{"id":6907,"date":"2013-03-17T11:58:07","date_gmt":"2013-03-17T19:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=6907"},"modified":"2020-10-13T17:34:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T00:34:27","slug":"our-next-class-meeting-will-be-in-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2013\/03\/17\/our-next-class-meeting-will-be-in-the-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"Our next class meeting will be in the ocean…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Scott Gabara<\/h3>\n

Field courses are one of the best parts of\u00a0attending\u00a0graduate school at Moss Landing. \u00a0Class is moved from the classroom or lab to the great outdoors. \u00a0Getting away from the computer and out into nature helps keep anyone more balanced. \u00a0We learn ecological concepts and then view or test them in the field to better understand subtidal ecology. \u00a0This spring, the subtidal ecology class has been out SCUBA diving around Monterey Bay, identifying species and their relationships (ecology).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The subtidal ecology class gears up to go on an identification dive. The water temperature is around 11 Celsius (52 Fahrenheit), so thick neoprene suits are used as thermal insulation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Identifying organisms in the field can be very difficult if using color, as it changes as you\u00a0descend through the water column. \u00a0Red, orange and yellow do not penetrate through the water very far, so we use waterproof flashlights to restore the natural spectrum and hopefully more easily identify organisms.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Two students in the subtidal ecology class (Catherine Drake and Christian Denney) are on an identification survey, trying to learn different fish, algae, and invertebrates in Monterey Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Comparing data with someone else when learning to\u00a0identify\u00a0organisms makes the process much easier. \u00a0You can quickly learn if you are mis-identifying something and try to find another one to recalibrate yourself. \u00a0Here are some species you may see around the\u00a0Southern\u00a0Monterey Bay area :<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This alga, the Southern sea palm, reaches about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) tall. An identifying feature of this alga is that is has a \"Y\" near the top of the stipe or stem, where is splits into two bunches of blades. Aggregations of this alga form understory forests, important for different fishes, invertebrates, and mammals.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This is an anemone, named the fish-eating anemone, which feeds on shrimp, small fish and other opportunistic food items. \u00a0An identifying feature of this anemone is the smooth red\u00a0column seen at the bottom of the photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Gabara Field courses are one of the best parts of\u00a0attending\u00a0graduate school at Moss Landing. \u00a0Class is moved from the classroom or lab to the great outdoors. \u00a0Getting away from the computer and out into nature helps keep anyone more balanced. \u00a0We learn ecological concepts and then view or test them in the field […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drop-inblog"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20750,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907\/revisions\/20750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}