Support Oceans in the Classroom – Add a Drop to Donor’s Choose

Erin Loury

by Erin Loury Ichthyology Lab

Your $10 could solve science illiteracy!  OK, it would at least be a step in the right direction.   Why? Because $10 (and change) will pay for one subscription to Current Science magazine for Mrs. L’s class in Michigan.  “Breaking Science News” is the last project we need to fund to wrap up the Ocean Bloggers Ocean in the Classroom Initiative! The project only needs $177 more to bring exciting, current science to the hands of low-income students.   Your $10 may just seem like a drop in the bucket,  but the great thing about $10 is that you probably won’t miss it.   In fact, Dr. M at the Deep Sea News is so sure you can spare $10 that bad things will happen otherwise.

Put fun science in the hands of kids! Donate today!

Still not convinced?  Well here’s my “Let me tell you why I gave $10″ spiel.  I gave $10 to this project simply because I think communicating science is just as important as doing science itself.  We won’t be able to keep doing all the cool research we do if the population at large doesn’t understand why it’s important, or why they should care (or fund us).

Getting my hands on a similar type  of current events glossy when I was in 6th grade  was one of those world-expanding events that totally turned me on to learning.   Help make science tangible, relevant and fun for these kids in Michigan by showing them it’s part of their world!

OK, that’s my soap box.  Bottom line: even penny-pinching grad students can spare $10 for a worthy cause.   The Ocean Bloggers in The Classroom Initiative has been a smashing success so far, with 7 out of 8 great projects fully funded already (chest waders, coral reef flip-books, a salt water invert tank, and more)!  We are just $177 short.    So drop in and drop that $10, $20 or $200 today and make a difference!

Discovering a New Species of Ghost Shark

The Eastern Pacific Black Ghost Shark: a new species of chimaera described by MLML student Kelsey James (photo by K. James)

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: describe a new species unknown to science.  That’s exactly the mission a few MLML students undertook last spring in a class on systematics.   Systematics is the study of how all living things on earth are related to each other through evolutionary relationships.  It involves figuring out how species are grouped together in these relationships, and identifying what makes species different from one another – a lot like a detective piecing clues together.

Ichthyology student Kelsey James recently cracked the case of of the Eastern Pacific black ghost shark.  This fish is a new species of chimaera, which is a cartilaginous fish related to sharks and rays.  Although scientists collected a specimen in Baja California in the 1970s and thought it was a new species, the fish languished in a jar for years waiting for someone to take the time to investigate it (a story all too sad and true for many new species out there).  After Kelsey’s close examination, she and other scientists decided it was indeed different from other chimaeras, and gave it the scientific name Hydrolagus melanophasma in a recent publication.

According to Kelsey, the process of describing a new species is actually fairly straight forward.  “First you have to look at everything closely related to it in the same genus, and then decide why it is or isn’t an already described species,” she said.  Sometimes it’s easy to see that a species looks different from others, but describing why it’s different in terms of body measurements (like fin size and spacing, jaw length, etc.) can be much harder to explain.  “The hardest part for me was describing a few good key characteristics that anyone could use to identify this species, which is called a diagnosis,” she said

What made the project particularly exciting for Kelsey was that MBARI (the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) had ROV footage of her species swimming around at 1500 m in the Gulf of California (video above).  “It is spectacular to see this creature in action,” she said after watching their tapes.  “The differences between the preserved specimen, which I had been looking at for 2 months, and the live one were astounding.”

In addition to being published in the scientific journal Zootaxa, the story has created a lot of media buzz, garnering press time from the Smithsonian, Wired Science, National Geographic, and even a German website. Not bad for a class project!

A Fish Cupcake Creation

China rockfish: another sweet and fishy creation by Ichthyology student Diane Hass (photo: E. Loury).

by Erin Loury Ichthyology Lab

The queen of marine creativity stikes again! Diane Haas, an Ichthyology Lab student (who you may know as creator of some sweet, toothy shark cupcakes) crafted this vision in frosting for labmate Tom Wadwsorth’s thesis defense last week.  The lucky subject?  A China rockfish (Sebastes nebulosus).  What a delicious complement to Tom’s thesis, “Trends in Abundance Surveys of Nearshore Rocky Reef Fishes in Central California 1959-2007.”  Congrats, Tom, and two thumbs up to Diane!  (Oh, would this cake qualifiy as sustainable seafood?)

An actual factual China rockfish (Sebastes nebulosus) - how does Diane's artistry measure up? (photo: N. Yochum)

Summer at Sea: Close Quarters

Double parked: Climbing aboard my survey boat (the Noah's Ark, teal color) with my duffel bag was a bit of a gymnastic feat!

Erin Loury

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology

Klutzes like me have to look lively when boarding a boat.  The first rule of thumb is to mind your space, because it’s at a premium!  Heavy equipment, sharp things and moving parts can be around every corner, people are hurrying past you to get to their stations, and to top it off, the whole shebang is typically rocking under your feet with the waves.

