Fellow grad student Catarina Pien and I were lucky enough to visit to the California Academy of Science in San Francisco to check out their extensive museum collection, home to nearly 1.2 million specimens! We were on a mission to observe a variety of sharks, rays and chimaeras and to bring back specimens on loan from the South African Museum. We were greeted on a foggy San Francisco Friday by Dave Catania, the senior collections manager for the Department of Ichthyology.
The California Academy of Science (CAS) Department of Ichthyology houses one of the largest and most important research collections of fish in the world. There are nearly 200,000 jars of preserved fish in the collection, representing nearly 11,000 different species. That is more than a third of fish known to science!
By looking up the unique identification number assigned by CAS, our guide Dave was able to bring us a whole cart of jars filled with old and unique animals. Catarina is working on a project to describe the sharks and rays from Oman, a country to the south east of Saudi Arabia. She photographed several specimens, including this Gulper Shark, to compare to other specimens from the region.
This species of Gulper Shark (Centrophorus granulosus sp.) is found worldwide, living at depths of over 3,000 feet.
Just like a library, scientists can check out specimens from the museum like a book on loan. I was lucky enough to do just that with a new species of chimaera from the South African Museum. Chimaeras, or ghost sharks, are deep water fish with a skeleton made of cartilage, making them close relatives of sharks and rays.
When a new species is discovered a single animal is chosen, called the holotype, to represent the entire species. From this one animal I will record dozens of body measurements, take photographs and make observations in order to identify this chimaera to other scientists. After the specimen is described it will be added to a museum collection like the one at CAS for other scientists to observe in the future, a process called accession.
Proper identification and detailed observations are very important when describing a species. Take for example these two species of small catsharks from the Indo-Pacific Ocean. They are very similar in size, color and shape, but because they are available for scientists to look at, subtle differences start to emerge. Without detailed records and a holotype, identifying sharks (or any animal for that matter) can be difficult.
With jars in hand and our camera memory cards full, we make our way back to Moss Landing Marine Labs for more photos, notes and measurements.
There's a new reason to love the world's smallest marine mammal species - so let's talk sea otters!
These voracious predators are again making headlines in the science world as a new paper comes hot off the (virtual) presses. Hughes et al. (2013) published an article in PNAS entitled "Recovery of a top predator mediates negative eutrophic effects on seagrass". This paper is truly a local collaboration, with scientists from UCSC's Long Marine Lab, the Elkhorn Slough reserve, USGS, CSU Monterey Bay, and MBARI.
The headline? Sea otters may have saved the Elkhorn Slough seagrass habitat by doing what they do so well: eating crabs.
Photo credit: Ron Eby http://www.vcstar.com/photos/2013/aug/26/307245/
To fully understand the premise of the paper, here's a little ecology review:
When we think about the health of a marine ecosystem, we often think of two major ways that the system could be controlled.
1) Top down: A classic example of top down control is sea otters consuming urchins in a kelp forest. These three trophic levels depend heavily on one another, so that if the sea otters in the kelp forest are removed by a predator (humans or killer whales) and can no longer keep the sea urchin population in check, the urchins will become overpopulated and consume so much of their prey (the kelp) that the kelp disappears, taking with it other creatures in the ecosystem that depend upon it. If the sea otters are returned to the system, they consume enough sea urchins that the kelp is released from predation pressure, and the ecosystem can return to normal balanced levels. Here's a figure by Estes et al. (1998) to illustrate this classic example. Focus on the cartoons and the arrow sizes to track who eats what in each scenario.
Figure 1 from Estes et al. 1998
2) Bottom up: Think of bottom up control like the workings of a traditional garden. If you over-fertilize your tomato plants and they start to die off as a result, this bottom up forcing will impact the aphids that depend on the tomato plant for food, and in turn their ladybug predators.
Ladybugs consuming aphids on a tomato plant http://extension.umd.edu/growit/photos-aphids
Was that example not "marine" enough for you? Let's get back to the sea otter news!
It is well known that Elkhorn Slough, an estuary located right next to MLML, is a nutrient-loaded system due to nearby agricultural activity. In the past, biologists noticed that nutrient loading was having a negative impact on the estuarine reserve's seagrass beds, when algal epiphytes bloomed and overtook the seagrass. (That's bottom up control!) Hughes et al. showed that in the last 30 years, that trend of declining seagrass beds was reversed, even as agricultural runoff increased!
How?? Hughes et al. noticed that another thing happened about 30 years ago: southern sea otter populations recovered to the point that otters began colonizing Elkhorn Slough habitats. Was this a coincidence? The authors think that this is an example of an interaction between top down and bottom up control.
