Marine Biology 450

Hello, Goodbye!

2011-06-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

Well after a whirlwind of introductions to new topics, new places, and new people, our time at Hatfield has come to a close and it is time to say goodbye. The sense of impending goodbyes would be ignored for most of the week though, because it was results week! And it was time to wow past and present marine biology instructors with our super awesome research projects!

After spending Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday frantically finishing our papers or doing that one last statistical analysis, or putting in that extra slide, Friday came and it was time to present our groundbreaking scientific research to the world!

Sally started the research symposium with a look back at the 30 years of Marine Biology 450. Melissa's mom graciously made a cake for the birthday celebration, and for that we thank her! It was delicious!

Alex Gulick, Kelsey McCoy, and Sarah Vojnovich (who managed not to fall down during her presentation-- just kidding Sarah! ), took a look at the Social behavior of the saddleback clownfish, Amphiprion polymnus, and found that they have preferred group sizes among other interesting behaviors.

Jessie Johnson, Vathani Logendran, and Cela Sibley tethered crabs and observed their mortality due to predation by marine birds.

Erin Bruce and Casey Pollock found that bay pipefish don't readily change their color, but found there may be habitat preference.

Cynthia Sells looked at the relationship between benthic biomass and dungeness crab landings. Her research didn't seem to suggest that there was a relationship, though it was very interesting.

Amanda Brunner, Lisa Neyman and Emily Pickering looked at predatory avoidance behaviors by a marine snail, Littorina sitkana, and found that clumping may be a response to predators in the near vicinity.

Steven Van Auken and Allan Chan found that stronger magnetic fields showed greater effects on degree of rotation and total distance traveled in giant pacific chitons, Cryptochiton stelleri.

Reed Norton worked in a NOAA laboratory under Dr. Tom Hurst, and found that acidifying oceans may have negative consequences for size at hatch of some walleye pollock larvae. However, some fish did not show any effects of the low pH waters.

Paul Dixson and Stephen Nelson found a possible link between the color of Pisaster ocraceus and mussel consumption.

Karl Biederbeck also looked at Pisaster and its diet, but found when starved, they move higher in the intertidal.

Wendel Raymond and Melissa Errend took advantage of some artificial tide pools at Boiler bay to determine the effects of a simulated extinction event on sculpin metapopulation dynamics. What they found was that sculpins will recolonize evacuated pools, significantly after 2 days from the removal.

And with that, the research symposium was drawn to a close, and our term at Hatfield was over. We'll miss the early mornings on the tide, and the late evenings in the library, but we'll always be thankful for the opportunity! Goodbye Hatfield!

2011-05-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

Marine Conservation Week
Monday 5/23

After a week of research we all buckled down and headed back to lecture. This week we learned all about conservation science and policy, starting with a lecture on the current state of the oceans, followed by one on the effects of climate change and how it affects the oceans. After listening to all the doom and gloom we had lunch, and plunged back into our lectures on emerging ocean uses. We covered ways the ocean can provide energy by harnessing the wind, waves and tides. Then, we learned about the importance of sustainable aquaculture. We ended the day by choosing parters and topics for our presentations at the end of the week.

Tuesday 5/24

The day began with a lecture on marine reserves and protected areas, and began discussing proposed marine reserves in Oregon. Then, we got to hear from Alix Laferriere and Melissa Murphey about their work on marine reserves for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. They covered not only the science behind setting up reserves, but the policy work behind setting it up. It is impressive the progress that has been made towards setting up marine reserves in Oregon. Especially since it involves the combined efforts of fishermen and scientists (who admittedly do not always get along), as well as numerous non-profit, and government agencies. After lunch we heard from Karen McLeod about her work with COMPASS, the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea, and the work they do connecting scientists and policy makers. After this we had a discussion on the importance of reaching out to the community and sharing scientific findings. I think this was a great discussion and many of us now understand that although it is important to be knowledgeable understand the scientific process, science really only helps society when scientists are able to explain what their research means and understand how it actually effects peoples lives.

Wednesday 5/24

Field Trip! Today we loaded up the vans and headed south to Cape Perpetua where Paul Englemeyer took us on a tour around Ten Mile Creek Sanctuary. He covered a range of topics including the proposed marine reserve, water quality and how it affects the environment, and seabird ranges and habitats. We headed to the top of the cape and made a pit stop to learn about research efforts in the creek, and take some awesome pictures! What a view from up there! Then we headed of to meet a fisheries technician who was sampling one of the fish traps. We got to play with some fish and some of us were even brave enough to let the lamprey suction its jaw-less mouth to our hands! At our final stop we learned about the habitat restoration work being done at the sanctuary, where trees had been brought in by helicopter in order to restore the creeks ecosystem. Paul explained to us that even though large trees live at the most 300 years, dead trees continue to play a role in the ecosystem and create habitat for various birds and mammals and fish as the go from standing, two slowly being knocked over, and rolled into streams and eventually washed out to sea by storms. Each stage of its path towards the ocean it plays a different role whether its rotting holes are nest for certain birds, or providing a resting place to block strong river currents in the winter that would otherwise flush little salmon into the ocean before they are ready. Truly fascinating!