Last summer, I spent 10 days at sea aboard an 85-foot fishing boat as part of a trawling survey for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Just getting on board was something of an adventure.   The whole “Mind the gap” philosophy definitely applies when jumping from pier to boat, to boat, while ducking under railings and passing gear over a narrow-but-steep drop to the water below.   And I quickly learned once I stepped inside that there’s generally not a lot of personal space.   Three scientists, three crew, and one bathroom (or head, as you’d say on a boat) – you do the math.

Bunkroom for four – feeling like a packed sardine is probably an appropriate feeling for a fishing survey!

Surprisingly, bathroom time was not much of an issue, but the sleeping arrangements sure were cozy.  My bunk became even smaller once I wedged in my bulky survival suit – about the size of a large sleeping bag – so that it would be handy to grab should any Titanic-style drama ensue.   Fortunately, except for one safety drill, there it stayed and provided something of a lumpy backrest.

Home sweet bunk - the space to call my own for 10 days.

My first night at sea was probably the roughest.  We left port about 4 pm and were steaming through the night to get to our first trawling location on the southern California coast.  The way the bunks were laid across the boat caused me to rock slightly from head to toe like I was lying on a seesaw – not at all conducive to falling sleep.  I found myself suddenly commiserating with immigrants of yesteryear crossing rough seas to the new world, enduring seasick nights in their crammed quarters. Oh dear, I thought. This is going to be a long 10 days.

Luckily, after my first full day at sea, my nerves – and my stomach – quieted down.  Between the crew rapping on the walls at 3 am to switch out their turns on watch, to the 6 am wake-up as the winch let out a hydraulic squeal to set the first net, I was more than ready to fall asleep at the end of each long day.   And never once did I tumble out of my bunk in the middle of the night.

Summer at Sea

All aboard! Jahnava, Erin and Noelle from MLML (three on the right) pose with captain Allen and deckhand Darren (left) of the Tigerfish

Erin Loury

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology.

What is a marine scientist’s vehicle of choice? Ships, boats, and anything that floats!

Summer is an exciting and busy time for marine scientists, especially graduate students. With classes done for the time being, our lives are consumed by the a few hectic months of field work. As a marine scientist in Moss Landing, our “field” is the entire ocean! Our vast study area stretches from pole to pole, and includes everything from the waves crashing on the rocky intertidal shore, to the dark abyssal depths of the Monterey Submarine Canyon.

So how to we explore and poke and probe a body of water that is so deep and wide? In the ichthyology lab, we use boats to scour the sea for our fishy specimens in a variety of ways. This month I’ll be posting lots of photos from our ship-side adventures that will put you right in the field with us – minus the wind and seasickness! Stay tuned and enjoy!

Mahi-mahi on the wall – largest fish print of them all!

Making a fish print of mammoth proportions.

Erin Loury

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab

It’s generally a good practice to get the most “bang for your buck” out of a rare opportunity – such as a giant mahi-mahi specimen.   After dissecting this impressive fish in our ichthyology class to study it’s feeding musculature and internal anatomy, we put it out on display for our April Open House (butchered side down, of course!).

Our giant mahi-mahi wowed the crowds during April's Open House.

If you were one of the many wowed by the chance to see such a large fish up close, you may be wondering what became of the specimen after all the crowds went home.

Perhaps you also made a fish print while here at Open House - with a fish you could easily hold in your hands. We didn’t think we had done justice to our massive mahi-mahi until it too had its impression preserved in paint.

Fun fact:  Mahi-mahi only live to be 4 or 5 years old, and are some of the fastest growing fish in the world!

And what next for this specimen of multiple lives?  Grad student Katie Schmidt is undertaking the task preserving the entire fish for posterity by cleaning its skeleton – one shining vertebrae at a time.  Stay tuned to see photos of the work in progress!

Free wall art for the starving grad student apartment is also a plus.

Count Down to MLML Open House!

Open House is a free event that's great for the whole family!

Spring is in the air, and the energy buzzing around the lab has been cranked up a notch or three.  There can only be one explanation – it’s time for MLML’s  annual Open House on April 25th and 26th!  In three short weeks (19 days, to be exact!) Moss Landing Marne Labs will throw its doors open wide and invite you for a visit!

Open House is one of the best ways for you to get up close and personal with the ocean environment, and the many ways of studying it.   Come meet our passionate graduate students, world-renowned faculty and dedicated staff who are so excited to share our scientific discoveries with you!

Join us for a hands-on weekend of marine science!

There are so many cool things to see, from seminars and puppet shows, to live animals and dune tours, that the only way to cover them all is a snazzy countdown! So keep reading the Drop-In  during the next three weeks as we share the Top Ten Reasons to Visit MLML Open House, and get you pumped up for all the things you won’t want to miss!

MLML OPEN HOUSE
SATURDAY and SUNDAY
APRIL 25TH and APRIL 26TH 2009
9:00am-5:00pm

8272 Moss Landing Road

Click here for more information!

Come dive into our watery world!

