The Drop-In Blog has moved!

I am thrilled to announce that after over a decade on this free WordPress site, The Drop-In Blog has moved to a new location on the MLML Student Life website!

This move will allow our blog to be better integrated with the main Moss Landing Marine Labs website and hopefully reach more folks than ever before. Best of all, the new site is totally ad-free! All 617 of our old blogposts have been migrated over to the new website and all future blogs will be posted there.

I want to thank all of our dedicated readers over the years and I hope you will join us at our beautiful new site. I have only been a part of The Drop-In team for the last year, but it has been quite the honor and I’m looking forward to this new era for the blog.

Cheers,

Lauren Cooley, Blog Editor

Marine science snapshots: Fieldwork, wildlife, and community at Moss Landing Marine Labs

By Lauren Cooley, MLML Vertebrate Ecology Lab

While working on the latest Moss Landing Marine Laboratories Annual Report, my friend and fellow MLML student employee Caroline Rodriguez collected a bunch of amazing photos from the Moss community. While she used many of the best shots in the final report (check it out here!), there simply wasn’t enough room for all of the great photos she had amassed. So Caroline reached out to me and asked if I was interested in compiling all these images into a post on The Drop-In blog. And as you can probably guess since you are reading that very post, I said yes!

After a year of mostly staring at screens and working from home, looking through these images of fieldwork, amazing animals, and beautiful scenery taken by my wonderful peers, professors, and colleagues over the last few years has been a great reminder of why I chose to come to MLML in the first place. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. So, without further ado, I present a glimpse into the highlights of life at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories as told by photos from the MLML community.

Marine snow & climate change

By Annie Bodel, MLML Plankton Ecology and Biogeochemistry Lab

Endings are Beginnings

In a forest when something dies–a leaf, a plant, an animal– it likely settles onto the ground where it begins a process of decay and integration into the layers of earth beneath. Unless it’s carried far away by a scavenger, it mostly stays local after it dies, becoming a part of soil nutrient and mineral cycles at most a meter deep.

Grad school: pandemic edition

By Lauren Cooley, MLML Vertebrate Ecology Lab

I think it’s safe to say that before the start of this year, no one could have possibly predicted the truly wild twists and turns of 2020- and the year isn’t even over yet! The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has radically altered the world and for most folks, life over the past 8 months has been pretty chaotic and stressful. I never imagined that on top of all the regular day-to-day stress of graduate school, I would also have to deal with a deadly pandemic, but here we are!

So what exactly has life as a grad student been like during these very strange Corona-times? Lots of people have asked me that question since March, and I typically respond some variation of stressful/overwhelming/profoundly boring/way too much time spent on Zoom. If they happen to catch me on a good day where I have made some big breakthrough with my thesis or had a super productive morning then I might even tell them it’s not so bad. In truth, grad school during a pandemic is a lot like grad school during a normal year: highs and lows. Except now I (almost) never leave my house. So, without further ado, I present a brief Buzzfeed-style look into my life as a Moss Landing Marine Labs (MLML) grad student during the Covid-19 pandemic.

How 4Ocean made recycling economically sustainable

By Kali Prescott, MLML Vertebrate Ecology Lab

An estimated 5.25 trillion tons of plastic are currently adrift in the ocean having extensive deleterious effects on wildlife (Erikson et al., 2014). 

Reduce, reuse, recycle has been the battle cry of environmentalists and ocean clean up organizations since the public first realized the severity of marine plastic pollution. For decades plastic producing companies have touted recycling as the solution to plastic pollution in the ocean while simultaneously shirking responsibility—claiming that recycling “is not economically viable”. Continuing to produce virgin plastic unfortunately remains cheaper than producing products from recycled materials even with technological developments.

As recently as September of this year, National Geographic reporter Laura Parker quoted the American Chemistry Council as stating that reducing virgin plastics is “highly counterproductive and impractical,” and was seconded by both ExxonMobil and Dow. Thus, private or government funded recycling plants are saddled with the costly process of sorting, washing, and repurposing plastic waste. None of this directly addresses the issue of plastic in the ocean or the waste washing on beaches worldwide.

