales are notorious for their speediness, and naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews once called it the “greyhound of the sea for its beautiful, slender body is built like a racing yacht and the animal can surpass the speed of the fastest ocean steamship.”
Also, did you know that you can tell the difference between whales by their “whale spouts” or “whale blows”? Check out the photo below to see the different types, some of which are the whales you’ll see in the bay. Not in the diagram is the gray whale, which actually has a blow in the shape of a heart! Of course, on a really windy day, it would be harder to tell, but otherwise it is a great tool to use and, I can tell you from experience, it actually works!
Looking at whale "spouts" or "blows" can help identify different species. Not pictured are gray whales, which have a heart shaped blow, much like the Southern right whale in the diagram. (From North Atlantic Society)
If you’ve been following the blog more recently, you’re most likely aware that our Open House is coming up this weekend, April 30-May 1, 8AM-5PM. This event is a huge draw for the community every time we hold it, and this year promises to be one of the largest ever as we are also celebrating the 50th anniversary of Moss Landing Marine Labs! I greatly urge you to check out the official 50th Anniversary blog, found here, for a bunch of great reads about how this small “lab that could” came to be the vibrant center of marine research that it is today.
The importance of this event cannot be understated. Open House functions as an excellent source of funding and outreach. It provides the students with a chance to project their research to a wider audience, while also providing the public with an interactive and fun way to see just what it is we do here at Moss. Most importantly, the money we raise at this event feeds directly back to the students in the form of student body events and scholarships such as the MLML Scholarship Award and the WAVE Award. The recipients of this year’s awards (funded by last year’s Open House) were awarded just a few weeks ago, and many recipients will be giving talks about the work this money is funding (see our schedule of events here). I think this is an excellent way to donate to the community in a way that is both tangible and meaningful.
Open House is also run entirely by the students. From the puppet show to the bake sale to the lab activities to the sea lion show, everything you see has been planned over many months. Even the logo on our shirts is designed and voted on by the student body. I realize that for most people, all they see is the shiny, finished product. But there is so much heart and sweat and pizza-fueled meetings that go into this event, that I thought it would be a fun thing to show you readers a bit of what goes on “behind the scenes,” while also giving you a little sneak-peak on the events you can expect to see this weekend!
On December 21st, 2015, another ‘Lost Shark’ was officially found by the Pacific Shark Research Center (PSRC). PSRC is one of the world’s leading labs in chondrichthyan taxonomy research and I had the opportunity of being lead author on the paper for this discovery (how sweet is that?!). For this study, I described a new species of dark-sleek Lanternshark from the genus Etmopterus. And the coolest thing about describing a new species? Naming it!
INTRODUCING the Ninja Lanternshark!
When I was given that chance, I didn’t hold back. This is the story of how the Ninja Lanternshark got its name.
Let’s begin with ‘Lost Sharks’. The term was created by my professor and co-author, Dr. David Ebert to identify lesser known species that attain little public or scientific attention. Examples of more charismatic species would be Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) and Whale Sharks (Rhincodon typus). The genus Etmopterus and its 38 species (current to the publishing of this post) are a perfect example of the ‘Lost Shark’ dilemma. That’s because despite being one of the most speciose genera of sharks in the world, it is also one of the least studied. Common names, though not official, are another reflection of the anonymity the Etmopterus genus faces. Names like Brown Lanternshark and Lined Lanternshark are certainly helpful in describing the shark’s appearance but they are not particularly memorable. But that’s not even the main issue! My gripe is with the fact that there are two Brown Lanternsharks (E. compagnoi and E. unicolor) and two Lined Lanternsharks (E. bullisi and E. dislineatus). To be fair, overlaps in common names happen a lot (just Google ‘Yellowtail’ and see how many different species you get). More so, they can even change overtime for a particular species. To avoid confusion, this is why many scientists are far more interested in the universal and permanent scientific name (assuming no changes occur to the status of the species). However, in the case of Lanternsharks, these are deep-sea species people rarely see and therefore rarely talk about. For just a moment, let that sink in- there are 38 relatively unknown species of shark that GLOW IN THE DARK. If that’s not cool enough, they even have spines on both their dorsal fins for protection. So why are spine-wielding Lanternsharks not getting any attention? The answer is certainly up for debate but overlapping common names are certainly not helping. To be fair, there is one more very good reason why common names get so little consideration in taxonomic papers.
