Week 8: Community Ecology Papers and Presentations

Monday: Kicking off another week with Bruce, but this week we get to sleep in past 5 am. We started off with a lecture on variations in marine communities in the morning. Then in the afternoon we wrapped up our predator feeding rates experiment. Unfortunately a couple of our Pisaster ochraceus started showing signs of wasting. So they were isolated until all the Pisaster could be replaced in the field. After that we broke into teams and started working on our presentations.

That evening we had our last guest lecture by Alissa Rickborn and got to learn about her work with sponges. After her presentation we got to see her lab setup. It was really cool to see everything from how they adjust pH to how her sponges are going to be held.

Tuesday: Busy day, from early in the morning until late at night everyone was working to try and process their data and create the slideshow that they would present on Wednesday. Our poor TA Barbara spent all day helping everyone with their data processing, but by the end of the day most everyone had it all sorted out. So after she went home after her very long day everyone else pressed on, getting everything prepared for the next day.

Wednesday: Presentation Day! Early in the morning you could find pretty much everyone back at the library, putting the final polish onto their slideshows and practicing for their speech later. After a quick lunch it was time for presentations. Everyone is now more comfortable giving presentations after all the practice we've had this semester. It was really neat to see how the various projects and experiments over the last week had gone. It was also crazy to learn that at one of the sites there were over 5,000 Nucella ostrina that were sampled for the Small Predator Abundance and Size surveys.

After presentations we had our last review session of the semester with Bruce. After which it was cram time for our last exam and preparing the written reports that were due the next evening.

Thursday: While some of the class was finished with their papers early and prepared for the exam, some of us woke up and got right back to typing. Ready or not though, it was exam time. As we all sat down for our exam you could once again almost feel the stress in the air, but once the exams were passed out you could feel everyone relax. We had this. After wrapping up our exams and getting our papers submitted it was once again time to get back to writing. But this time it was for our own projects. We got to write our project proposals for the projects that we are going to be working on for the next two weeks.

Friday: Project kick off day!!!!! With the return of Sally, Sarah, Su, and Rebecca along with Barbara who never left, it was time to kick of projects! After giving a run down of what was and wasn't allowed, and making sure that we would treat our animals as humanely as possible, we broke up and switched to small group interviews. Our teachers met with each project group to discuss what they would be working on for the next two weeks, along with offering advice on what they could do to improve their projects.

And that ended our crazy week, but tune in the next couple of weeks to hear more about our projects!!!

Not a lot of photos this week so have a Tardigrade!

Week 7 - Community Ecology

Monday, May 14th
We learned how to perform quadrat-transect transect surveys. We walked out to the small beach in front of Hatfield's Visitor Center to practice. We learned how to survey different algae and invertebrates within the quadrats.

After practice, we received a special lecture from our guest, Sarah Gravem. She presented on testing how communities can either be resistant or resilient after losing a major predator. Sarah gave very insightful information, and in fact, we would eventually end up working with her and her team later on in the week!

We then prepared for the rest of the week with some logistical things and lectures. We received another lecture from Silke Bachhuber about the concept and methods of her SPITFIRE experiment.

We had an evening lecture about seastar wasting disease and its impacts on the seastar Pisaster ochraceus.

Tuesday, May 15th
Early morning start! We hit the road at 5:30 am to get out on the rocky intertidal during low tide. The class was split into two groups, one went to Fogerty Creek and the other to Boiler Bay. We performed quadrat-transect surveys to gauge community ecology. We counted mussels, barnacles, limpets, snails, algae, and any other organisms that were within the quadrat. We also help install experiment materials. We drilled into the rock and screwed in cages, fences, and cleared marked plots. It was a lot of scraping of mussels, algae, and other invertebrates like anemones. A lot of mussel guts were acquired on our clothes (stinky!!). It was tough work, but definitely interesting experiencing an official research project first-hand.

