Week 8: The Final Countdown - Research Projects!

Week 8: The Final Countdown - Research Projects!

Monday 05/20

We are all feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed as we finally get to take all that we have learned
from this course and get going on our group projects. All nine of the groups got started on their
projects today, whether that meant going to the tide pools, mud flats, or setting up tanks in the lab.
Many groups are working with inverts for their projects which means the tanks are full of some pretty
crabby creatures. With teams testing different crab trap types, observing how Nucella feeds in the presence
of crabs, comparing which crabs live in which estuary habitats, and conducting crab competition
experiments there’s a lot of hope that we’ll get to feast on some crabs at the end of the week.
In addition to the crabs, we have tanks full of nudibranchs, anemones, pipefish, and mussels.
A feeding experiment is being conducted by Emily M., Charlotte, and Bri on the nudibranch
Hermissenda crassicornis and the anemone anthopleura elegantissima. Chelsey, Grace, and
Ashley have been working hard doing beach seines daily in order to collect enough pipefish to
observe their orientation in relation to eelgrass. An experiment on microplastics is being conducted
by Elise, Megan C., and Emily V. using Mytilus californianus and glitter. Renee, Alison, and Sarah K.
are using light bulbs, glow sticks, and no light to see what different organisms get drawn to their light traps.

A group dissecting mussels to study microplastics.

Tuesday 05/21

Students are putting in long hours at the lab making observations both in the tanks and through their
microscopes. Stephania, Laura, and Sarah H. have spent hours every day this week observing different
diatoms they have collected under their microscopes. It may only be day two of projects week but everyone
has put in so many hours of hard work that you can already see just how tired everyone is. Even though
everyone is tired you can still see the excitement on everyone's faces when you ask them how their
projects going and they get to tell you things are going well! During collection among the tide pools
for nudibranchs by Emily M., Charlotte, and Bri’s group, a very interesting nudibranch was found,
not yet seen or collected by our class. “It looks like a Pokemon”, said Charlotte. And indeed, this
cartoon-like gastropod was identified as Dirona albolineata. This species of nudibranch is mostly
translucent, and the color of its large cerata may vary from a white to a pinkish hue. D. albolineata
can even reach sizes up to 18 cm in length!

A group observing their collected diatoms under their microscopes!
D. alboineata, a nudibranch not previously collected by our class.

Wednesday 05/22

Another day of collecting data for projects! Every group is well on their way and chugging along as
we meet the halfway mark for working on projects. Chelsey, Grace, and Ashley’s group, which have
been monitoring their pipefish to observe their orientation in relation to eelgrass, have collected lots
of pipefish and have been spending many hours observing them in the lab. Some groups that are
sampling in the field are still heading out at their various intertidal locations of interest (some at
multiple times of the day). Allison, Renne, and Sarah’s group are examining phytoplankton, and
are often seen in the lab viewing their samples from the field in the laboratory. Many groups have
had meetings today with various instructors and TA’s to discuss how their projects are progressing
and to figure out what statistical tests may be best to run on their experiments. Additionally, people
are starting to think about the end of the term presentations and paper. Sources are being gathered,
and lots of ideas are getting bounced around!

A pipefish monitoring experiment underway.

A group getting ready to head out for project collections!

Even when it rains, there’s often a beautiful sunset at Hatfield that is arguably best viewed from the
estuary trail (just a minute’s walk from Hatfield itself). Whether you are a tired current student, a
future student thinking about taking the BI450 course, or are someone just visiting Newport,
don’t miss this trail on a beautiful evening.

Thursday 05/23

All downhill from here! Many of our groups are starting to see some patterns from their hard work
on the projects! Students are getting very excited as their ideas for their hypothesis are really
starting to mold. It was very common to come in at night and see some groups still working hard
on their data. One group was even counting crabs well past 10:00 pm on some nights! Charlie, Cori,
and Eric Cole are looking at crab counts in different parts of the Yaquina Bay. “We head out twice a
day around low tide to identify and measure the crabs in our 24 pitfall traps in the mudflats,” said Eric.
“It is somewhat tiring, especially at night, but then you stumble upon a big boy in the trap and everyone
gets excited.”

To conclude the week, we will be returning back to the classroom to spend the next week and tomorrow
discussing conservation and policy for our oceans. We will have a presentation and a little project the next
week to help us understand just the kind of process it is for conservation actions to be put into place.

