Our next class meeting will be in the ocean…

Field courses are one of the best parts of attending graduate school at Moss Landing.  Class is moved from the classroom or lab to the great outdoors.  Getting away from the computer and out into nature helps keep anyone more balanced.  We learn ecological concepts and then view or test them in the field to better understand subtidal ecology.  This spring, the subtidal ecology class has been out SCUBA diving around Monterey Bay, identifying species and their relationships (ecology).

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.

Identifying organisms in the field can be very difficult if using color, as it changes as you descend through the water column.  Red, 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.

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.

Comparing data with someone else when learning to identify organisms makes the process much easier.  You can quickly learn if you are mis-identifying something and try to find another one to recalibrate yourself.  Here are some species you may see around the Southern Monterey Bay area :

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.

This is an anemone, named the fish-eating anemone, which feeds on shrimp, small fish and other opportunistic food items.  An identifying feature of this anemone is the smooth red column seen at the bottom of the photo.

Another One Dives the Deep: Fall Science Diving

You dive into the cool blue-green seawater.  You inflate your buoyancy compensator as you near the bottom.  You check your air on your Submersible Pressure Gauge (SPG) and sign an “Ok” to your buddy.  After tying off the transect tape you place your slate out in front of you, align the lubber line of your compass, and begin swimming at 300 degrees.  You are identifying fish to species, placing them into one of three size bins, and recording that onto your data sheet.  If this sounds like a lot to do you are right!  The fall marine science diving course at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories recently celebrated the hard work they have done during the semester with a boat trip to a unique dive location.  We were able to utilize MLML’s R/V John H. Martin to transport us to the Carmel Pinnacles State Marine Reserve off Pescadero and anchor on a GPS point where the granite pinnacles come close to the surface.

MLML’s R/V John H. Martin.

MLML Science Diving students Catarina Pien (left) and Melinda Wheelock (right) pose for a picture at Carmel Pinnacles.

Impressive granite walls create swim-throughs for divers.

We experienced large granitic walls and a ballet of sea lions.  It was a great way to finish up the semester of diving and now mentally prepare for the final exam filled with gas laws and dive table problems.  I always find myself thinking where will these divers go and what exciting dives await them after the completion of the class.

John Douglas and Liza Schmidt operate the R/V John Martin and help us aboard using the swim step ladder.

That’s a Moray!

The exciting thing about science is we still have so much to learn about the natural world, new discoveries are being made all the time.  Rita Mehta at UCSC has been studying eels, specifically their pharyngeal jaws (see a video here), which are a second set of jaws that help the eels eat larger prey.  Recently MLML helped UCSC researcher Rita Mehta and others to determine how many California moray eels are in an area of Catalina Island, part of the channel islands archipelago.  Further, they are interested in growth of individuals and movement.  They had help from people at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with using Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags, acoustic tags and acoustic receivers to address eel growth and movement.

UCSC researchers Ben Higgins and Leith Miller measure a California moray.

Using traps, eels would be raised to the boat then a series of body measurements and total weight were taken, they would be PIT tagged and released in the area of capture.  If they caught an individual again who had previously had a PIT tag, they could use the body measurements from before and compare them to the current measurements to learn  how much they grew in that time period.

Eels were caught and then brought to the boat for measurements using these traps.

To learn more about eel movement, a subset of eels had an acoustic tag surgically implanted into them.  Acoustic receivers were deployed at each cove which would detect the surgically implanted acoustic tags in the eels, if they were nearby.  They believe that moray eels may go out to feed during night but not much is known.  In two weeks, with over 300 unique eels measured and PIT tagged, you could imagine how dramatic and important an impact they have on the ecosystem!

Acoustic receivers were deployed in each cove to aid in understanding moray eel movement.

Happy World Ocean Day June 8th 2012!

Help create a wave of change this World Ocean Day!  Today is a day to spread the word about conservation and our responsibility of improving the health of the ocean.  To find out ways to celebrate go to worldoceans.org.  Today I am continuing to make a lifestyle change and rode my bike to get to the UC Santa Cruz library to study and make this post!  Celebrate in your own way to rise up and be the voice of the ocean!

It’s Whale Soup Out Here!

