This week marked the beginning of the semester at Moss Landing Marine Laboratory and also happened to be the start of a new year. January 23rd, 2012 was celebrated throughout the world as Chinese New Year. This year, the year of the dragon, is said to be the luckiest of the 12-year mathematical cycle of the Chinese Zodiac. So to all our blog readers out there, good luck and Happy New Year!
Dragon moray eel, Enchelycore pardalis. photo: D. Merritt
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
Expert volunteer anglers use standardized hook and line gear to land as many fish as they can during a survey block. Fish are then tagged, counted and sized by CCFRP researchers before being released back into the wild. These data are provided to fisheries managers to aid in stock assessments of economically important species. If you’d like to learn more about CCFRP or how you can become a volunteer angler please visit: http://seagrant.mlml.calstate.edu/research/ccfrp/ or like them on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/California-Collaborative-Fisheries-Research-Program-CCFRP/194987957217303
photo: E Donham
by Emily Donham, Ichthyology Lab
During Physical Oceanography class (MS 142) Professor Dr. Erika McPhee-Shaw invited interested students to participate in a day cruise aboard the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories 135’ research vessel (R/V) Point Sur. The cruise was part of a collaborative research project between scientists at the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS), the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the physical oceanography lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) (Dr. McPhee-Shaw is the lead PI). The mission included the deployment of oceanographic instrument moorings and the collection of conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) measurements at stations along an isobath, or line of constant depth, in Monterey Bay.
photo: E Donham
I arrived at the ship at 0700 in order to make it aboard for the safety briefing before setting sail. The morning was foggy which delayed our departure by a half hour. At our first stop NPS researchers deployed an instrument mooring fitted with an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) which will take continuous water velocity measurements throughout the water column. These water velocity measurements will help the scientists understand how water is flowing in the bay.
The NPS team readying their mooring before deployment (photo: E Donham)
Next we moved further offshore to deploy Erika’s instruments. (more…)
photo: E. Donham
Emily Donham
by Emily Donham, Ichthyology Lab
“What have I done!?” This is my first thought as I plunge into the frigid waters at Stillwater Cove. Having just moved to Moss Landing after spending the past eight years in tropical Hawaii, this is my first chance to dive in California’s temperate waters. My dive computer reads a mere 54° F, but that can’t be right. This water feels much closer to freezing. Once I’m able to recover from the initial shock I realize that my arms just don’t bend the way they used to. This is mostly due to the 10 mm of neoprene wrapped around my body to help keep me warm. I used to be able to get away with just a 2mm top! I slowly become acclimated to the temperature and limited mobility and descend to the depths for my first glimpse into the kelp forest ecosystem.
photo: E. Donham
Unfortunately, today isn’t the greatest of visibilities. The water has a greenish hue and I’m not able to see beyond about 15-20 feet, but even so, there is still a lot to get excited about. Coming from the tropics where reef-building hard corals are the main attraction, it’s hard to believe that macroalgae could ever be so breathtaking. Some of the giant kelps at our dive site are over 60 feet tall, which makes it easy to see why people refer to their ecosystems as forests. I look closer and see small groups of juvenile rockfish intermingled within the kelp, utilizing its blades for shelter. The closer I look, the more I see, and I start to realize it’s going to take me awhile to learn what everything is, despite the lower species abundance and diversity compared to tropical coral reefs. It certainly doesn’t help that the muted colors here make differentiating between species tricky. We ascend to our safety stop and a sea lion swims in to check us out.
At the end of my dive day I look back and am once again reminded of why I decided to study marine science and I can’t wait to jump back in the water as soon as possible. Luckily for me, as a student of the Ichthyology lab, my advisor has decided to make biweekly dives a part of our education. Hopefully exploring California’s coastal waters will help in my search for a thesis topic.
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