Thursday 5/25

The day started out with rain as we listened to a lecture on fisheries, before taking a trip to the docks to hear from Laura Anderson and Charlie Branford from Local Ocean Seafoods about the fishing industry, from the ocean to the shop. Laura runs Local Ocean and takes pride in that it only serves fish from sustainable sources. They took us for a tour of the fishing docks, and we got to meet some hard-working fishermen and hear them talk about their jobs. It sounds like fishing is a rough business but most of them seem to love what they do. We then had a delicious lunch at Local Ocean before our final lecture on fisheries management tools. Once we made it back to HMSC most of us spent the rest of the day finishing our presentations for the next day.

Friday 5/26
Today we gave our presentations! Some of us were nervous, but luckily unlike next week’s presentations which is in front of an audience of family members and real scientists we only had to present to our classmates. The presentations were very interesting and diverse. We learned a lot from each other about things such as climate change, the shark fin trade, ocean medicines and noise pollution. It seems there is lot more to ocean conservancy than what one might have guessed. With such a complex set of problems it can sometimes be easy to feel pessimistic about the oceans futures. But in our presentations many of us also presented some wonderful ideas for how to manage these future and current issues. It is good to know that for many of us we are in field that yields us not only great opportunities to do what we love, but to also contribute to something greater than ourselves. Good work guys!

Vacation Week/Projects!!!!

2011-05-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

This week we finally began our research projects. There was a wide assortment of research topics chosen by each group. Several students woke up early to work in the field at low tide, including some mornings that started before 4:00am. It was difficult for a few groups to get started. Some groups had difficulty obtaining the materials required for their project. Other groups had trouble acquiring the specimens they needed. However, a few lucky groups were able to begin right away without any impediments.

Below is a list of all the groups and a brief overview of each project:

Sarah Vojnovich, Alex Gulick, and Kelsey McCoy, are studying the social interactions of the saddleback clownfish, Amphiprion polymnus. Their project examines the behavioral changes of a female when placed in a tank with different numbers of males.

Cynthia Sells is working with previously collected data sets estimating biomass of local infauna and benthic organisms. Biomass at each trophic level is important to know when creating food webs that depict the ecological interactions between organisms.

Karl Biederbeck is performing a behavioral study on the sea star, Pisaster ochraceus. Desiccation is an important factor that sets the upper limits of many intertidal species. Sea stars behaviorally avoid desiccation by staying in the low zone. Karl’s project focuses on whether or not sea stars will move higher in the intertidal if the only available food source is located in an area that is above the normal range of a sea star.

Stephen Nelson and Paul Dixson are also working with Pisaster ochraceus. Their project involves the juxtaposition of a lab experiment and an observational study. The lab experiment is a feeding trial examining prey preference patterns between the different color polymorphs of P. ochraceus. The observational study consists of performing field surveys to determine whether there is a difference in diet between the colors in the field.

Allan Chan and Steven Van Auken are working with their favorite invertebrate Cryptochiton stelleri, the gumboot chiton! Their research project consists of a lab experiment that involves six C. stelleri and a magnetic field produced by a Helmholtz Coil (borrowed from Jim Ketter of the OSU physics department). The lab experiment is to examine the effects of a magnetic field (Earth’s and an externally applied field) on C. stelleri’s movement because like most chitons, they have a radula that contains magnetite. Recording equipment was used in the experiment and was borrowed from Thomas Hurst in the NOAA department.

Casey Pollock and Erin Bruce are examining pipefish habitat preference, specifically if they change color to match the surroundings of their selected habitat. In order to collect the specimens needed they went seining to collect pipefish on multiple occasions. (The sein was borrowed from Wade Smith of the Department of Fish and Wildlife).

Amanda Brunner, Emily Pickering, and Lisa Neyman are working with the snail, Littorina sitkana. It has a trait-mediated response to an alarm signal given off by the mutilated flesh of killed individuals of the same species rather than the actual presence of the predator. They are testing to see if they will respond to the flesh of other dead species: another Littorina species, Lottia persona (a limpet), and Mytilus calfornianus, the California mussel.

Melissa Errend and Wendel Raymond are studying the effects of a simulated sculpin extinction among metapopulations. They removed all sculpin from several artificially created tidepools, made from a previous study, and are observing what fishes colonize those tidepools.

Vathani Logendran, Cela Sibley, and Jessie Johnson are working with juvenile Dungeness crabs, Cancer magister. Their project involves tethering juvenile crabs in both high and low areas of the mud flats and observing the predation rates.

Reed Norton is working with walleye Pollock and determining the effects of ocean acidification on size at hatching. Climate change is affecting the pH of the oceans' waters. This has numerous ecological ramifications. The impacts of changing pH levels are being studied by several organizations. Reed is working in conjunction with NOAA.

It was a pretty relaxing week or a very busy week, depending on the intensity of each groups’ project. Some groups finished data collection by Sunday but a few projects are still ongoing. Overall it was a fun week working in our areas of interest. We played volleyball almost every day and even had a barbeque on Thursday, which was delicious!