Confirming the discovery of a new species consists of hard tedious work that takes a long tedious amount of time…. trust me.
Note the evolution of the nailposh throughout the study: a fin for Shark Week (lower right), a turkey for Thanksgiving, (upper left), and red for Valentines Day (lower left).
Luckily, in the case of the Ninja Lanternshark, my other co-author, Dr. Douglas Long, has you covered with an easy and exciting read. Delving passed the Ninja Lanternshark, taxonomic research often involves the examination of a much larger picture. For instance, work conducted in the lab of Dr. Gavin Naylor aims to describe the entire chondrichthyan tree of life. Despite the small ripple I was making in the sea of chondrichthyan taxonomy, I still felt like I was a part of a huge moment. I was confirming the discovery of the very first Lanternshark ever found off the Pacific Ocean along Central America.
Map of where each of the eight specimens were collected. Depth ranged between 836-1443 meters.
"What's in a name? That which we call a Lanternshark by any other name would glow as bright." -Sharkspeare
Of equal weight on my mind was therefore the concern that such an interesting discovery was doomed to the ‘Lost Shark’ fate. It was actually Dr. Long who gave me the idea to think innovatively. For a different taxonomy project, he chose the common name Jaguar Catshark, after the fictional shark in the movie, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The decision ended up getting Dr. Long a photo with his new buddy and Steve Zissou actor, Bill Murray, which he has also written about. This isn’t the first time a clever name has received public attention. There is actually a long history of biologists coming up with attention grabbing names, though again these tend to be scientific not common names.
Side note, too cool not to mention: One of my favorite examples is the arachnologist who named a species of trapdoor spider after his favorite singer, Neil Diamond. Stephen Colbert caught wind of this story and had the biologist along with some unnamed spiders as guests on the Colbert Report. By the end, one lucky spider was chosen and named Aptostichus stephencolberti.
California Trapdoor Spider, Aptostichus stephencolberti
As I realized all the potential circling the naming process, I was PUMPED-UP and ready to give this new species a clever name! I should mention that at this point in the story, I had been going to the California Academy of Sciences for months, examining and re-examining my new specimens. I wanted to ensure my specimens were nothing like the other 37 known etmopterids; and they weren’t. These specimens were jet-black with none of the classic body marking that other Lanternsharks possess. They were also much smaller and didn’t seem to glow as bright as most other species. Thinking about a name to reflect those features felt like proof I was almost done.
Holotype images of the Ninja Lanternshark (Etmopterus benchleyi)
Almost done? I wasn’t even close.
What if another researcher had stumbled upon some specimens too? At the same time I was sitting in a lab endlessly pouring hours of honed attention into every minute detail of every shark I had, somewhere… someone… could have been doing the exact same thing! It may sound farfetched but the threat was quite real. During background research for the introduction of my paper, I realized new species were being discovered all the time! In 2015, nine new elasmobranch species (included this one) were discovered, with most being deepwater species. When I thought about that, my work became a race against time and a shadow competitor. The first of us to publish would be the official discoverer.
Suddenly, a clever name seemed like a foolish concern. Worst, was the encroaching threat of losing the accolade entirely. My mind was flooded at the time with urgency but haste was its own kind of enemy. It’s not uncommon for taxonomists to write papers proving that what were previously believed as separate species are actually one in the same. One way an error like this occurs is when an established species is mistaken as new because it was found outside its known distribution range. Correcting or preventing such errors is often done through genetic analysis. Looking at the work I had done, I not only had something in a new region for any Lanternshark, I had no genetic analysis. Was I about to make this classic species mistake? Multiple reviews of my work was imperative to assuring my discovery would not be undone …and that takes time.
Interestingly to me, my co-authors did not seem as panic stricken by this cataclysmic, yet still theoretical, threat haunting our research. Why weren’t they more concerned?!?!?!?
