by Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab
Last Monday, I bussed it to Santa Barbara then hopped a train to San Diego. One night in a hotel and an overpriced taxi ride later, and I was laying eyes on the R/V Point Sur for the first time since November 29, 2012, on it’s way back from its 17,000 mile round-trip journey to Palmer Station in Antarctica.
The majestic R/V Point Sur.
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.
On Thursday, November 29 the R/V Point Sur, MLML’s largest research vessel and a member of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System fleet, set sail for Palmer Station, Antarctica. The ship and her crew, accessed for class cruises and interdisciplinary and inter-organizational research projects, will be making several stops through Central and South America during her voyage over the next several months. You can even track the trip here.
The R/V Point Sur leaving Moss Landing Harbor, en route to Palmer Station, Antarctica. (Photo: Andrea Launer)
Over the course of her 8,200 mile journey the crew will post updates about all aspects of the cruise. While we will miss the Pt Sur during her first voyage to Antarctica, we can look forward to exciting updates on the Pt Sur blog.
Sunset from the Point Sur off the coast of Mexico. (Photo: India Grammatica)
Stay tuned for updates and stories from the crew!
By Heather Fulton-Bennett, Biological Oceanography Lab
The term cruise generally brings to mind tropical weather and luxurious surroundings, but scientific research cruises are much more about long hours of work and only a few brief moments to enjoy the view. As a new student in the Biological Oceanography Laboratory, I was simply excited to get out on the water.
Our view of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge as we approached our anchorage for the afternoon
The Biological Oceanography Lab is part of a testing program for ballast water sterilization systems and utilizes the training vessel TS Golden Bear as a semi-mobile research station. With increasing concerns about the spread of invasive species through boating traffic, researchers are trying to minimize the potential for the viable organism to be transported in the ballast water of ships. State regulations focus on minimizing the number of live organisms present following treatment, and our lab is responsible for determining if treatment systems are effective by providing organism counts. Live organism counts are done by microscope on both the untreated and treated ballast water to compare the number of live organisms before and after the treatment. Current regulations require very low numbers of live organisms to be present in the water, so it is crucial to make sure the systems are effective.
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.
By Catherine Drake, Invertebrate Zoology Lab
For many graduate students at MLML, diving is an essential component to their thesis work, whether it involves collecting samples, obtaining data, or making observations about subtidal ecosystems. Students must be research dive certified in order to perform these science-related activities. Here at the lab, we have an excellent research diving program run by our research faculty member and Diving Safety Officer (DSO) Diana Steller. Through this program, students have the option of taking the course either during the fall semester or during a two-week intensive course in the summer.
DSO Diana Steller gives the ok after a tough beach entry at Big Creek. Photo by Maria Kyong.
Having gotten my open water certification earlier this spring, I was excited to take the summer research diving class. For the first week, we practiced a series of underwater skills and swim tests to ensure that we felt comfortable in the water. There are certain basic scientific skills that must be practiced and perfected to become certified in research diving. These skills include laying out a transect tape and taking observations along the tape. To master this, we all studied the local fish, invertebrates, and seaweeds to take surveys within the kelp bed for an organization called Reef Check.
I give the ok signal as I practice a Reef Check survey at Breakwater in Cannery Row. Photo by Scott Gabara.
The following week, we caravanned south to Big Creek State Marine Reserve; while there, we camped in the redwoods and dove consecutively for four days. We would wake up each morning bright and early, eat breakfast to fuel us for the first dive of the day, and then head to the beach. Diana and Assistant DSO Scott Gabara would brief us on the dives, we’d suit up and enter the water ready to take data. After our first dive, we’d sit on the beach with our lunches and warm up in the sun before heading out for our second dive. Once we completed our second dive, we would wade into the large creek (hence the campsite’s namesake), wash off our gear and relax.
Diana Steller gives a brief on the dive site. Information in this meeting includes beach entry strategies, transect locations, and allowed depths and dive times. Photo by Maria Kyong.
The kelp canopy and sub-canopy are magnificent habitats at Big Creek. As I swam out to the location of each transect, I’d get entangled in giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) and feather boa kelp (Egregia menziesii), and would use bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) as an anchor when being pushed around by the swell. Once we descended, the seafloor was inundated with Pterogophora californica and Laminaria setchelii, so much so that I could not see the bedrock below. To obtain data for Reef Check, we placed the transect under the sub-canopy and crawled our way through the kelp to count stipes, look for inverts, and point our flashlights at unsuspecting rockfish.
Light can barely penetrate the dense canopy of Macrocystis pyrifera and Nereocystis luetkeana. Photo by Marina Kyong.
I noticed that during any dive, something can and will go wrong, especially when you have transect tapes, slates, compasses, dive computers connected to you as you maneuver underwater. The most important lesson I learned from Diana on this trip was that it’s how you react to these situations that determines your competence and confidence as a research diver. If you stay calm and remember to always breathe while your mask fills with water, you get caught in kelp, your datasheet falls off your slate, and the surge inverts you, then you are definitely ready for research diving!
Dive buddies pair up for one last picture after our last, and deepest, dive of the week. Photo by Maria Kyong.
Our awesome summer research diving class! Photo by Maria Kyong.
by Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab
This summer I hopped on a plane, flying 29 hours one way (via Paris — ooh la la) over a period of three days to spend nearly a month on the island of Madagascar working on my pilot study.