Figure 2a from Hughes et al. 2013
Hughes et al. (2013) demonstrated that the interaction between sea otters and their prey species in Elkhorn slough created a 4-level trophic cascade that released the seagrass from top down control pressures, allowing it to flourish even in the presence of high nutrient loads. In short, the sea otters ate the crabs, which in turn consumed less algal epiphyte grazers (snails, slugs), which in turn consumed more algal epiphytes (blanketing the seagrass), which allowed the seagrass to grow. This well-timed trophic cascade was lucky for the seagrass, and all other marine critters that depend on it for habitat in Elkhorn Slough.
The sea otters are helping to restore our coastline, and you can too! Just five days until California's Coastal Cleanup Day, and it's not to late to volunteer!
My citations, in case you want to do a little more reading,:
Brent B. Hughes, Ron Eby, Eric Van Dyke, M. Tim Tinker, Corina I. Marks, Kenneth S. Johnson, and Kerstin Wasson (2013) Recovery of a top predator mediates negative eutrophic effects on seagrass. PNAS: 1302805110v1-201302805.
Estes JA, Tinker MT, Williams TM, Doak DF (1998) Killer whale predation on sea otters linking oceanic and nearshore ecosystems. Science 282(5388): 473-476
On Labor Day weekend, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories' own Pacific Shark Research Center (PSRC) had the opportunity to dissect a 14.7 feet long common thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus). The female shark was found washed up on the beach on Moss Landing already dead.
Program Director Dave Ebert, PSRC students, and Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center (UROC) students posing with the thresher shark
The PSRC is part of the National Shark Research Consortium for the West Coast. Currently there are 7 students enrolled in this department led by the program director, Dr. David Ebert, also a MLML alumni, and a handful of undergraduate volunteers from San Jose State University and California State University: Monterey Bay all who are ready to learn more about elasmobranchs!
The students were pretty amazed to see such small teeth on such a large shark. The teeth on this animal say a lot about what it eats. Schooling fish such as sardines and anchovies, as well as cephalopods are its preferred prey. Thresher sharks are part of the mackerel shark order (Lamniformes) and excel at speed and long distances. A few examples of this order include, the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), the makos, shorfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus), longfin mako (Isurus paucus), the salmon shark (Lamna ditropis), and the porbeagle shark (Lamna nasus). These species in particular are endothermic, meaning that they can thermoregulate their own body temperature to several degrees warmer than the ocean water, allowing better foraging opportunities.
Large gills for breathing
They also have big eyes to find prey and large gill slits for oxygen. Since these species are pelagic species, they require a lot of oxygen to keep moving. Lamniformes (mackeral sharks) breathe through ram ventilation, where the animal swims while opening its mouth. These species require constant motion or else they'll drown. However, some sharks have adapted to living life on the bottom, and can actively pump water pass their gills with their spiracles, which are tiny holes usually located behind the eyes on the shark. In larger oceanic species, the spiracles have lost its ability to pump water.
The dissection was a very exciting and rare opportunity, since thresher sharks are pelagic predatory fish, that spend their lives in the open ocean. There are currently only three known species of thresher sharks, the common (Alopias vulpinus), pelagic (Alopias pelagicus), and the big-eye thresher (Alopias superciliosus).
Previously it was thought that thresher sharks used to swing their tails around to catch their prey. However, a new study this summer show that they actually use their long caudal tails to stun their prey. Scientists managed to catch footage of the pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus) in action.
Students were able to take morphometric data of the shark by measuring everything from body length and fin lengths, counting the vertebrae, and noting of any visible scars or injuries.
Dave Ebert instructing PSRC students how to measure the shark
One noticeable wound was the large propeller strike that was near the end of her body.
Wound found on the shark, possibly from a propeller.
They also took tissue samples of the shark's muscles, reproductive organs, and liver to detect mercury levels. Since sharks are apex predators, meaning they eat at top of the food chain, toxins and heavy metals can bioaccumulate which can cause detrimental health problems if they are in high concentrations. Stay tuned to see if we found something revealing on what may have caused her death.
The fall semester has brought the return to classes, gorgeous weather, and most excitingly, a new crop of students to Moss Landing Marine Labs. This year we welcomed 15 new marine scientists to 8 of the labs, and their past adventures and new ideas for theses are inspiring already. Potential thesis projects range from molecular ecology of invertebrates in Indonesia to sediment movement at the head of the Monterey Submarine Canyon to the life history strategies of deep sea sharks.
New students meet for orientation with staff and student body officers
Check out the Meet the Students page to see how they came to Moss Landing Marine Labs, and check back as several of the new students will be writing for the Drop-In in the future!
MLML's small boats coordinator explains the program to the new students during a facilities tour
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!
Proper identification and detailed observations are very important when describing a species. Take for example these two species of small catsharks from the Indo-Pacific Ocean. They are very similar in size, color and shape, but because they are available for scientists to look at, subtle differences start to emerge. Without detailed records and a holotype, identifying sharks (or any animal for that matter) can be difficult.