Source: spongebob.tumblr.com
Of course, it should’ve dawned on me sooner, it wasn’t their first rodeo. And quite literally so. Dr. Ebert and Dr. Long recently published another elasmobranch discovery from the very same research expedition. Like many seasoned scientists, my co-authors juggle multiple projects in collaboration with many different colleagues. So needless to say, the time-crunch I was feeling was not mutual. In fact, before I was brought onto the Lanternshark project, the specimens had been sitting in a museum for five years; again a common occurrence when there’s many projects to conduct.
Regardless if my “race against time” was as dramatic as I thought, the ‘Lost Shark’ dilemma never changed nor my desire to address it. So how did I find time to come up with a clever name amidst the race to publish our findings?
Turns out, the answer was easier than I thought! I asked four very short people for help. Well… they’re short for now. Since my little cousins are between the ages of eight and fourteen years old, they are literally growing as I type!
The minds behind the Ninja Lanternshark at the California Academy of Sciences (missing in photo is one older female cousin).
I had no idea how successful this approach would be. By incorporating my co-authors suggestions and a little creativity, my cousins and I came up with both a common and scientific name that drew a media storm just in time for the winter holidays! I say this quite literally as my family delayed opening Christmas presents on the 25th so the local news station could finish my interview. Most recently, the Ninja Lanternshark was incorporated in a 10-strip series (beginning here) for the comic, Sherman’s Lagoon by Jim Toomey.
Copyright: Sherman's Lagoon by Jim Toomey
The innovation didn’t stop there. My cousins and I recorded our shark conversation and we created a short film about it. I would now like to introduce you to, “We Named a Shark!” the video of how the Ninja Lanternshark got its name.
Click above for a direct link to video!
And stay tuned for What’s in A Name? Part II: The JAWS Effect, where I delve into the story of the Ninja Lanternshark’s scientific name, Etmopterus benchleyi.
Three weekends ago (3/18~3/20), the Pacific Shark Research Center (PSRC) had the opportunity to attend the 2nd Northeast Pacific Shark Symposium.This symposium was to gather elasmobranch biologists and aquarists from the west coast and share their research and potentially collaborate on future research. People from Canada and Mexico were able to join us for this bi-annual event. What better way to have this conference at the famous USC Wrigley Center in Catalina!
All of us board the ferry at 8 AM and then prepared to spend two days talking about elasmobranchs!
The USC Wrigley Institute
We had a couple hours to explore the island before the first set of presentations, I had the opportunity to hike around the island and look at the beautiful scenery.
After having lunch, had people present about their research and learned lots of really neat things about elasmobranch research; the talks ranged from the charismatic white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) to the less attentive batoids (flat sharks). We also became aware of the new opportunities to collaborate with other scientists.
After learning two long days of hearing interesting talks, we had a group photo of everyone in the conference and had some downtime before getting on the ferry to head back to the mainland.
We were greeted with a stubborn individual that refused to leave the dock when the ferry approached.
It had to take one of the brave deckhands to scare him off so we could disembark off the boat. But what a way to wrap up our successful conference at Catalina!
As a recipient of the 2016 Wave Award, I would like to sincerely thank the visitors of the 2015 Open House Event.
The Wave Award, funded by the generous contributions of Open House attendees, was established by the MLML Student Body to recognize graduate students who have generously given their time and shown continued dedication to MLML community service. At last year’s event, more than 2,000 attendees contributed $5,000 to student scholarships. The seven Wave Awards given this year will directly support our thesis research.
Students at MLML often juggle full time school, multiple jobs, a family, and maybe even some free time to complete our degrees. The financial support provided by this award is a welcome and wholeheartedly appreciated gift from the community, and I greatly appreciate your support.
Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to the 2015 Open House Event. We hope to see you this year again April 30th and May 1st! Please visit the 2016 Open House Event Website for more information about this year’s very special 50th anniversary event.
While every student at Moss Landing Marine Labs designs their own thesis, sometimes one comes along that really requires the entire community.
