For nearly a decade the Friends of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have generously awarded a $5,000 summer internship at MBARI to an MLML student in the name of Drew Gashler, a former MLML student and MBARI employee. Unfortunately, due to lack of funds, it may be impossible to offer this incredible opportunity to one of our students this year.
MLML physical oceanography student Diane Wyse placing the nose cone on the Tethys AUV. Photo by: Todd Walsh/MBARI 2012
In the past, student interns have worked on various projects with Dr Jim Bellingham in the Long-Range Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (LRAUV) lab at MBARI; it is a tremendous opportunity for students to apply the skills they have acquired in their program, gain exposure to innovative research technologies and to benefit from the professional expertise and wisdom of the MBARI staff. For many people, this experience has not only helped to shape their thesis, but their futures as marine researchers.
MLML phycology student Heather Fulton-Bennett collecting zooplankton in a small net with MBARI Research Technician Patrick Whaling. Photo: Larissa Clary/MBARI 2013
On behalf of all the students at MLML, please consider contributing to the Drew Gashler scholarship fund. Your donation would not only help a current MLML student, but will celebrate the life and work of a devoted steward of the sea, Drew Gashler.
Drew Gashler
Online contributions can be made at http://giving.mlml.calstate.edu/ using the "Make a Gift Now" button. Please be sure to select "Other purpose" as the area of giving, and write "Gashler Internship" in the field describing "Other purpose.”
MLML graduate and MBARI employee Francois Cazenave during his Drew Gashler summer internship at 2006. Photo: Todd Walsh/MBARI 2006
If you've ever visited our lab, you've seen the beautiful waters surrounding us, often bobbing with a variety of marine mammals. The main body of water that surrounds Moss Landing Marine Laboratories is Elkhorn Slough, which is an estuarine embayment that drains into the Monterey Bay.
Beautiful Elkhorn Slough, photo by Jennifer Chiu
Elkhorn Slough has evolved greatly in the past few centuries. Since the dredging of Moss Landing Harbor in 1946, the slough has become directly connected and thus heavily influenced by the Monterey Bay. This connection has led the slough to change from a freshwater-influenced estuary to a predominantly saltwater-influenced and erosional body of water. A great deal of research has been done to study how these changes have influenced habitat structure and biological communities in the slough.
My own thesis research will focus on Elkhorn Slough, and how various oceanographic variables have changed and are influencing elasmobranch (shark and ray) populations in the slough. I am hoping that the class will be beneficial in showing me how to measure chemical variables, and analyze values in terms of how they influence biological communities.
Map of Elkhorn Slough, from Google Earth
Last week, our chemical oceanography class was split into five groups and deployed to various water bodies around our school to take some measurements and water samples. It had just rained earlier that week, so we were hoping there would be some visible differences in salinity and nutrient content in the regions we were sampling. Although the main channel of Elkhorn Slough is heavily influenced by the Monterey Bay, and thus oceanographically similar to the ocean, the upper reaches of the slough are often less saline (depending on the season), and more influenced by precipitation. One group went offshore to Monterey Bay, two groups went into Elkhorn Slough, one drove around to Salinas River, Carneros Creek, and other connected sloughs, and my group sampled in Moss Landing Harbor.
We took one of our school's whalers on a beautiful sunny morning, excited (though some of our facial expressions may not be representative) and ready to sample.
Our team!
We motored slowly through the harbor, observing sea lions sunning themselves, and being observed by harbor seals and a portly sea otter.
Sea lions sunning themselvesCurious harbor sealsLarge male otter
Once at a station, we used the CTD (Conductivity Temperature Depth) to measure salinity, temperature, and pH at eight stations within our region.
CTD measures salinity, temperature, pH among other oceanographic variables
We also recorded GPS coordinates, and collected water samples with a syringe, and filtered them into a bottle to bring back to the lab.
Marisa is inserting CTD to measure salinity, pH and temperatureEmily recording CTD measurementsMarisa filtering seawater
Many of the changes to Elkhorn Slough have been anthropogenic, including the construction of levees, dikes, tide gates, salt ponds, and railroads. Some of these were constructed early on for agriculture and ranching, whereas others have been created to remedy erosional problems we have created. These barriers have altered tidal flow within Elkhorn Slough, and created distinct oceanographic areas. In order to determine differences between these areas, some stations required us to leave the boat to sample adjacent areas that were separated by a barrier.