Not even the sun can stop Charlie D. from collecting Hemigrapsus oregonensis from his pitfall traps

Friday 05/24

It’s halftime on the projects folks. Due to the tides this year we are putting our projects on pause for
a week. So for the next week and today, we will be reviewing articles and discussing different aspects
of conservation and policy. Today we talked about the state of our oceans in relation to the changing
climate. A large piece of today’s lecture was about the increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
Dr. Henkel discussed how our planet has reached over 410 parts per million of CO2 in all of April!
After a lengthy discussion on what is being done to address certain issues about the changing
climate and marine pollution, we shifted focus on marine reserves versus marine protected areas.
We learned that some marine species benefit from reserves while other species populations do better
in a protected area. We ended the long day with a talk about how Oregon chose its marine reserves
along the Pacific Coast and the lengthy, layered process that it takes to make these decisions.

This week has been long and fun for many of us. We are excited to have Dr. Henkel back as she steers
our class vessel into Week 9! We are looking forward to our three day weekend and honoring those who
gave the greatest sacrifice of all for our safety and freedom. To our Veterans, we say thank you and
never forget.

Eric Cole with a Carcinus maenas posing for its close up

Week 7 ALREADY?!

Monday 05/13: We switched gears this week from field-heavy work to more lecture/lab based work in order to prepare to write our community ecology data reports. We started our Monday off lecture heavy learning about dynamics of marine communities and diversity. Among these lectures we learned that living in an intermittent upwelling area, we get a higher diversity of organisms than other places with persistent upwelling or downwelling.This is because upwelling brings up cold, nutrient rich waters and not being persistent gives the organisms that live in these areas a chance to take advantage of this abundance of food. Too much upwelling and too much downwelling can lead to very low diversity, so it is lucky that we get to study here in the Pacific Northwest where organisms are abundant and diverse! To better prepare us for our writing assignment for this section, our TA Zech went over statistical analysis and figure preparation before we took our last data from our experiment in the lab. After a full day spent in the classroom, we gathered in the lab to take our final data on our predator rate experiment. We counted the amount of eaten prey (mussels) and measured them, measured each predator, and fed the snails, sea stars, and crabs one last time before terminating the experiment and taking the animals back to their habitats in the rocky intertidal. Our special lecture for the day on kelp bed dynamics was unfortunately cancelled so that our lecturer, Sarah Hamilton, could go out on a research dive and do what marine scientists do best! Today we took in a lot of information but our sore limbs thanked us for a break from the field. Now we have the tools to start writing our data reports and use the data we worked so hard to collect!

Last round of data collection for our predation experiment.

Tuesday 05/14:  Today was much appreciated by us students because it was an “independent study” day that our professors so generously scheduled in. We had today to prepare our papers and oral presentations that were due Wednesday and Thursday respectively.  Groups gathered, scattered throughout the library and in various apartments to start hatching out their ideas about the data we collected in the field last week. This wasn’t our first rodeo, however, since this was our third oral presentation and one of many writing assignments. We finalized our presentations and eagerly awaited everyone’s oral reports at 1:00 PM tomorrow.

Wednesday 05/15: Judgement day...the day we presented our research to the class. Although presentations were at 1:00pm, we all woke up early to prepare for the daunting task ahead. Some groups walked to the library to get in some last minute details on their powerpoints, and others practiced their speeches. We entered the classroom, and although we have already done three presentations in this class, those nerves still crept in. For the next two hours were listened to our classmates give compelling hypotheses and observations with some great data analysis. Some presentation topics included sea star reproduction output, mobile predator diversity, and analyzing predation rates. Finally, the nerves were gone and the presentations were over. We went back to our favorite study places and worked diligently on our reports that were due the next day. A few students decided to have a peer review session later that night, which was immensely helpful for revising our papers and making sure they were ready to be graded by our TA Zech. After the session, we snuck in a few hours of studying for our final, and with that, the day had come to a quick end.

 

Everyone did amazing on their presentations; their hard work paid off.

Thursday 05/16: The last day of community ecology was upon us, and these two weeks went by in the blink of an eye. We woke up early to study for our exam at 2:00pm, reviewing Bruce’s lecture slides and going over concepts we learned together. We ate a quick lunch and took our final walk to class as community ecology students. We had two hours to take the exam, and then the rest of the day was devoted to finishing up our reports that were due later that night. However, it was the seventh week of spring term, and we needed a bit of a break. A few students sent out invites for a potluck, and everyone brought a different dish to share. Among the smorgasbord of food was shepards pie, mac and cheese, spaghetti, sweet potato horderves, cookies, apple fritters, chips, cupcakes, and so much more food that we aren’t able to list it all. It was a great way to finish the subject and have some family time with our classmates. The night rolled to an end, the last of the reports were turned in, and we prepared for the projects section that would begin the next day.

Everyone getting ready to take the final!

A nice night with friends, eating too much food.