Phycology student Steven Cunningham is looking at the effect of giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, detritus on the plankton community. Macrocystis is considered a foundation species because thousands of species that depend on it for habitat and food. Steven is constructing an artificial kelp forest to disentangle the impact of structure and nutrients on the kelp fores community. With so many plants to make, he rallied the labs this past weekend, complete with movies and BBQ to keep everyone fed and amused.
Kelp Helpers working through the weekend to get this forest built! Photo: Lindsay Cooper
The artificial kelp is made from marine-grade polypropylene rope and tarp with concrete holdfasts that will be bolted to the substrate. With the artificial kelp being deployed at 25 ft depth and multiple stipes per plant, it came it thousands of feet of rope and thousands of individual tarp blades, each attached by hand. Over 30 people came to help and hang out, making the work go much faster. It was great to see so much of the MLML community come to support one thesis, and a good reminder of how we can never get through this degree by ourselves.
From the holdfast to the canopy, this kelp to mimic the structure of natural Macrocystis integrifolia beds. Photo: Lindsay Cooper
With all the help, Steven hopes to deploy his fake kelp in the next month!
Thousands of fake blades are attached to hundreds of polypro stipes to make up the plants. Photo: Lindsay Cooper
We are just breaths away from the first day of spring, and the wildlife of Moss Landing, CA is in a flurry. High above the the heads of kayakers and sea otters in Elkhorn Slough, birds have started constructing their condos in the tall eucalyptus trees that line the shore of this estuary. Egrets, cormorants, and herons are gathering supplies and strength to begin chick rearing. In just a few weeks these silent efforts will be rewarded with the arrival of fluffy chicks, clamoring for their next meal. These particular condos have reached surprisingly high densities in past years, nearing 200 nests!
Great Egret (Ardea alba) nest with three chicks at the in the Morro Bay Heron Rookery. 21 May 2009. Photo by Michael "Mike" L. Baird
If you read my previous blog post, you may remember that I spent my summer out on Santa Catalina Island at the Wrigley Marine Science Center (WMSC), a research facility owned and operated by the University of Southern California (USC). While there, I began my thesis research examining the effect of male limitation on the reproductive output of blackeye gobies, a temperate sex-changing fish. While we were able to successfully set up the project, we were unable to collect any useable data.
A blackeye goby (Rhinogobiops nicholsii). My study species for this project. Source: Ron's Critter of the Day.
Undeterred, we returned to WMSC this past January in an attempt to get the project up and running again. The artificial reefs we had built and used this past summer were still in place so our first order of business was to collect some fish. To get my project going, we would need to catch approximately 500-700 blackeye gobies. Much to our dismay, we found that the number of blackeye gobies on the surrounding natural reefs was too low to continue with the project in the winter. On the first few dives at our collection sites, we didn’t see any blackeye gobies.
Dr. Mark Steele (one of the principal investigators on this project) has been working with gobies around Catalina Island for the majority of his career and had never seen abundances this low before. If you recall from my previous post, the major problem that we had with blackeye gobies this summer was that they didn’t want to spawn. We think that this may have been due to the incredibly warm water temperatures this summer. If our fish weren’t spawning, it’s very likely that the natural populations of blackeye gobies weren’t spawning as well. This may have been what caused the low numbers of blackeye gobies that we saw in January.
I will be returning to WMSC this summer in another attempt to obtain some useable data. I am confident that this field season will provide more favorable results as long as there are a sufficient number of gobies for use in this study. While it’s likely that the water temperatures will still be warm, moving the reefs deeper in the water column (to 60 feet as opposed to the 30 feet that they were at last summer) may help combat this.
I’m looking forward to spending another summer out on Catalina and can’t wait to get back in the water again!
The beautiful view from the helipad at Wrigley Marine Science Center (WMSC).
One of the many great aspects about doing marine research in Monterey Bay is that there are many institutions in the area, all of which are interested in uncovering the unknown about our Pacific Ocean. Many Moss Landing Marine Labs graduate students often continue their careers at these institutions. In fact, right down the street from our lab is Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI for short), and many former graduate students now work there. Much of the research performed at MBARI involves taking ROVs into our canyon and exploring what lies beneath the water we see from MLML's windows.