Evan braving the train tracks, photo by Jennifer Chiu
We passed by the lab, hoped we wouldn't embarrass ourselves in front of the whole lab, and successfully finished our collections near the tide gate leading to the Old Salinas River.
MLML!
Combined with the rest of the teams, we now have oceanographic measurements and water samples all around Elkhorn Slough and the surrounding bodies of water. Over the course of the semester, we will learn how to measure phosphate, nitrite/ nitrate, oxygen, silicate, and alkalinity of the water samples. The measurements will tell us something about how how the stations differ from each other, how Elkhorn Slough is partitioned, and the outside influences to each station.
As marine scientists, many of us spend a substantial chunk of time in the field. While field work can be frustrating and tiring, on a beautiful day like this, encountering a multitude of wildlife and puttering slowly through the beautiful waters, it is easy to remember why we went into the field of marine science.
On January 25th and 26th, the Monterey Fisherman’s Wharf held its 4th annual Whalefest event to celebrate the migration of grey whales. Thanks to the efforts of fellow Pacific Shark Research Center (PSRC) student, Kristin Walovich, the PSRC and Friends of Moss Landing Marine Labs, hosted a booth at the event, speaking to attendees and passersby about what Moss Landing Marine Labs is all about!
Table attractions for the PSRC included a dehydrated Mako shark head and shark fin from our museum collection, and an anatomical model of a great white that allows you to see the inside of a shark. An interactive matching game, created by PSRC student Jessica Jang, was another favorite allowing people to test their shark knowledge by matching a shark to its description and name. We also showcased a story done by Central Coast News, interviewing PSRC director, Dave Ebert, about the lab’s role in international shark research.
How well do you know your sharks? PSRC student, Vicky Vasquez, helps a girl figure it out.
A lot of people make bucket lists, such as the "before I turn 30" list or the classic "before I kick the bucket" list. My personal bucket list, what I call the "self-sufficiency" list, comprises of learning various essential skills in order to be more reliant on myself in everyday life. Last semester, those of us taking MS 202 Marine Instrumentation (deemed the "Fab Four" because there are four of us taking the class) with Dr. Kenneth Coale learned such essential skills for our futures in marine science that will allow us to think critically if we need to construct something or if faced with a mechanical problem.
Kenneth's classic Coale-ism, "if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing," is the theme of this class. That means the Fab Four do a lot of planning, trying out the product, and making small tweaks for the best outcome possible, which teaches us to think critically about our designs.
Microspears made by the fabrication class for Dr. Scott Hamilton of the Ichthyology Lab. Photo by: Catherine Drake.
Our latest fabrication project comes from Dr. Ivano Aiello and the Geological Oceanography lab.
The problem: Ivano and his team need a contraption that will allow them to core up to 15 feet deep into sediment. They would like to better understand sedimentation that has occurred over time in locations such as Elkhorn Slough and Pescadero Point.
The solution: a Vibracore. This machine will create vibrations to decrease friction between sediments and the core and will force the core into the ground. It is designed for the purpose of obtaining deep cores, so it is a perfect tool for Ivano's current project.
The parts: 1) a Vibracore head with a modification to attach to the core, and 2) a tripod to hold the core in place as coring occurs and to remove the core once coring ceases.
Our major contribution to the project was the 3 meter tall tripod using scraps from previous projects and local scrap yards. The tripod consisted of three 2-inch pipe legs, one of which had spokes welded onto it for climbing, and a top plate that would hold come-alongs to retrieve the core from the ground.
Stephen Loiacono uses a portable grinder to shape the top plate of the tripod. Photo by: Catherine Drake.Paul Clerkin uses a MIG welder to attach pieces to the top of our tripod. Photo by: Catherine Drake.
Once the parts were completed, we took to the field for a trial!
Dr. Kenneth Coale feeling triumphant after our first attempt at putting together the tripod once we fabricated each piece. Photo by: Catherine Drake.
We trekked out to Psecadero Point to obtain two cores for Christina Volpi, a graduate student in the Physical Oceanography lab, who needed to collect samples for her thesis work. As the Vibracore head hummed, the core was shot into the ground and the sediment was contained.
A student and Dr. Ivano Aiello use the Vibracore head to force the core into the ground. Photo by: Catherine Drake.Christina Volpi and Mark Helfenberger use come- alongs to pull the core from the muddy ground at Pescadero Point. Photo by: Vera Lawson.
The cores were retrieved and were taken back to the lab for sectioning. Soon, they will be analyzed and the data will be incorporated into Christina's Volpi's thesis.