Friday 05/17: A brand new day and a brand new section! Today we finally started the long awaited independent project section. We started bright and early at 8:30 AM and listened to our instructor, Dr. Sarah Henkel, tell us about what to expect in the upcoming weeks. We received instructions on how to write our project proposals and then we were released to write them in our groups. Teams were scattered across the Hatfield campus working diligently on writing their project proposals which were due at 5 PM this afternoon. Groups also took turns meeting with our three instructors and two TAs for this course to talk about their projects are work out the kinks of their ideas. Once everyone was finally done with their proposals we could finally breathe a sigh of relief as the end of a busy week came to a close and excitement came for next week’s activities.

Week 6: Quadrats, SPITFIRE, and Turfies Oh My

Monday: We all headed out to our backyard, Yaquina Bay to learn how to properly use quadrats for the sake of science. With the field work prep out of the way we headed inside to learn about the state of sea star wasting disease (SSWD). We talked about how the sea stars themselves have been affected and how that has impacted their ecological communities. After that it was time for lab, where we learned more about the tasks we would be performing in the field. Including how to set up turfies, sample sea star gonads, and survey mobile predators amongst other things. With that said and done, we all strapped in to learn more about Oregon’s rocky intertidal communities and their structures. Then this great day was wrapped up by an extremely informative lecture by Silke Bachhuber, about her work and the SPITFIRE experiment which was about learning how small predators impact their communities.

Tuesday: We woke up to a wonderful weather and are first chance to put to use our new quadratting skills. The students split up into a handful of groups and headed to a multitude of gorgeous locales. Yachats Beach, Strawberry Hill, and Tokatee Klootchman were the sites we would be working at.  Work on the SPITFIRE project for Silke Bachhuber began, and multiple types of transect line surveys needed to be thoroughly examined with the use of our newly acquired quadrat prowess. Once our mission was complete we headed back to the classroom to learn about the intricacies of non-trophic interactions, and community structure. After that we took a short break to head to the lab where we would begin the experimental process. Some of the students brought back sea stars, mussels, and whelks. These proverbial “lab rats” would be monitored so we could better understand the predation rate of Mytilus by these other species. By feeding them a known amount each day and recording how much they ate we are able to infer there average consumption rate in the wild. After that it was right back to lecture with and exhilarating talk on how environmental stress impacts species interactions. Then to top the day off Barbara Spiecker gave us an incredible presentation on how algae are effect by el nino and how the past can be used to predict and prepare for the future. Suggesting that that the effects of global warming may mimic those of el nino years, and really show how global warming will impact our algal communities in the Pacific Northwest.

Fieldwork at Yachats Beach, with Elise demonstrating proper quadrat use 

Wednesday: Another day and another opportunity to develop our field work skills. Once again, the class split up into three groups and each group went to a different location then last time. At Strawberry Hill it was all about seastar collection, SPITFIRE, turfies, and belt transects. We worked with Silke Bachhuber along with a handful of the other lab technicians and all went smoothly. Upon our return it was lecture time. The students at Tokatee Klootchman were also able to collect a handful of Red rock crabs, which were then added to the assortment of other creatures including in the labs predation rate experiment. We learned about ocean acidification, hypoxia, and from there we learned about bottom up drivers of community structure. After our big lecture session we monitored our predation rate experiment in the lab then we had a short discussion on how to write a data report. Unfortunately, the guest lecture for the evening about coralline algae and how it is impacted by ocean acidification was cancelled.

Strawberry hill team overlooking the beach before hiking down to the worksite

Thursday: We split the class into two large teams today. One group went to Fogarty creek, and the other went to Boiler Bay. At Fogarty Creek with the wonderful guidance of Bruce Menge, we learned how to properly attach “turfies” to the rocks and further develop our observational skills by surveying transect lines with the use of quadrats. Continuing collect data on percent ground cover for the various sessile species present at both beaches, and counting the number of each species of mobile predator present. Once we returned from our outing we sat in for a lecture on complex interactions and community structure. From there the next step was to check in on our predation rate experiments, and our newly gathered crabs. Zech taught us a little more about data entry and gave us rules to follow as we would have to enter all of the data we had collected over the past week into a spreadsheet.. We then finished out the evening with a talk by our TA Zech about his thesis research on rocky intertidal species ability to recover from severe devastation. Zech explained that his experiment was trying to understand the rate at which species will return to a location from which they have been completely removed, like in the event of a large storm or tsunami.