Excel, Minitab, Powerpoint, and... VOLLEYBALL!

2011-05-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Monday 5/9
While some of us decided to sleep in, most of the class rolled out of bed to meet their group at the library by 9:00am to begin working on our data reports. As we opened our folders filled with data, many of us were "a bit" overwhelmed with the formatting, entry, and all around insane amount of data we had to work with. An hour into plugging numbers, we made our way to the lecture room to listen to our Laura give her talk, Structure and Dynamics: Communities to Meta-Ecosystems.

Laura, prepping for lecture

In this lecture we learned about some of the different models that help describe community and ecosystem structure, such as the Menge-Sutherland environmental stress model and the meta-ecosystem model.

Back to the lecture room!

The rest of the day was filled with data entry and analysis, broken up with a special guest lecture by Jeremy Rose, titled Ecological impacts of ocean acidification. Jeremy's lecture gave us all a detailed insight to ocean acidification, specifically how it affects the Pacific Northwest.

Tuesday 5/10
With the deadline quickly approaching, everyone began cracking down on their projects. After a bit of planning and outlining in the morning, we had our final community ecology lecture from Laura, Species Diversity and Stability in Marine Communities.

Reed and Stephen, playing close attention to lecture...

Some of the highlights of this lecture were when we learned about the different spatial scales on which diversity is acted upon, such as local and regional. Examples of factors that influence diversity locally are species interactions and nutrient availability. Regional diversity is considered more of a reflection of the species available, compared to their interactions.

Almost done with lecture!

Despite the daunting amounts of Excel files full of data to still be analyzed, the majority of us decided to take over the volleyball court before the "outsiders-with-PhDs-who-insisted-on-building-a-fence-to-keep-the-pokies-out-of-their-feet" invaded our turf.

The fence

After about two hours of "music that robots would listen to" and total domination in our "homeslice," we were practically "prosauce." To wrap up the relaxation time for the day, a large group marched over to Rogue Brewery, decked out in their Hawaiian attire, in search of free beer. Feeling good, we all reconvened back in the library conference room to listen to none other than our New Zealander neighbor, Leigh Tait. He discussed his PhD work, Light competition and algal productivity. Leigh's talk focused on the benefits of increased biodiversity, including greater ecosystem production and stability. His research consisted of the synergistic response between canopy and sub-canopy plots of inter tidal algal species in New Zealand. He explained how light delivery is a complex process, and its use in productivity dynamics are different in complex assemblages. We finished off the night with a last-minute meeting for our projects, and hit the sack anticipating our presentations tomorrow.

Wednesday 5/11
After spending hours in the library staring at graph after graph of intertidal data, all our work had finally come together. We kicked off the morning with two presentations describing the community structure and site-level biodiversity at Boiler Bay and Strawberry Hill.

Wendel, Lisa, and Jessie presenting their data

Then came our typical break for coffee and donuts in the staff lounge, only this time it was even more eventful. Today was Casey's 21st birthday, and who better to share a birthday with than Dr. George Boehlert, the director of HMSC (marking his 21 + a few years birthday)! A birthday song was sung by all, and before long it was time to return to the lecture room to finish off the last two presentations.

Coedine anyone?

After listening to the final groups discuss tide pool diversity and predator diets, it was time to eat. While Casey took her usual nap for the day, Sarah and Stephen joined forced in the tiny kitchen of Winton to begin the secret birthday preparation. After hours and hours (okay maybe just a little over an hour) of slaving over a beautiful cake and chocolate cookies, the goodies were taken to the lecture hall to set up. Thanks to Erin's sneaky distraction, all went as planned. Casey was both surprised and delighted to walk into the community ecology review session, only to be greeted with sweets and birthday song.

High on sugar, we made it through the review and were let loose for independent study. This consisted of another adventure to Rogue, where the group met yet another surprise, Casey's mom! We shared a few drinks and munchies while Casey opened gifts. The group wrapped up the night with a beautiful walk back to the HMSC campus and a night full of community ecology review.
Note: As co-author of this section, I, Casey Pollock, would like to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone at Hatfield for making my birthday an absolute blast. I couldn't have asked for a better group to spend it with. You guys are awesome!

Thursday 5/12
Another beautiful day in Newport, right on time for our community ecology final. Just like every other test day, the sun and blue sky came out to tease us. Despite the distractions, we powered through the study day and finished any final touches on our organization. It was a relief for most to find out that the test was open-note. Once we were all done ace-ing the exam, we celebrated with a few hours of volleyball in the sunshine. It was great to see the entire class come together to play, and the additional "beverage of choice" on the rotational break made it worth the wait.

Our wonderful Professor, Laura, and TA, Dafne!

When dinner time rolled around, we all indulged in our homemade pizzas, thanks to Stephen and his crust making magic. Our picnic took place in the covered seating area, where we were joined by Laura and Dafne. To conclude the night, some of the group ventured down the street to Hoovers for an end-of-the-section/Casey's 21er celebration.