Madagascar, a former French colony until 1960, is the fourth largest island in the world. Don’t let it fool you. It looks so tiny next to Africa, but it has 44 percent more area than California, and boasts more than 4,800 km of coastline.
Rocky coastline in Madagascar. Photo by Angela Szesciorka.
Most of the country’s export revenue comes from textiles, fish/shellfish, vanilla, and cloves. Newer sources of income include tourism, agriculture, and extracted materials (titanium ore, chromite, coal, iron, cobalt, copper and nickel). Madagascar provides half of the world’s supply of sapphires! But with a GDP of around $20 billion, The Economist rated Madagascar as the worst economy in 2011. Most of Madagascar’s inhabitants are subsistence livers, meaning they live off of what they can grow or catch.
Local fisherman spear hunting for crabs. Photo by Angela Szesciorka.
In the southern California bight, the channel islands archipeligo sits in warm subtropical waters brought north along the coast from Mexico to the islands. Toward the east, Santa Catalina Island supports many different fishes living in these warm waters. On a recent thesis sampling trip, frenzied fish behavior was observed. Similar to people gathering at a popular eatery, small orange cigar shaped fish called Senorita, and speckled kelp bass, schooled near disturbances created by divers. You may see the small grayish crab in the photo just underneath the fish’s mouth (see below). These fish would say that algae mats provide a home for many tasty invertebrates!
By Diane Wyse, Physical Oceanography Lab
In the spirit of sharing exciting new student research during Shark Week, we caught up with MLML and Pacific Shark Research Center graduate student Paul Clerkin. During the spring semester of his first year at MLML he took a two-month cruise aboard a commercial fishing vessel in the Indian Ocean for his thesis research. During that time, Paul collected sharks that came in as bycatch of the planned fishing activities – sharks that would otherwise have been thrown back overboard because they are not among the targeted species of commercial value. Clerkin explains that the sharks that he collected were all DOA, that very few survive under the weight of fifty tons of fish. As part of his bycatch-only collection practices, any sharks that were still alive when the fish and sharks were sorted were promptly sent back overboard to increase their chances of survival. Below are highlights from our interview with Paul on his latest fieldwork expedition.
Paul identifying sharks from a haul in the factory of the ship.
How long was the cruise?
I spent two months at sea, and then five weeks at Mauritius. During that time I processed and prepared samples to ship back to MLML. Overall I spent about 100 days out of the US. I remember because I had to get my visa renewed while I was there.
How many specimens did you bring back?
We brought in around 400 to the island, and around 350 made the trip back to MLML. It was just about a ton. On top of that I have hundreds of vertebrae and spines and around 800 tissue samples.
When you collected, was it usually a consistent number per day or catch, or did the numbers vary with time and location?
The catch amounts varied greatly, some mornings I’d wake up and have no sharks to work with, during which time I’d work on data processing, and other days I’d wake up and have 16+ hours of work sitting for me on the deck. Using bottom roller gear brought in many more sharks.
What will you do with the specimens? Are they all to be used on your thesis project, or are some saved for other projects?
The specimens will be used both for my thesis research and will be available for future research projects. We’re looking to get a lot of use out of the data. The list of possible projects and papers is pretty long.
Paul working on deck with a false catshark. Paul comments on the critter: “This species isn’t new but it is considered to be rare. I was extremely excited the first time we found one. As we caught more false catsharks over the trip I started to suspect these sharks are not as rare as previously thought. I think they just live in remote locations relatively unexplored by science. Although it is not a new species I gathered data and information on this shark that was previously unknown and will increase our understanding of this strange animal.”
Was this your longest cruise to date?
Yes, my longest cruise before this was out of AK for 90 days, but halfway through we came back to land for one day, then went back out again. After the first two weeks all the days blend together anyway.
Sunrise at Sunset Cliffs, San Diego
By Alex Neu, CSUMB/UROC research assistant
Like most kids growing up, I envisioned a scientist as someone sitting behind a microscope or pouring colorful liquids into a flask to make some kind of potion. During my internship I have seen a variety of work researchers do every day and that stereotype certainly does not do them justice. An average day might include sitting behind a computer doing a literature review, taking water samples in the lab, extracting enzymes from specimens and going to a meeting based entirely on statistical analyses. These tasks have all been incredible learning experiences, but recently I got a taste of my new favorite activity in research: going into the field.
We weren’t the only ones in need of a pick-me-up for a 6 am collection
Our first day of collecting crustose coralline algae (CCA) began promptly at 6 am at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. Since CCA are common in the intertidal pools at Sunset Cliffs, we had to be sure to collect on a lower low tide, and it just so happens that this week those low tides were much earlier than would have been preferred. Caffeinated beverages in hand, our small team trekked to the shore and discussed distinctive features of the species we were looking for. Many species of CCA look similar and multiple species can inhabit the same small cobble. We split up and waded through the low tide, searching beds of sea grass and small rock crevices for any stones with a distinctive layer of calcified red algae. After about an hour we had found enough samples to run our experiment and we headed back to the lab to take a closer look at the CCA.
The following day found us out in the brisk morning air of Sunset Cliffs once again, this time searching for an articulated species of coralline algae .We found ourselves once again searching the warm water of the seagrass beds to collect healthy samples with a delicate touch. As the sun rose over the cliffs we started on our way back to the lab with the treasures of the day to begin our experiment. Being a part of an experiment from the very beginning and knowing exactly where each of your samples comes from makes a project just a little more special and is something you can be a little more proud of when it’s run its course.
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