One of the cores from Pescadero Point after it has been sliced and sectioned for analysis. Photo by: Christina Volpi.
With the opportunity to take MS 202 Marine Instrumentation, combined with the ingenuity of Dr. Kenneth Coale, the Fab Four obtained skills necessary for being self sufficient in a marine setting (not to mention a resounding checkmark for my bucket list). We sharpened knives, ground rust off of tools, assembled microspears, used both a lathe and a mill, welded metal objects together, and built a Vibracore for extreme coring capabilities. It was a productive semester, and there was certainly a rewarding feeling in getting to watch the fruits of our labor work successfully when in the field.
Circulating seawater systems are very important for marine laboratories as they need to keep organisms from the ocean alive and use the water to aid in conducting experiments. We have recently had our Moss Landing Marine Laboratories offshore intake upgraded and we went on a dive to inspect its current status. The large meshed cylinder sucks in water and supplies our lab with flowing seawater. We routinely inspect and clean the surface of the grates and the structure.
One of our MLML intakes rising from the sand.
It is interesting to see what invertebrates recruit or move onto the structure. With sand surrounding us we create a small oasis of life concentrated on the hard substrate. One of the issues we have to deal with is that seawater contains invertebrate larvae and some species will settle on the inside the pipes and eventually constrict and clog our flow, similar to plaque buildup in an artery. We have to force a Pigging Inspection Gauge (PIG), a tool which is usually a piece of cylindrical foam, through the inside of the pipe to clean and clear the walls. It's great we can get routine cleanings so our seawater system continues flowing and our lab doesn't have a "heart attack"!
If you’re like me and take long walks on the beach, you may have noticed more mounds of algae along the shore. These mounds are called beach wrack and can contain kelps as well as seagrasses. Other types of seaweeds including red and green algae are also found, but not as often.
Kelp wrack composed of the giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) and the feather boa kelp (Egregia menziesii) at an incoming tide near Monterey. Photo credit: Jarred Klosinski
The Golden Bear Facility, home to MLML's ballast treatment testing team
Ballast water treatment and testing is a big focus here in the Biological Oceanography lab, and this is no exception even when it comes to class projects. Last semester, I started a project aiming to improve one of our counting techniques. I’d previously written about IMO’s restriction to 10 organisms per 1,000 liters of discharged ballast water and counting zooplankton under a microscope in order to check for these results. But when it comes to even smaller organisms, such as algae and other even tinier phytoplankton, different methods are called for.
We already have a pretty clever way of quantifying such microscopic organisms by using a few chemical and optical tricks. The first key ingredient is fluorescein diacetate, or FDA. One of the special features of this molecule is that it can only be cleaved by certain proteins in live cells. Once FDA is split, what remains is fluorescein, a compound that glows bright green when excited under blue light. We can then use an epifluorescence microscope to both shine the right wavelength of light and magnify a sample in order to count any green organisms. If it glows green, then it means it’s alive! This allows us to quantify the number of live organisms that are extremely small and difficult to see.
Epifluorescence microscope and image capture software
Unfortunately, even such a clever method has a few key disadvantages. First of all, these water samples must be counted in a 3D well-plate, making it very difficult to find organisms at different depths. This is like trying to count chickpeas in an Olympic sized swimming pool! Secondly, fluorescein eventually leaks out of cells, so these samples have to be counted immediately after they’ve been treated and they can’t be preserved over time. That’s a bit too time-consuming and inconvenient for ballast treatment testers.
An algal culture glowing green with fluorescein under an epifluorescence microscope
What I investigated at the end of last semester is the possibility of preparing samples on flat slides. This would eliminate the depth-of-focus issue and as a bonus, allow us to take photographs of known volumes of samples. I also experimented with a variety of fixation methods, or ways of preserving the fluorescein inside cells so that it would stay there for an extended period of time. Surprisingly, microwaving the slides seemed to do a fairly good job of keeping the fluorescence within the cells. These findings have given me an exciting jumping-off point for this semester!
If you are a marine scientist, you may have had the same experience that I did over the recent holiday break - all of my relatives want to know if I think our seafood is safe from Fukushima radiation. If you aren't a marine scientist, you and I may still have something in common - this topic is not my current focus of study and I will (probably) never be one of the "experts" on this matter. However, I have started to do some extra research. I may not be an expert on food safety inspections or the dispersal of different types of radiation, but I do have some ideas about where to look when I don't know all of the answers. This is what I told my relatives:
Let's do some research!