Details omitted.

Friday 5/13
Friday morning meetings at 9am... ouch. Dragging our feet, we met in the lecture room for the last time this week, greeted by Sally (she's back!) and Sarah Henkel. We discussed the syllabus for the remaining weeks and eventually broke off for individual consultations. Once the meetings were out, it was a race against the clock to get our proposals written by 5pm. When the deadline rolled around, our emails were sent, full of literature search results and research outlines. The rest of the week was ours to start on our projects (or not) and get some well deserved rest. Congrats to everyone for getting through another section of the program. Whether you like it or not, there's only three weeks left to go. Let's make the best of it, and maybe try to get some work done here and there.

Cheers!

Good Morning Intertidal!

2011-05-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

Monday 5/2

After a restful weekend we started the community ecology section. We met our new professor Laura Petes and teaching assistant Dafne Eerkes-Medrano. Bruce Menge and some of his lab techs came by for a visit too. The next two weeks look really exciting! We are going to spend a lot of time in the field collecting data. We are going to have to put what we learned in the invertebrate, fish and algae sections to the test so that we can collect accurate data. The class has been divided into two person field teams that will collect specific data during our upcoming field trips. We will then analyze the data, and next week, present our findings.

Today we had two lectures. The first was a general overview of marine ecology with a review of data that we may encounter over the next two weeks. Second, Dafne gave a lecture on her PhD thesis work. She has been studying the effects hypoxia on the larval stage of many invertebrates. Tomorrow we head out to Boiler Bay at 6am for our first day of data collection!

Tuesday 5/3

Steven sleepily counts snails

Today began with an early trip to Boiler Bay. With coffee and tea in hand, students set out at 6am in groups of two to three to either measure species abundance using Transect-Quadrats, or measure feeding and predation by two common Rocky Intertidal whelk species, Nucella ostrina and Nucella canaliculata. After four hours of thorough surveying, measurements, and observations students headed back to Hatfield to clean up and have lunch before the first lecture of the day. This lecture covered the spatial, species, size, and trophic structure and biodiversity of marine life communities in different parts of the world. After the lecture, field groups met in the library for raw data entry and analysis into excel spread sheets. The day finished off with a very interesting lecture by Sarah Close about her graduate work studying nutrient uptake, availability, and limitation in marine environments.

Wednesday 5/4

Lisa and Vathani discuss their data while Jesse looks on

We had another early start today. Instead of Boiler Bay we headed south to Strawberry Hill. We continued to collect transect-quadrat, belt transect, tidepool diversity data and feeding surveys of whelks and Pisaster ochraceaus. The weather cooperated which made the data collection much more enjoyable. When we returned to HMSC we had a lecture on how the environment effects species interactions. The lectures and field trips of this section have gotten a lot of students thinking about their research projects for later in the term. Some students began collecting species such as Cryptochiton stelleri, Pisaster ochraceaus, and others to use in their research. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing data entry, but some of us found time for volleyball.

Thursday 5/5

Happy cinco de mayo! We got to sleep in a little later today but we headed back out to the field to collect biodiversity and mobile predator data at Boiler Bay. The field teams broke into two groups. One went to Boiler Bay proper (where we have been going all term) and the other went to different part of Boiler Bay called Manipulation Bay. Manipulation Bay got its name from being a research site for many OSU students over the years. Some students even witnessed seagulls feeding on the arms of a giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dolfeni) on the rocks! The weather turned a little nasty but it was not nearly as bad as earlier in the term.

Our afternoon lecture was on complex community interactions and community structure. One of the major topics was trophic cascades. Trophic cascades are a central part of ecology. First, a trophic level is defined as the place in the food chain that an organism occupies. A trophic cascade is the phenomenon by which top predators control the abundance of their prey and therefore indirectly affect the population sizes of lower trophic levels. Picture this example food chain. Killer whales eat sea otters which eat sea urchins which eat kelp. When killer whale populations are high they directly control the population of sea otters. The low population size of otters trickles down the food chain allowing for high urchin populations and low kelp abundance.

A group of students surveying biodiversity at Strawberry Hill

Friday 5/6

Last early morning! We set out to Strawberry Hill again but this time to collect biodiversity and mobile predator data. While it has been a very long week it was sad that it would be our last class field trip to the rocky intertidal. The biodiversity surveys were completed in 10 minute increments for a total of 120 minutes of surveying. We did surveys at low, mid, and high tidal zones in both wave exposed and wave protected areas of the site.

Our afternoon lecture was short, which allowed for students to catch up on sleep, readings and data entry. Next week we will be analyzing the data we collected this week. We will present our findings to our classmates on Wednesday night.

It has been a long week for Reed

Bring it on Algae!