Two deep sea peniagone sea cucumbers scouring the seafloor for food in 2013. (Photo by: MBARI)
For the last 25+ years, scientists at MBARI have been monitoring a site deemed “Station M” within the Monterey Canyon that is 126 miles offshore and 2.5 miles below the surface. For 20 of those 25 years, the ecosystem has been relatively stable and sponges were the dominant invertebrates in the area.
Then, between 2011 and 2014, scientists noticed that sea cucumbers immigrated into Station M and out-competed the sponges. One interesting fact about these squishy deep sea echinoderms is that, in addition to inching along like caterpillars, they can actually also swim around! They rely on sinking and decaying detritus for food, and increased decaying plant life around Station M is what allowed the sea cucumbers to take over.
But why was there a sudden increase in food, and where did it come from? These were among the questions asked by MBARI scientists, and they believe the decaying plant life may have been pushed into the system through upwelling. Seasonal winds cause upwelling, which brings cold, nutrient rich waters to the surface. Scientists believe that climate change is causing an increase in these winds, which in turn, is increasing the frequency of upwelling.
Christine Huffard, a scientist on the project said, “What we do on the surface waters does affect the deep sea. We are not just changing our immediate everyday surroundings, we are changing the greatest depths of the ocean.” So, as we humans heat up the Earth, that changes how the ocean works, which then affects even the deepest part of our canyon. For its inhabitants, that means more food for sea cucumbers, and for us, it means food for thought of our actions on land!
Schematic of the upwelling process. (Photo by: Seos Project)
Understanding how people use the ocean and its resources is not straightforward. Some fish for a job. Some fish for fun. Some don’t fish at all and use the waters for recreation, tourism, or science. How can we manage the ocean when so many different groups (stakeholders) have different needs and wants?
Last semester, students explored these issues in the Fisheries Biology and Resource Management seminar course taught by Dr. Scott Hamilton (Ichthyology) and Dr. Rick Starr (Fisheries and Conservation Biology). We learned that many fisheries around the world are overexploited, such as the decline of Nassau Grouper in the Bahamas, Common Thresher sharks around the world, and the Brown Sea Cucumber in the Galápagos Islands.
However, not all is “doom and gloom” – success stories in fisheries management do exist. The Orange Roughy in Australia is thought to be in recovery, and some studies suggest that globally, more fisheries are recovering from overexploitation.
The class featured discussions with weekly speakers, in-depth presentations from each of us on a fishery of our choice, and even a field trip to a Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Sacramento. For me, the seminar speakers were the real highlight of the course. We heard from experts in stock assessment, management, fishing, and conservation working as scientists, managers, environmental lawyers, and entrepreneurs. I learned that jobs in this field are more diverse than I initially realized, and the speakers provided an excellent opportunity to think about potential career paths outside of academia.
Here’s what other students had to say:
"Since many of our speakers were past MLML students sharing their current involvement in fishery issues, this made the course feel more like a window into our career futures!"
“I thoroughly enjoyed the fisheries course at MLML. It was an extremely enriching class that gave me insight into multiple complex components of fisheries and fisheries management. As a first year fisheries student, the presentation and paper of a specific fishery was particularly helpful… and helped spark ideas for potential thesis topics.”
– Bonnie Brown, Fisheries and Conservation Biology Lab
The 2015 Fisheries Biology and Resource Management seminar class provided an excellent opportunity for us to learn of the complexities in this field, and real-world application of management principles. The course is only offered every few years, so if any future students are reading this blog post, I recommend taking it if you can!
"Since many of our speakers were past MLML students sharing their current involvement in fishery issues, this made the course feel more like a window into our career futures!"
“I thoroughly enjoyed the fisheries course at MLML. It was an extremely enriching class that gave me insight into multiple complex components of fisheries and fisheries management. As a first year fisheries student, the presentation and paper of a specific fishery was particularly helpful… and helped spark ideas for potential thesis topics.”