The Shifty Eyes of Flatfish

Even these little sanddabs have two eyes on one side of their head - but they weren't born that way. (photo: E. Loury)

Erin Loury

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab

Have you ever stared in the mirror and convinced yourself that your eyes are different sizes? Even if they are, or even if one is a little higher than the other, don’t worry, you are still considered symmetrical. That is, you could draw a line down the middle of your body from head to toe, and your left and right sides would be more or less equal to each other, just mirror images. Most animals share this condition called bilateral symmetry, with left and right mirror images – everything from whales to ants. A few animals like sea urchins and jellyfish have radial symmetry, meaning that you can draw many lines through them to get mirror images (they’re symmetrical in a circular way).

Symmetry is so common than nature that scientists get pretty excited to study any animal that deviates from this norm. A bizarre and fascinating example is the asymmetry of flatfish – fish like halibut, sole, sanddabs, etc. – which can’t be divided into equal right and left sides. Instead, they have two eyes on one side of their head – which isn’t such a bad idea if you make your living with your other side buried in the sand. The crazy thing is that these fish aren’t born that way – they’re born with bilateral symmetry just like most other fish!

This larval flatfish is symmetrical because it only has one eye on each side of its head - but soon one eye will migrate to the other side, making the fish assymetrical (photo: E. Loury).

On our ichthyology class cruise last week, we pulled up examples of both the “before” and “after” flatfish conditions. The picture above is of a larval flatfish we found in the plankton. If you have to look closely at the photo, you can see that it still has only one eye on each side of its head! The fish will eventually undergo metamorphosis, during which its entire skull will twist, and one eye will migrate over to the other side of its head! The whole process takes between 5 days and a few hours, depending on the species of flatfish. This leaves flatfish with a blind side (the one with no eye), which it can keep buried in the sand. Check out the video below to see this metamorphosis in action!

Plankton Soup

Scientists sift through plankton soup, searching for their favorite bits (photo: E. Loury)

Erin Loury

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab

The swell was up and the rain in and out on Tuesday, but our ichthyology class braved it all for our class cruise in Monterey Bay.  The Point Sur, MLML’s largest research  vessel, was loaded with our class, an invertebrate zoology class from San Jose State, and various scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (incluing Kyra Schlining, featured in our alumni profiles!). We were all on a treasure hunt of sorts – ready to dip our big nets in the water and see what kind of fish and invertebrates would come up.  It was anyone’s guess.

The crew hauls in the net, while a rainbow offsets the less-than-ideal weather (photo: E. Loury)

Like most cruises, there was a lot of downtime  – waiting to get to our trawl location, waiting for the net to go out (about half an hour to reach our desired depth of 900 m!), waiting while the net dragged along catching things, waiting for it to come back in… But just trying to hold on to your balance (and your lunch) can be keep you plenty occupied on a rolling boat.  It was a rough day for the faint of stomach, which I’m sure left many pondering Amanda’s timeless question: “Can I still become a marine biologist even if I get seasick?” The short answer is yes – but it’s certainly not always fun.  Or pretty, for that matter.

What a find! Bottling up a squid (photo: E. Loury)

Our first trawl came up empty, because the net didn’t make it to the sea floor where it was designed to sample.  But our second trawl of the midwater brought up a whole slurry of things to pick through and distract us from our queasiness.  We huddled around tubs sloshing with a bright red soup of krill, the choice food of many whales, birds and fish.  These little critters like small shrimp and are called euhpausiids.  Lots of other interesting things were floating in the mix – the visiting scientists scooped up some squid, little jellyfish, and other gelatinous blobs.   The fish class picked out the various myctophids, or lanternfish, which are little, black, deepwater fish that have a line of glowing photophores along their sides.

Some shiny myctophids, or lantern fish, from the deep (photo: E. Loury)

We sifted though the animals that lived in the water that surrounded us, down at depths we could scarecly comprehend.  It was a rare chance to pluck them from their hard-to-access homes and bring them to our world of the surface, where we could poke, stare, and try to understand.

Happy Darwin Day! It’s the big 200!

Happy 200th Birthday, Charlie!

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab.

Grab your favorite sister species and take her for a twirl – it’s Darwin’s 200th birthday today, and the science commuity is celebrating in style!  Many people begin their journey into the natural sciences by simply  marveling in awe at the colorful and diverse bounty of life on our planet – from the flashy fish of a teaming coral reef to the jewel-toned butterflies of the rainforest.   A multitude of species exist in all shapes and sizes, each the product of successful genes passed on over millennia.

Today we raise our beakers to toast the man who took the time to understand what could bring about such diversity, without even knowing that genes existed.  We celebrate the man who grounded our understanding of evolution by describing it’s underlying mechanism of natural selection, as published in his famous book The Origin of Species, which also marks it’s 150th anniversary this year.    Surely that’s a reason for a party if there ever was one, and celebrations are happening around the world (find one near you!).  There’s even one in our backyard at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, where several Moss Landing scientists and MLML graphic artist Lynn McMasters have helped create a beautiful exhibit in honor of Darwin.

You can celebrate by reading some  interesting Darwin tidbits here, and just for fun try checking out your local plant and animal life with the keen eye that Darwin must have had.  What are the details he might have picked up on?  Maybe you’ll develop some truly “original” thoughts!