Shifting Foundations

By Acy Wood, MLML Phycology Lab

When I was a child, I used to be mesmerized by seaweed swaying in the surf when I went tidepooling or kelp flowing back and forth in the currents at the aquarium. I loved finding underwater plants because it always meant that I was going to find some amazing animals, too. Whenever I went wading into a meadow of seagrass, I would place my feet cautiously to avoid the crab claws that could suddenly shoot up. If I brushed aside some sea lettuce near a cluster of rocks, a fish might quickly flutter away into a new hiding place. Aside from the plant properties that they all share, these seagrasses and algae also have something else in common: they served as foundation species for their communities.

Holly visits Cawthron!

Blog post from the MLML Environmental Biotechnology Lab

Credit: Marine Biosecurity Toolbox

Dr. Holly Bowers had an awesome experience as a visiting researcher at the Cawthron Institute in New Zealand in 2020! Although she has previously collaborated with some of their team, those relationships were expanded upon and new ones were formed during this visit. She worked closely with the Biosecurity Team to run two experiments testing different filter types and filtration times for efficient eDNA and eRNA capture, using the dinoflagellate Alexandrium as a model species. An eDNA/eRNA review paper with a biosecurity angle is in the works.

With the Safe New Zealand Seafood Programme she worked to expand geographic specificity testing for qPCR assays targeting four species within the toxin-producing genus Pseudo-nitzschia. A continuing collaboration with the team aims to characterize species diversity and toxin production of a subset of Pseudo-nitzschia species around New Zealand. She returns with an expanded knowledge base and heaps of ideas for future collaborations!

The case of the sea lion: stranding events linked to domoic acid outbreaks

By Sophie Bernstein, MLML Ichthyology Lab

When I moved to the Monterey Bay area for graduate school, I found myself most excited to be immersed in a new ecosystem. I couldn’t wait to learn about what the Monterey Bay was known for: the kelp forest. But I never considered the marine life I could see from shore until my scientific diving course, when we would spend several hours a day loading and unloading boats near Moss Landing Harbor. I felt like a little kid in an ice cream store, excited by all the resident sea lions perched on the dock and nearby boats! Needless to say, as an East-coaster, I was in awe. Meanwhile, the Californians who surrounded me did not look twice. Whereas I thought these sea lions were outrageously cute, and had never seen something like this in the wild, my peers simply rolled their eyes at the barking and obnoxious smell coming from the large animals.

Science is creative, creativity is science

By Hannah Bruzzio, MLML Ichthyology Lab

Growing up we often feel like we have to put ourselves in boxes. Being asked, “What’s your favorite subject?” and not being expected to have more than one. I liked science, knew I would be a scientist one day and never put much thought into what else I could be good at. I was always told I was a creative person, that I was a right-brained creative, but I liked science so that was what I was going to stick with.

Stereotypes exist on both sides to help recognize what a child might be good at throughout their schooling and maybe set them on a career path early in life. These ‘standard’ traits are often on opposite sides of the spectrum, with a right-brained, free-thinking creative sending you on a path to be an artist, and a left-brained, rigid, plan-oriented book worm on the other leading you to science. However, these basic human traits don’t hold up in either field in the real world and should never restrict someone to one path in life. Some of the most creative people I have met have been peers in the lab and some friends who are artists are some of the more methods-orientated people I know. There is no such thing as boxes, and it is the blending of these traits that can really make someone excel in their field.

What is a marine heat wave?

By Sierra Fullmer, MLML Vertebrate Ecology Lab

Do you know what a marine heat wave is? Imagine being outside in the peak heat of summer, walking in what feels like a sea of heat. Heat waves, during which temperatures are much hotter than normal, occur in the oceans as well as on land. An unusual warming of the ocean can have many cascading effects, not just for the organisms living in the water, but also those on land which rely upon the ocean’s resources. This was demonstrated in 2014, when the Alaskan ‘warm blob’ became a trending phrase, even outside of the scientific community. This unusual hot spot in the North Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Alaska reached a peak in 2016, ranking in the top five heat anomalies ever recorded. During this time, the top 100-300 meters of the ocean warmed up to two degrees Celsius, or three point six degrees Fahrenheit. That’s enough water to reach from one to three American football fields deep! It may not seem like that much of a difference but imagine how much energy is required just to heat a small pot of water. Now scale that up to the size of the Gulf of Alaska, and three football fields deep.