50cm x 50 cm quadrat containing different mussel and barnacle species

Wednesday, May 16th
Another early morning at 5:30am. The groups traded locations from yesterday to finish any work incompleted from the previous group. We performed more transects (I'll tell you, counting limpets and small littorine snails is tedious and not the most fun thing to do sometimes, but it is amazing just how many live in the mussel bed in such a small area). Our TA, Barbara Spiecker, collected animals for our in-lab experiments. After the fieldwork was complete (or cut off by the rising tide), we headed back to campus and had a few more lectures. We finished the day with setting up our experiments in the lab.

Data sheet for community ecology

Thursday, May 17th

Once again, another day starting at dawn. This day, we traveled to new locations. One group went to Yachats Bay while the other went to Strawberry Hill. Just like the other days, we installed the experiment on the rocks. We performed more community ecology quadrat-transect surveys just like we did the other days. As you might be able to tell, this week was a lot of repetitive activities, but for good reason! Hands-on fieldwork and research is fun! We finished the day with more lectures and working on our lab projects, including data entry.

Installing a cage on the rock

Overview of a worksite of installing a cage

Friday, May 17th
We were blessed with waking up a half hour later today! Just like the other days, groups flip-flopped locations. More quadrat-transect surveys. After our work was finished, we were able to go out and tide pool for a few minutes, that was a nice break to relax and look at cool animals and organisms! We continued the data with more lectures, worked on our lab projects, and ended early (woo!).

Sarah Gravem, Erica, and Alex working
on scraping rock and installing cages and
marked plots

Beth working on installing a cage

 

Tidepool with A. xanthogrammic and
P. ochraceus

Close up of P. ochraceus

Even-closer close-up of P. ochraceus

This week was definitely trying and tiring, but nonetheless beneficial and enjoyable! As a class and as individuals, we got to experience first-hand what its like to work on a larger-scale research project and physically put the mechanisms in place to collect the data. We're looking forward to what next week has in store for us!

Week 6- Conservation and Policy

Monday

The BI450 class had a day of lectures preparing for the week ahead.
SARAH WE MISSED YOU.

Tuesday

We started our day off by walking down to the docks to meet with Laura Anderson, the owner
of Local Ocean restaurant in Newport. She gave us a tour, introducing us to the different
fishing vessels and equipment that each fishery uses. While on the docks, we got to even
hear some locals talk about their personal experiences. It was interesting to hear about
the fishery business firsthand from their perspective.

We made our way up to the Pacific Maritime and Heritage Center where Laura has an exhibit about the fishing industry, then we headed to her restaurant for lunch. What makes Local Ocean so special? They only buy from sustainable fisheries.

Making new friends at the dock with Laura Anderson.

             Lunch at Local Ocean. 

Wednesday

Wednesday was a treat for us BI450 kids because our whole day was spent outside. Our first
stop was the top of Cape Perpetua where we met up with Paul Engelmeyer, an advocate for
pretty much everything. He walked us through various conservation projects occurring around
the coast of Oregon. We then headed to Ten-Mile creek, a restoration project site, where we met
John from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He showed us one of ODFW’s fish traps
and how it works.They use the trap to count the amount of fish that pass through the creek.
He even showed us some of the fish he caught!

Paul Engelmeyer

John and the Fish trap.

Thursday

We had another day of lectures, but we were able to finish off our last lecture outside since
the weather was so nice. After some sunbathing, the rest of the day we worked on our
presentations and papers for the following day.

Friday

The BI450 kids ended the week off with presentations on different conservation techniques,
and solutions to ongoing problems.

Week 5 - From Trawling to Final

Monday
The week started off with plenty of excitement! At 8am half of the BI450 class departed on the Elakha to start our trawling study of Yaquina Bay (the remaining half followed suit at 10:30am). The captain, Jeff Lawrence, walked us through safety procedures before we all adorned our very stylish neon orange life jackets. The rain pelted us for a large portion of the time we spent on deck so this was welcome insulation.

Before lowering the beam trawl a CTD was allowed to gently drift to a depth just above the bottom of the bay to record salinity and temperature for a solid minute. Once we got the trawl in the water we slowly continued our route for 7 minutes before bringing the trawl back up to see what we found.

Our first trawl yielded more crabs and shrimp than we ever wanted to see! We sifted through the invertebrates and debris in search of fish species, English sole in particular.

