F/V Huli Cat deckand Shannon O'Brien holds a vermilion rockfish, Sebastes miniatus, with MLML Ichthyology Lab student, Emily Donham
by Emily Donham, Ichthyology Lab
As a volunteer with the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP), I had the opportunity to get up close and personal with central California’s ichthyofauna (fish species). CCFRP’s mission is to monitor the performance of central California’s marine protected areas (MPA) by collecting data on the abundance and distribution of fishes via collaboration with the local fishing community.
MLML FIsheries and Conservation Lab student and CCFRP researcher, Cheryl Barnes, prepares to size and tag fish aboard the F/V Huli Cat
Classes at Moss Landing Marine Labs involve a lot of field trips, and this semester is no exception. On November 7, 2011 the marine ecology students ventured seaward to explore the ocean benthos.
Photo by MLML/UNOLS
The students waited with anticipation, saying goodbye to the familiar Moss Landing Harbor as the 135-foot Point Sur pulled slowly out into the open ocean.
On Tuesday November 15, 2011, Friends of MLML hosted a talk with one of MLML’s own, Dr. Mike Graham, author of “The Essential Naturalist.” An alumni of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, he then obtained his Ph.D. at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Then, Dr. Graham came back to the MLML and is the advisor for the phycology (seaweeds) lab.
Nowadays with the internet, it can be easy for researchers to overlook journal articles that are 100, 50, even just 20 years old. With marine science librarian Joan Parker and Dr. Paul Dayton, Dr. Graham compiled older scientific articles—some from over one hundred years ago—into “The Essential Naturalist.” Not only were these articles extremely significant in a scientific context, but they also told great stories for those who enjoy nature. Dr. Graham stresses that scientists before us were just as smart as we are and they thought about all that goes into scientific research—methods, data analysis, etc.—just as we do now. So, all we need to do is dig a bit to find articles that greatly contributed to science, and are hence indispensable for anyone who considers themselves naturalists!
Below is a conversation with Dr. Graham about “The Essential Naturalist”:
Where did you get the inspiration for “The Essential Naturalist”?
Well it stemmed out of a series of conversations I had with my PhD advisor (and “Essential Naturalist” co-editor) Paul Dayton. I was looking into the old literature while studying for my PhD qualifying exam and kept uncovering old papers that seemed to say exactly what more modern papers were saying. And every time I told Paul about one of these papers, he would respond with a comment about another paper that people had forgotten as well. So after a while we just started talking about how modern ecologists were beginning to lose their roots, and how great it would be to resurrect some of these papers.
How did you decide which journal articles to place in the book?
Well, in addition to all of the search I did on my own, plus the additions from Paul and Joan (my fellow co-editors), I polled over 100 ecologists and evolutionary biologists as to what their favorite Natural History gems were. This resulted in a long list, some papers of which were easily discarded because they didn’t fit our intended format for the book. But we ended up with about 150 papers that were good. Then I simply started working through them all to see which had compelling readings that could be excerpted and of interest to a broader audience. I tested some of the materials against my own kids and students to see what was boring, as well as my father Jon who loves natural history and was a good sounding board. The rest of the choices were simply from intuition as to what would fly.
Why do you think scientists and researchers tend to disregard, even sometimes inadvertently, journal articles that were published 50+ years ago?
Out of sight, out of mind. Its harder to keep track of the literature today with 1000s of articles published per year. Everyone has deadlines. So the easiest thing is to either Google your keywords of interest, or cite a paper that just happened to be on your desk, recommended by a colleague, or in a journal you subscribe to. All of these make it harder to find the older papers.
An electric eel, which Baron Von Humboldt studied and wrote about during his journeys.
Can you tell us one of your favorite stories in “The Essential Naturalist”?
I like them all, for different reasons. But the one that I recite the most is the story from Humboldt of how the native South Americans showed him how to fish for electric eels using stampeding horses. The story is vivid. My kids love hearing me tell it. And it’s so visual that you just cant help telling the story in such an exciting voice. It’s a lot of fun.