2011-05-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

MONDAY - 4/25

After an enjoyable Easter weekend filled with delicious food, friends and family, we prepared ourselves for a week of labs and lectures about algae. Monday began with the second lecture on brown algae where we learned about the morphologies of a variety of species including sacs, tubes, cylinders, crusts, and blades. Included in the lecture was a special life cycle where the species had two adult forms that were identical genetically but differed in morphologies. Following lecture, we found ourselves in lab practicing our microscope skills and discerning the difference between species based on macroscopic and microscopic differences. We used this information for our species profiles. After our process, we repeated the process with some red algaes. Did you know that red algaes are eaten by many cultures on every continent on our world? They are even used in a variety of cosmetics! After breaking for supper, some of us gathered in the lab for a review on green, brown, and simple red algae. Annette walked around to different tanks reciting the scientific names of the various taxa.

TUESDAY - 4/26

Our day started with part two of the red algae lectures. For this day, Annette taught us about the morphology and life history of red algaes. She helped us review some of the aspects of algae anatomy that tripped us up during our lab sessions including how to determine if the algae are multiaxial or uniaxial. That night found us beginning to work on our group projects. This project had the class divided into nine groups with each group assigned a particular algae morphology. For example, there were the coralline algaes, small brown algaes, and finely branched red axes. Each group was responsible for identify all their specimens and creating informational cards for four to six of their species to teach the rest of the class. This also involved creating Powerpoint slide cards that showed how to differentiate between two similar looking taxa.

WEDNESDAY - 4/27

Wednesday began with coffee and donuts at 10 AM, just like every morning should start! The majority of the day was committed to completing our group projects and preparing for our presentations that evening. Walking into the lab at 7 pm, we were greeted by treats provided by Annette and nine stations of slides and specimens. Annette explained to us that one of each group would remain at each station while the rest were allowed to roam, and then we switched after one hour. She and Margot each graded half of the room. Each person at the individual stations explained their own taxa to other students roaming around and asking questions. We all came to realize that the project led us to memorize the various species we had learned about in lecture and lab.

THURSDAY - 4/28

Thursday brought our final lecture. This lecture, however, brought a more personal point of view to the topic of algae because it covered Annette’s graduate work. The focus of this lecture was mainly on the effects of desiccation and herbivory of limpets on Mazzaella parksii, a common intertidal algae. It was explained to us that desiccation increases with elevation and herbivory decreases with elevation. The results showed that tetrasporophytes were more susceptible to desiccation, whereas gametophyte blades could grow in desiccation as they could hold more water, therefore outlasting the desiccation. Limpets were the focus of Annette’s herbivory studies. After many experiments, she found that the limpets preferred gametophytes over tetrasporophytes, thus increasing the relative abundance of the tetrasporophytes. In conclusion, tetrasporophytes were found more at lower elevations and near wave-exposed regions, thus being more susceptible to desiccation. Gametophytes, however, were found at higher elevations in protected areas, and therefore were preferred by limpets for grazing. The rest of day consisted of reviewing and studying for the exams that were to come the following day.

FRIDAY - 4/29

The end of the algae section was now upon us. The section had been long but our knowledge about algae was so great that it had seeped into our dreams! At 10 AM, we had our lab practical which consisted of twenty stations of various algae specimens. At each station, we answered questions about the scientific names, morphologies, and life histories of the specimens provided. Following the completion of our lab practical, we had a two hour break to eat lunch and cram as much last-minute information before the lecture final. After the completion of the lecture final, the sun greeted us for some games of volleyball and basketball, and Margot and Annette joined us!

Week 4: End of Fish and Beginning of Algae

2011-04-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

Monday, April 18th, 2011

After working on the Marine Fishes section material Sunday, we continued to work hard all day to make sure we finished our assignments. With bloodshot eyes we stared at our lectures, notes, species profiles and research papers in hopes of doing well on the upcoming exam, but the stress did not wear us down. With the passion only a marine biologist could possess, we pressed on in pursuit of what we love. One thing that made it harder than usual to study is the unusually gorgeous weather we had Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The weather doesn’t always seem to cooperate when we are out in the field, but it was at its best right before our tests for both the invertebrate and fish section. Even with the sun calling us out to play, we studied all night long in preparation for our test.

Tuesday April 19th, 2011

The test has arrived! We started our day with our lab practicum. We were tested on the basic anatomy of Marine Fishes, identification of specific local species, and our abilities to correctly use a dichotomous key. After our lunch break we took our lecture based exam. We were tested on the Marine Fishes lecture material, the purpose of fish in our oceans, and their life histories through evolution. After cleaning up the lab, we enjoyed the sun the rest of the day. Of course this meant we played volleyball with Wade Smith and Margot Hessing-Lewis in the beautiful sun!