Looking for whales in Monterey Bay

Ok, so it’s not literally whale soup out here, but Monterey Bay has been full of humpback whales for the past few weeks.  Casey Clark, a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Labs, has been taking advantage of this opportunity to investigate migrations and feeding behavior humpback whales in this region.  Each whale’s tail (known as a fluke) has a unique pattern of black and white markings and scars, which can be used to identify individual whales, much like fingerprints are used to identify humans.  As part of his research, Casey has been photographing the flukes of whales encountered in the bay and referencing them to a catalog to determine when and where they have been seen in the past.  Spring and summer are great times to see humpback and blue whales in Monterey bay, so keep your eyes out for a glimpse of these huge marine mammals!

Last look at a humpback whale.

Chilean Columns of Basalt!

The characteristic hexagonal pattern of the basalt columns form after the rock cools.

While on a beach down in Chile, South America the Moss Landing Marine Labs Global Systems class stumbled on a series of interesting rock features.  The low silica rock of Chile flows easily and comes from molten lava, when it cools it contracts and forms.  These cracks that form from cooling are roughly 6-sided, or hexagonal, and can form huge columns as seen at California’s Devils Postpile National Park.  We took the liberty of testing the rock’s structural integrity while trying to climb these amazing columns.  The columns seem man made, but knowing some basic geology helps to determine the origin, even when in another hemisphere from home.

You can tell these columns shifted after the time they were created by the way they tilt to the side.

 

Magical isotopes: Where Did Your Food Come From?

Chilean and American students combine forces to process green algae samples for isotopic analysis.

The Moss Landing Marine Labs Global Kelp Systems class went to Chile and learned to process samples of algae and invertebrates to get carbon and nitrogen isotopes.  These isotopes were collected to help scientists learn about the impact of creating a kelp farm where kelp would not have been otherwise.  Algae and inverts have different isotope signals, so isotopes can help in tracking where nutrients go.  What did this kelp crab have for dinner?  Looks like algae from the kelp farm!

Different red algae samples for isotope analysis.

 

These inverts were collected in the kelp bed to track where kelp nutrients go.

 

Farming Underwater in Chile, South America

Moss Landing diver holds a kelp crab that is eating the Giant Kelp being grown on the farm.

The Moss Landing Global Kelp Systems class was fortunate enough to dive in a kelp farm designed to grow Giant Kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera on lines.  The kelp farm had large kelp crabs which aggregated because the kelp is their preferred food, similar to insects eating on our crop fields on land.  The cute baby kelp is shown below growing on lines, hopefully they will not be eaten and make it to adulthood.  It was an interesting experience seeing an underwater farm, its easier to farm in the water with kelp as the nitrogen fertilizer is naturally in the water!

Baby kelp, they are cute!

Removing Algal Bullies from Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Diana Steller speaks to the algae underwater, "No no no little brown algae, no bullying."

Have you ever needed help from your friends when confronted with a brown algae bully?  The Monterey Bay Aquarium has, they needed divers to help rescue algae in one of their tanks.  Moss Landing Marine Labs MS 105 Marine Science Diving class had the opportunity to dive in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s kelp forest habitat tank (their kelp tank site is here).  This tank receives water from just offshore of the aquarium and gets all kinds of baby critters from the water that normally settle and grow just outside the aquarium.  Some of these baby drifters are the spores of an alga (singular of algae) named Dictyopteris undulata.  This alga has been bullying the other algae in the tank and outcompeting them for space.  The dive class was tasked with helping remove the algae and you can see from the photo above we were not happy with this little brown bully!

Student Will Fennie aids in collection of the bully.

Licking rocks?

Arch at Panther Beach made of sandstone.

During the MS 141 Geologic Oceanography field trip on monday October the 10th, I learned something new about a place I have been visiting for years.  Panther Beach is about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz and a diverse, dynamic beach to visit.  With a huge sandstone arch and places to boulder and rock climb it has much to offer and changes with the seasons as the sand is removed during winter and deposited back during summer.  Little did I know, but a rock outcrop I had walked by for years was composed of mud and many, many diatoms, tiny algae phytoplankton which are made of silica and leave behind their skeleton when they pass away.  If you were to lick a fresh portion of this rock it seems like the rock is sticky, this is because of the many tubes of the diatom skeletons creating suction on your tongue!!!  The study of rocks definitely rocks!

Mudstone made of diatoms and of course mud.