The Marine Ecology class recently boarded the our research vessel the Point Sur for a trawling expedition. The plan for this field trip was to run three—one mid-water and two benthic—trawls. The benthic zone is the lowest level in the ocean and includes the seafloor, which is a habitat that has a lot of biodiversity. So, it was expected that the nets would bring up many intriguing organisms, and they did not disappoint! The most prevalent invertebrates we captured were urchins, specifically red and heart urchins, but I want to focus on the slightly bigger invertebrates that caught my eye: three octopi!
Two east Pacific red octopi in adjacent tanks.
Octopi are incredibly intelligent and have highly developed nervous systems with 500 million neurons, which to put in perspective is in the same level as cats and dogs. Although we are unsure what species of octopus we captured, we believe that these amazing cephalopods are most likely east Pacific red octopi. The east Pacific red octopus, Octopus rubescens, is a small octopus ranging from 40 to 50 cm in length, and researchers who study this invertebrate say that it can easily solve puzzles and has an incredible memory. So, after the Point Sur docked, we immediately took the octopi to our aquarium room to place them in their own tanks, which we filled with toys for them!
An east Pacific red octopus adjusting do his new home.This octopus has iridescent coloring.
Other than a few awesome, albeit too short, trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I hadn’t spent much time in the Central Coast. So when I moved up here for graduate school at MLML, I didn’t know much about the area; that is, until my MS 141 class. Geological Oceanography—taught by Dr. Ivano Aiello—involves learning about the formation of minerals and rocks, as well as geological mechanisms such as plate tectonics. We’ve taken field trips almost every week to various locations along the Central Coast and inland as well. One of my favorite field trips was our overnight trip to Point Reyes, where we stayed in an old lifeboat station while we observed different types of rock formations.
The lifeboat station was built in 1927 at Chimeny Rock in Point Reyes.
We examined multiple sedimentary rocks both along our journey to the station and also once we had arrived. One of the depositions we inspected was an outcrop of radiolarian cherts. These deposits sit underneath about half of the Marin Headlands, are resistant to weathering, and can be up to 200 million years old. They are comprised of radiolarians, which are protozoans that form siliceous (made of silica) skeletons. As these organisms decompose, a radiolarian ooze is formed in the deep ocean; over time, deposition occurs along the seafloor, forming the well-bedded radiolarian cherts.
Radiolarian cherts are formed from years of deposition of radiolarian siliceous skeletons on the seafloor.
Igneous rocks were also on our list of stops, as we went to a formation of pillow basalts. They are formed underwater as lava comes in contact with seawater and cools rapidly. Basalts are generally aphanitic rocks, meaning that they cool down too quickly for any minerals to form as the magma cools. As they are created, pillow basalts form ellipsoidal shapes and depict the direction of the lava flow.
Behind the class are pillow basalts, which are igneous rocks formed underwater as lava comes in contact with seawater and rapidly cools down.
It was so surreal to touch igneous and sedimentary structures that formed hundreds of millions of years ago. Examining these rocks helped me better understand the geological mechanisms involved in their formation. Not only did these sedimentary depositions and igneous rocks help me become more acquainted with the Central Coast, but they also demonstrated the fact that oceans are integral components to the geologic history of our planet.
Students carefully investigate a tidepool at Asilomar State Beach.
In October, two fellow Moss Landing students and I sprang into action to lead fourth graders on a tidepooling field trip to Asilomar State Beach. Students and chaperones from Ms. Alicia Doolittle’s fourth grade class at Bay View Academy in Monterey enthusiastically participated in the food web interactions lesson and activities prepared and taught by Sara Hutto, Nicole Bobco, and myself.
MLML graduate students (L to R) Nicole Bobco, Biological Oceanography Lab, Sara Hutto, Phycology Lab, and Diane Wyse, Physical Oceanography Lab
Though we each represent different labs at MLML, we all had a blast instructing and helping students identify organisms and their interactions in the intertidal environment. We were impressed by the students’ knowledge of food webs, and even regaled with a song! The field trip was also a treat for me, as I have not been tidepooling in California in many years, since visiting with family when I was about their age. At the end of the day, it seemed everyone had a great time learning about and exploring the beautiful coastal ecosystems of the Pacific Ocean.
Sara teaching a student about intertidal food web interactions.