A group of the students and Wade playing volleyball after our test

Wednesday April 20th, 2011

Algae week; it’s here!!!!! After sleeping in and catching up on the much needed rest we headed to afternoon lecture to learn about algae evolution and life histories. Annette Olson and Margot Hessing-Lewis are our instructors for the Marine Algae section of the class. We also spent time in the lab looking at the specimens Annette had collected during the week. Looking the array of algae in the tanks, we came to realize that classifying algae was going to be harder than we thought. Algae are very diverse and they are hard to identify to the species level without looking at them on a cellular level. We then knew this section would require intensive work that required microscopes, time, and lots of dedication. After getting into groups for our algae project, some of the groups met with Annette to get a better picture of what we could look for on our field trip out to Boiler Bay tomorrow. We sorted specific algae into our designated tank areas and went home to prepare for our early field trip.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Melissa, Annette, Karol, Alex, and Jessie (Left to right)

At 7:30am with coffee in hand, we left for Boiler Bay. Five minutes later everyone’s passed out for the drive to the site, but as soon as we arrived at Boiler Bay the sun greeted us with a nice view where we could see algae covered benches that seemed to go forever. Coming here many times before with other purposes in mind we all never gave a second thought about algae but with Annette’s knowledge fresh in our minds we were ready to see what we had learned the day before. We examined the algae with our “heads down and bottoms up” as Annette would say for our specific group algae. We were guided through the slippery algae beds as Annette pointed out various species. She told us about their morphologies and various environments and conditions each type of algae lived under. After collecting all the species we needed and hearing Annette blow her sea kelp horn, we headed back to put our samples in the lab. We continued our day with a lecture and spent time in the lab identifying specific green algaes (Chlorophyta) using microscopes and dichotomous keys. After lab we went home to sleep and prepare for our next day.

Friday April 22, 2011

Our morning started with our first trip to Seal Rock. We have been to the other sites more than once, so we were all excited to visit a new site. After our leisurely hike down to the water, we began our search for more algae to add diversity to our collection. We spent most of our time practicing saying the names of the algae as Annette pointed them out. Who knew learning a new language (Latin) was going to be a dominant part of our curriculum. We did take a couple breaks to have fun-- Hatfield style. Alan and Steven jumped in a big tide pool. People with cameras took pictures with the small tidepool waterfalls and we walked along the shoreline with the small waves crashing at our feet. Once we got back to Hatfield, we put our collected algae species in our tanks and a short lunch break to fuel up. We finished our day with a lecture on the brown algae (Phylum: Phaeophyceae). We had an early afternoon dismissal to enjoy our Easter weekend.

Seal Rock

Week Three: Fish Week

2011-04-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

Steven and Wendel ready to dissect a rockfish

Monday April 11th: Today started our 2nd course of the term: fish. We met our teacher Wade Smith and his TA Margot Hessing-Lewis. The highlight of the day was going to the lab to partner up and dissect different species of thawed-out fish. Each team was responsible for identifying their fish using a dichotomous key, describing distinct external characteristics, and some major internal organs. Some of the more exciting species dissected were the ocean sunfish, Mola mola and the horn shark, Heterodontus francisci. The second part of the lab exercise consisted of breaking into groups and each creating a unique dichotomous key for a set of preserved species that were all fairly similar. Each group was responsible for thoroughly examining each specimen in their set, and being able to distinguish why one was a separate species than the next.

Tuesday April 12th: We went out to two locations today to start collecting fish! Our first location was the by the pumphouse in Yaquina Bay, and the second was the estuary flats of Yaquina Bay. Two large seine nets (a long and shorter trawling net with wooden poles attached on either end) were used to trawl small portions of the Bay in order to collect fish. A total of 10 trawls were completed between the two sites, with the students wading chest deep in the water and dragging the net landward once both sides were parallel to shore. All of the fish caught were counted in the field, and while most were released back to the bay, a few representatives were taken back to the lab for further identification.

Paul and Wade pulling the seine net to shore

Wednesday April 13th: The morning portion of the day consisted of going to the lab to each individually dissect a preserved fish to locate and extract a pair of otoliths. These are tiny, calcareous plates located near the brain that are used by scientists to estimate the fish's daily and annual age and growth patterns. We also were given microscope slides containing sample otoliths that we examined to practice counting the band patterns and estimate age. In the afternoon, the group headed back to Boiler Bay, this time to collect fish from the tide pools and channels. Low tide occured around 3:00 pm with sunny skies. 25 fish were collected, most of which were various sculpin species. Some of the other fish collected were Apodichthys flavidus (the penpoint gunnel), Gobiesox maeandricus (the northern clingfish), and Hexagrammos lagocephalus (the rock greenling).

Thursday April 14th: Earlier in the week, students were assigned some scientific research papers to read that covered an array of topics, such as adaptations to living in an estuary and some personal adaptations of Porichthys notatus (plainfin midshipman). Today, the students were divided into two discussion groups, where we critiqued and reflected on these papers.
Although the weather was unfavorable, a trip to Strawberry Hill took place in the afternoon with strong winds and heavy rainfall. We were collecting fish using a variety of sizes of nets in the tide pools. 34 sculpins were captured, as well as 2 more penpoint gunnels.

Friday April 15th: Jose R. Marin Jarrin came to class to give a guest presentation about salmon on the Pacific Coast, and his research related to them. He has been monitoring salmon abundance in the surf zones along the Oregon coast to see if these habitats play a significant role in their life history. Salmon are born in freshwater streams and rivers, and will migrate to estuaries in their juvenile stage, which is a mixture of fresh and salt water. This classifies them as anadromous, which refers to fish that are born in fresh water, migrate to the ocean, and then return to freshwater to spawn, die, and pass on ocean-derived nutrients for their offspring. After, we had our final fish lectures for the course, and had the afternoon off to catch up on lab work and various assignments.