Once we recorded their length and performed a count we threw them back into

 the estuary. Our second trawl yielded even more grass shrimp and tons 

of flatfish (that’s more like it!).

The purpose of these trawls was to determine whether salinity affected the amount and size of English sole recruits within the bay. Once back at Hatfield we were afforded a break after our fish specimens had been placed in their tanks while the other students performed their trawls. Lecture was all about the early life stages and recruitment of larval fishes to a region. We then collectively compiled our trawling data and created relevant graphs and tables for our reports before heading to lab to identify our new tank residents.

Tuesday
Tuesday was our second time going to Tokatee Klootchman State Park, this time to hunt sculpins. We split up into pairs and were let loose on the tidepools to compete for who could collect the most sculpins, the largest sculpin, and the prettiest sculpin, etc. Sculpins are only one of the types of fish that will inhabit tidepools, but they are definitely more easily found than the others. Among all of us we temporarily kidnapped over 100 sculpins.

One container of sculpins caught. Most sculpins found were of the black/brown and white barred variety seen in the upper left corner of the bin. Most of the sculpins we found seemed to be of the same species, based on their coloration. Large, almost chevron-shaped sections of brown or black alternating with white. We did find several small dark green sculpins, as well as another buffalo sculpin (Enophyrs bison '18). Two groups also found small larval snailfish, although we could not be sure of the species. One was found hiding in a large bed of kelp, and they look like pink tadpoles with white eyespots. After we awarded groups (and their nominated sculpin) candy prizes for who had the largest or prettiest sculpin (and the biggest haul), all but five or so sculpins were released back into the incoming tide. As an exciting throwback mention to the Invertebrates section, we found quite a number of red rock crab (Cancer productus '18). Under one tidepool overhang, we saw a red rock crab fighting off a very gravid Dungeness crab (Cancer magister '18). In the same pool, there were at least three more red rock crabs sheltered in nooks and crannies. Wednesday Wednesday, Dr. Moritz Schmid guest lectured for us about plankton. The videos captured be the Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System (ISIIS) were really incredible to see! We spent the rest of the day editing our trawl reports and sketching specimens in our notebooks prior to making our way to the pump house dock. Light and minnow traps were deployed off of the dock in the bay to see what kind of zooplankton we could find the following morning. Once it gets dark the light in the light traps turn on and attract fish. The fish swim into the funnel shaped holes of the trap and remain there until collection the following day. Thursday On Thursday morning, we recovered the two light traps and the two minnow traps that we had set out the evening before on the HMSC dock. One of the minnow traps was empty, but the other had caught a handful of larval fish as well as a large buffalo sculpin (Enophrys bison '18). The light traps had more success, and caught a large number of larval fish as well as many unexpectedly cute larval crab. One trap also pulled up a large polychaete worm, who was returned to the water after several pictures were taken.

The class, putting out the traps on Wednesday evening.

We took the collected larvae back to lab to sort. We were focused on counting the number of larval fish caught as well as the number of larval crab, who were in the megalopae stage. After dividing the collection into 16ths, we again split into pairs to look through the sample, count the megalopae crab and the larval fish, and try to identify what other plankton we had found. Plankton is not a word restricted just to small krill and mystery microscopic organisms, what we commonly think of when the word plankton is said. Plankton refers to essentially any organism that is incapable of significant movement in the water - they must depend on drifting with water movement to move. In the plankton ID guide that we were given in lab, the guide included larval fish, small crustaceans, shrimp, small cnidarians, chaetognaths, and cephalopods. Aside from our targeted larval fish and megalopae, we found a small baby squid, some chaetognaths, larval barnacle molts, and many decapods and crustaceans.

The large, unidentified polychaete found in one of the light traps

Friday

Friday was pretty quiet here. Everyone was holed up in their apartments or the library getting some last minute studying in before our afternoon exam. We were fairly confident about the exam with the exception of the 30 fish families we needed to know but such is life. Afterward we all worked to help clean up the lab space for our next section on conservation policy with Sarah Henkel. Specimens were released into the bay and tanks were washed and scrubbed. The rest of the day was spent with everyone starting to unwind and enjoy their weekend.