If you want to become informed about Fukushima radiation, its dispersal and dilution in the ocean, and the safety of seafood caught here on the US Pacific coast, I have some links for you. Many of these links come from one of my favorite blogs to follow:
deepseanews.com
They often invite guest experts to blog their opinions on topical issues, and they compile and analyze news and journal articles about some of the latest and greatest in ocean science. They answer commenter's questions and are also a little bit snarky. (Both are appealing to me as a reader.)
Stay informed! Science updates all the time, journalists don't always understand the findings they report, and our news is filled with "facts" to keep you glued to the screen until the next segment. So "Don't Panic", but do your research! For the time being, it looks like I can continue to enjoy low-radiation-risk cioppino by the bucketful.
On Sunday 22nd of December, I had the opportunity to participate with the Marine Mammal Center and help move a Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus ) carcass at Breakwater Cove. Risso's dolphins are distinguished by their bulbous head and white body which are heavily scarred from teeth raking between dolphins, as well as markings from their prey such as squid. They are a common species of dolphin found here in Monterey.
This particular individual was found washed up near Monterey and took more than 12 people to move this animal onshore away from the waves. We had to set tarps to make it easier to move it. Risso's dolphins weigh around 600 to 1,000 pounds and can reach a length of around 13 feet, making them one of the larger dolphins.
However, the area where we planned to move the dolphin was too steep and we lacked the manpower or the equipment to move the animal smoothly to the truck. So while we waited in the warm sunny weather on what to do next, we tethered the dolphin with rope to prevent the waves from dragging the dolphin back to sea.
So after waiting for an hour, we decided to have the harbor master tow the dolphin back into the water and transport to place to pick the dolphin up with a forklift. Took us two tries to push the dolphin back into the water. The first attempt the rope broke from the stress. Also timing of the waves were not in our favor most of the time, so we have to wait till the perfect wave came to push the carcass back into the water. Overall, I had fun! Never thought I would be able to see a Risso's up close and personal! Necropsy will be conducted soon, so hopefully we'll figure out what was the cause of death.
First year students at Moss Landing Marine Labs are encouraged to seize every opportunity to get involved in research. That is just what Kenji Soto is doing (December 7th-23rd) as a volunteer on the Research Vessel Atlantis. He is helping Sam Hulme (MLML) and Geoff Wheat (MBARI adjunct researcher) with a project titled: Collaborative Research: Discovery, sampling, and quantification of flows from cool yet massive ridge-flank hydrothermal springs on Dorado Outcrop, eastern Pacific Ocean. And the really cool part? Kenji is blogging as he goes! Follow (HERE!) his progress, his discoveries, his photos and videos, and the delicious food he is enjoying while a member of the research team on RV Atlantis.
Kenji reports: " The [project] purpose is to map the Dorado Outcrop at the 1 meter scale using an AUV, look for warm (5-30 degrees C) hydrothermal springs, test the flow rate at the springs, analyze water extracted from the sediment for microbial communities, and analyze the pore water coming directly from the springs for chemical anomalies...Another part of the project is to visit the CORK (Circulation Obviation Retrofit Kit), which are pressure data loggers that have been placed in silos under the seafloor. These data loggers store information about seismic activity. I believe that the hope is that these CORKs will be a "first-line-of-defense" warning system for earthquakes. One of the main reasons for the trip is that the PI's believe that the hydrothermal vent springs here could have a significant effect on the ocean's heat budget. Even though they are a low temperature spring, they believe that the springs are like a "fire-hose" and could flow at a rate on the order of 1000s of liters/second."
Atlantis' track www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8231
His favorite parts of the cruise so far? "My favorite part is learning to build all of the sampling gear, standing watch in the ROV van because I get to see what goes into piloting an ROV and seeing the ocean at 3000 meters...I also enjoy seeing the full process of how the samples we are taking are processed. I've gotten to [do] some of it, up to the chemical analysis stuff...[I'm] not doing the collecting, which is done by the ROV. But I get to do the middle part of the mud and pore water collecting process. "
Extra cool stuff? "There are 2 teachers on-board who are doing a blog too. Since their main duties are updating the blog, they are doing a great job...people should definitely check it out: http://www.darkenergybiosphere.org/dorado/"
Kenji Soto
Things to remember for your next cruise? "You should never bring homework on a cruise. You want as much free time as possible so you can complete your ship duties as well as having some time carved out for just relaxing and having fun."
Happy travels, Kenji! We hope to hear more from you when you get back!