They say a photo tells a thousand words, well the one I took that day has an amazing story. With the wind at our backs and a clear blue sky over head we walked along Manresa State Beach, over a dune towards a very special spot. We came across this piece of ancient beach. The bottom layer of the outcrop is the oldest layer that was deposited by winds moving sand from the beach inshore to form a dune. This dune fossilized, then sea level rose and the dune became submerged as a wave cut bench, similar to rocky intertidal areas seen along the coastline. Waves caused part of this layer to be eroded and the wave cut bench became completely submerged and became the inner continental shelf about 125,000 years ago. More sediment including pebbles to fine sand grains, was deposited on top of this bench, but then current re-suspended the fine sediments leaving only the pebbles behind.
Sea level dropped (or the shelf was uplifted) and the area became closer to shore called the near shore-offshore transition. Here storms deposited coarser sediments and finer sediments were deposited in calmer times creating cross bedding. As the water continued to recede the once beach dune moved into the surf zone creating alternating dark and light bands of sediments. This entire story was interpreted by students as they took measurements including unit height, grain size of particles, and the types of sediments in each layer. The best part of Geographical Oceanography is telling the story of our ancient coastline.
New students Stephen and Sarah measure layers of a fossil dune
During the Geological Oceanography field trip to Pt Reyes, students were lucky enough to see elephants seals playing in the calm surf. These seals are weaners meaning that they have weaned from their mothers and are ready to go out on their own in search of food. Point Reyes elephant seal population numbers 1,500 and 2,000 individuals since their return to this area in 1970’s. Elephant seals have a habitat range from Mexico to Alaska and Hawaii. They spend 80 percent of their life in the open sea in search of food and have bodies built for repeated diving. Elephant seals can dive to a depth of to 1000-2000 feet, remaining at depth for almost a half an hour, and repeat the dive with only 3-5minutes rest at the surface. Can you imagine diving for half an hour on one breath?
Saturday night Elkhorn Yacht Club graciously hosted MLML’s annual Halloween party! This year’s party included a great number of science themed pumpkins and costumes. Each lab is given a pumpkin the week prior to the party and asked to carve it as part of a contest. The entries also included underwater pumpkins from the dive class. I got the opportunity to tag along with the Scientific Dive class this past Friday and carve one of my own. My dive partner Kristin and I struggled to hold the very buoyant pumpkin still at 20 feet depth, while we took turns using our dive knives to carve shapes into our pumpkin. Can you guess what it is? (Hint: we are both in the invertebrate zoology lab).
Photo by: M. Marraffini
The Invertebrate Lab’s offical pumpkin, for the contest, was a carving of a cuttlefish (Photo below with one of our new students Catherine Drake). The results from the contest have not yet been tallied but in my opinion it was the best (I may be a little biased in this area). I just heard the results are in…we did win the pumpkin carving contest!
Photo by: M. Marraffini
The party also included costume contests for best costume, most scientific, best faculty costume, best group costume, funniest costume, and scariest costume. There was some stiff competition this year for most scientific including a costume of an electrophoresis gel (gel used view products from polymerase chain reaction used to amplify DNA), a whale fall costume complete with whale skeleton and invertebrates that live on or near the bones, the rocky intertidal with a limpet, barnacle and ochre seastar, a blue crab lifecycle, and a bacterial culturing experiment. Below is a picture (Photo by Diane Wyse Physical Oceanography Lab) of the invertebrate lab’s rocky intertidal group costume, while it looked pretty good and we did not win the group costume contest. There’s always next year. Happy Halloween!
With beautiful clear days, pumpkins cozying up to lab equipment, and excited exclamations about whale sightings emanating from lab and faculty offices alike, we are feeling the spirit of the season here at Moss! Ok, that last part was a bit of a joke– as a new student at MLML, who saw humpback whales in the Monterey Bay for the first time just last week, it would seem like this is the season to see them so close. Not only can we watch the marine life and check the swell from our desks during study breaks, but also, whales and a whole host of exciting marine life are spotted year round from the labs.
To welcome the season, if you dare, feast your eyes upon this critter with a ghoulish name, though rather endearing and fascinating characteristics. Did you know the vampire squid may bite off its own arm tip to evade a predator?
Vampire squid. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
With a less sinister name, though no less awesome features, meet this tiny octopod from our very own Monterey Bay!
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