Elakha

Saturday April 16th: Yes, Saturday class! This was the only day available to use the Elakha aluminum research boat for some fish trawling within Yaquina Bay. The boat's name Elakha is the Native American word for "sea otter", and has been in Newport since August 2000. The students were divided into two groups, half of which went on the boat in the morning, while the other half went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium to complete a lab exercise. Students on the boat assisted in deploying the fishing net and also pulling it back on board to examine the catch. The boat had a large metal A-frame powered by hydraulics that was lowered in order for the trawl net to deploy completely. Three trawls were completed by each of the groups, catching a large assortment of fish as well as some invertebrates. Some interesting species caught were Platichthys stellatus (the starry flounder), Ophiodon elongatus (juvenile lingcod), Liparis cyclopus (ribbon snailfish), and Pholis ornata (saddleback gunnel).

Allan, Wade and Jessie lowering the net

Week Two: Invertebrates Continued

2011-04-11T01:11:00.000-07:00

Sylvia Yamada

Monday April 4th-

The week began with two guest speakers Sylvia Yamada and John Chapman. Sylvia took us out to check crab traps that had been set out the day before. We identified the species of crab we caught and tallied how many of each we found. In the deeper traps we found Cancer productus (Red Rock Crab) and Cancer magister (Dungeness Crab) and in the shallower traps we found two species of shore crab; Hemigrapsus oregonensis (Green Shore Crab) and Hemigrapsus nudus (Purple Shore Crab). One way to differentiate between these two species of shore crab is to remember that Hemigrapsus oregonensis is hairy and like Sylvia reminded us, “Oregon girls don’t shave their legs!”

Sylvia’s lecture focused on the introduction of the invasive European Green Crab, Carcinus maenus, which we learned was introduced to the San Francisco Bay in 1989, or at least that's when it was discovered. It was later brought Northward by the El Nino event in 1997-1998, which resulted in unsually warm water temperatures, unusally strong poleward currents, and downwelling, all of which contributed to creating the extremely large year class of 1998. We learned that the strength of the each year’s recruits dependes heavily on ocean conditions, because as larvae, Carcinus maenus is pelagic and at the mercy of the ocean’s currents and temperature.

John Chapman

Our second guest speaker was John Chapman, an expert and researcher on a parasite of the of Upogebia pugettensis (Blue Mud Shrimp). Orthione griffenis is a parasitic isopod newly introduced to the Pacific North West that attaches to the gills of Upogebia pugettensis and feeds on its blood. Upogebia pugettensis is capable of living with this parasite, but it has been found that mud shrimp with the parasite were an average of 7.8% lower weight than similar sized individuals without the parasite. After prolonged parasitism, Upogebia pugettensis is unable to reproduce as most of its energy and nutrients are being diverted

to the lump on the side of its carapace.

Tuesday, April 5th-

The following day we had the opportunity to go find our own mud shrimp at Sally’s Bench in the mudflats at Yaquina Bay. Nothing like a morning spent sinking, swimming, sloshing, and trudging through the mud! It was quite the sight to see everyone crawling on thier hands and knees through the stuff and we had a lot of fun. We found two species of mud shrimp, including the Upogebia pugettensis (Blue Mud Shrimp) and Neotrypaea californiensis (Bay Ghost Shrimp). We found the parasitic isopod, in addition to a small clam attached to Upogebia pugettensis. We also collected an interesting scale worm and other creepy crawly critters.

Wednesday, April 6th-

In addition to our last three lectures on Wednesday, Tom, the sea water system maintenance guy, was nice enough to give us a tour of the sea water system that keeps Hatfield up and running. Maintaining the sea water system is a constant job and is more difficult than one might think. For example, marine fouling is a huge problem in the pipes, so every so often they send a “pig” through, which is a large object that shoots through the pipes, taking any marine organisms with it, and out the other side. It can shoot out of the pipes with a lot of force, and has been known to achieve long hang-times before finally landing on the beach. Remember, if you’re walking on the estuary trail, always be alert.

That evening was the 6th Annual Marine Invertebrate Presentation and Dessert Extravaganza! We all gave presentations on our favorite invertebrates in creative ways. There were a lot of laughs, and some of the highlights included: Pin-the-Parts-on-the-Nudibranch, a talk show featuring a crab with a (strangely) southern accent, a horseshoe crab piñata, an octopus rap, a sea nettle sales pitch, and an edible, chocolatey sea cucumber. There was even a guest appearance from David Attenborough! All around, it was a night of great educational entertainment.

Thursday, April 7th-
Thursday was devoted to preparing for our final exam. We started it off with extremely helpful review sessions for our invertebrate final and lab practical (thank you Sally and Allie!). The rest of the day was ours to study, and study we did!