Renee and Kieryian working on horizontal transects at Fogarty Creek

Friday: Blessed with another near windless and beautiful day on the coast, we broke into two teams and headed out to our respective field sites. Horizontal transects were in store, and by this point our estimation and quadrat expertise had hit an all time high. From limpets to mussels no rock was unaccounted for within our given quadrats. As the energy levels began to sink, two beautiful bald eagles soared overhead letting out some mighty calls to make their presence known and we paused to gawk in awe at their brilliance. With the last transects recorded it was time to return to reality, and travel back to the classroom. We learned about larval transport and how recruitment affects populations and their communities. With that out of the way we moved on to recording once again for our predation rate experiments, and finally rapped up the day with a lecture by Zech about statistics, when to use what graphs, and what they tell you.

"Majestic" eagles soaring over Boiler Bay 

Week 5: Fish, Fishes, and More Fish

Monday: We had lovely weather for our beam trawls out in the Yaquina Bay estuary. We went in three groups out on the R/V Elakha, which we learned means otter. We had a guest scientists, Dr. Lorenzo Cannelli, teach us to use beam trawls and deploy CTDs to take salinity, temperature, oxygen, and depth measurements. Our trawls were focused on catching, measuring, and counting juvenile English sole (Parophrys vetulus). We also found some gunnels, a showy snailfish, and tons of shrimp and juvenile crabs! We sampled upstream and downstream in the bay to see if there was a difference in density, mean size, and size range. The final cruise found the largest English sole of the day at 15.6 cm. After returning from the trawls and a lunch break we went to class and had a lecture on early life history and recruitment of fishes. Then we did our data analysis on the trawl data we gathered that morning.  

Kendal deploying the CTD with Dr. Lorenzo Ciannelli's guidance. 

Students measuring and counting English sole.

Tuesday: We spent the morning in lectures on age and growth; swimming, schooling and migration; and scientific writing to begin preparing for the trawl reports. After lunch, we got a chance to go out into the field again before the long night of writing ahead. We went to Tokatee Klootchman State Park and hunted fish among the tidepool. At the end of our hour of searching and catching fish, we held the award for the biggest, smallest, most unique, most colorful, and best Cabezon caught. We also had one of the highest catches from the tidepools in BI 450 history. Good Job Everyone! After returning from the field, when we were identifying the fish, we found that we had caught a ringtail snailfish (Liparis rutteri). What is interesting about finding the ringtail in Tokatee Klootchman was that in our guide books, they said that the most southern places it has been reported was southern Alaska. Which is cool for us, seeing it so far south in Oregon, meaning that they may be possible migrating down to more southern waters, and we may be seeing more of them. Another cool find was a silver Cabazon (Scorpaenichthys marmoratus), the silver color is due to the Cabazon just migrating from the open ocean to tidepools. It was a late night (and early morning for some) writing to prepare our trawl reports for peer revision Wednesday.

Searching for tidepool fish at Tokatee Klootchman State Park.

A collection of sculpins we found at Tokatee.

Wednesday: We began the day with lecture on the different way fish feed and food webs in the ocean. Then we had a break for donuts and coffee in the staff lounge. After that, we got a temporary break from fish and had a guest lecture about plankton ecology from Dr. Moritz Schmid. We learned about various tehnologies for collecting zooplankton; including the coupled multiple opening/closing net and environmental sensing system (MOCNESS) that Su helped design and how artificial intelligence is being used to conduct image analysis to obtain higher resolutions for plankton counts. After a break for lunch, we brought our trawl reports in and peer reviewed each others papers, providing edits and feedback to improve our final papers. We ended the day by learning how to prepare and deploy light traps out to catch zooplankton, which we deployed off the pumphouse docks in Yaquina Bay. Finally, we went home and made final adjustments and edits to our trawl reports based on our peers’ feedback and prepared for a busy Thursday.

Students after deploying the light traps. Students after retrieving the light traps.

Thursday: We retrieved our light traps first thing in the morning to see what caught. Before we got to identify the zooplankton and juvenile fish from the traps we had to turn in the trawl reports and we had our final lecture for the term! We learned about population ecology and fish conservation, a precursor to our Marine Policy section in a few weeks. Then we got to identify and enumerate the juvenile fishes and zooplankton our light traps caught. We learned to use a sieve to separate and count the large organisms(over 3.3 mm) and a stempel pipette to take 5 mL subsamples to count the small organisms(under 3.3 mm). After lunch, we split into groups and got to print fish with the help of guest artist Bruce Koike. It was a nice break and a creative outlet. With the trawl report turned in and the last lecture over, our attention turned to studying for Friday’s final and the end of the section.

The class showing off our fish prints!

Friday: Another week, another final. After a busy week full of fishes, papers, and field work we spent the morning studying and finishing notebooks to prepare for the end of the fishes section. In the afternoon we took our final, cleaned the lab, released our fishes back into the estuary and turned in our field and lab notebooks. We then headed for a relaxing weekend in between our next course, Community Ecology starting Monday.