Friday, April 8th-
It was time to put our knowledge to the test and determine how much information we had absorbed over the last two weeks. After finishing our final and lab practical, we cleaned out the lab and decided which invertebrate pets to keep. Most people took off to Corvallis and beyond for a rare weekend free of homework!

Week One: Intro to Invertebrates

2011-04-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

The group at Cascade Head

Sunday, Mar 27th - Students arrived to a rainy, wind driven Newport to unpack and get settled in before class the next day. One thought on all our minds….is the weather going to be like this ALL term? Rain or shine we’re here all for the same reason: our love for the ocean.

Students in the lab

Monday, Mar 28th - Bright and early, we make our way to our first class at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. For once, we get to study what we came to college for…marine biology! For the first two weeks we are going to be immersed in invertebrates with Dr. Sally Hacker who has taught this class for six years and this year she brings Allison Barner to be our TA for this section. On this first day Itchung Cheung the HMSC administrator launched a comprehensive introduction to HMSC introducing key staff on site that we need to know. We trekked out to the docks at Hatfield and toured the research vessels Elakha (50’) and the Wecoma (185’). The Elakha is used in local ocean research by staff from OSU and other agencies like the EPA and Sea Grant, which are also part of Hatfield. The Wecoma travels the Pacific and can hold up to 18 scientists.

Boiler Bay

Tuesday, Mar 29th – Today we covered the geophysical history of the Oregon coast and its unique features. Due to the heavy rainfall and 35 mph winds, we switch our schedule hike to Cascade Head to Friday and instead set up the lab for our soon to be thriving collection of invertebrates. After lunch we traveled to Port Dock 5 – one of the two major commercial docks on the north side of the bay – to collect our first invertebrate specimens. Our findings included barnacles, isopods, but most exciting of all, a giant sunflower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides – see invertebrate species list).
We concluded the busy day with a review of Komar’s book, The Pacific Northwest Coast, introductions, and lots and lots of pie.

Alan with the giant Pacific chiton

Wednesday, Mar 30th – Sponges (Porifera) was the phylum of focus for today’s lecture. Afterwards, we were off to Boiler Bay, north of Newport about 20 miles for a rainy afternoon of collecting tidal and intertidal invertebrates to add to our lab collection. One of the many cool findings included a giant Pacific chiton (Cryptochiton stelleri) found by Alan, several purple urchins (Stronglylocentrotus purpuratus), various anemones and other invertebrates.

Thursday, Mar 31 – We begin in the classroom again with a lecture covering phylum Cnidaria and Ctenophora (includes anemones, corals, and jellies) and then go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium to see all of them in action. Students focused on the invertebrate exhibits, exploring various species that would not be gathered on field trips.

Sea nettle - Chrysaora fuscescens

We continue our day with a field trip to Strawberry Hill (large tide pool area amonst three major basalt benches) for more invertebrate collection. The weather has improved, and we bring back even more specimens to add to the tanks – including the opalescent nudibranch (Hermissenda crassicornis).

Friday, Apr 1 – We concluded our hard work with a hike up to Cascade Head. The rain had finally stopped leaving us walking through fog. The first summit was reached, but the fog prevented us seeing the incredible view of the Pacific coastline. In efforts to keep warm, the second summit was conquered with still no yielding from the fog. By the time we turned back and reached the first summit, the fog began to clear giving us a spectacular view of the coast. From Monday’s reading of our coast’s natural history, we were able to see two of the dominant geological formations of the northwest coast: estuaries and rocky intertidal coasts. Like many Oregon headlands, Cascade head is at the tip of a 300 mile long Columbia River basalt lava flow that erupted in Idaho over 15 million years ago. A hard, rocky headland and the Salmon River Estuary is what we see today after subsequent uplifting of the coast range. Cascade Head is now a preserve implemented by the Nature Conservancy in aim to protect and provide essential habitat for native prairie grasses, wildflowers and the Oregon silverspot butterfly. We returned to HMSC tired, sore, and ready for the weekend. Cheers to a great first week!

Get Ready!

2011-03-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

We hope you are all excited for the impending start of Marine Biology 450 2011 edition, right after Spring Break! We definitely are.
Mud, rain and inverts, here we come!
See you all soon,
Sally and Allie

Results: The Final week

2010-06-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

The data have been taken, the numbers have been crunched, the papers have been written and rewritten, the presentations have been arranged, and now we are finally ready to present our project results in the 2010 BI450 student research symposium!

Samantha, Jack, and Aaron got to go diving for a week (for science!) and found that the black rockfish distribution along the South Jetty is complex – size is an important factor but there’s a lot more going on too.

Alyssa, Brittney, and Cameron found that the six-armed sea star comes out on the rocks at night and hides during the day, but their lab study showed that when it comes to eating, they don’t care what time it is!

Melissa found that as pH goes down, so do copepod hatch rates. Another reason why ocean acidification is REALLY BAD NEWS.

After a week of climbing around on rocks all over Cape Perpetua and Cape Foulweather, Sarah and Jennie found that local factors have the greatest effect on tidepool variability but that increased depth didn’t lead to the greater diversity they expected.

The Danielles discovered that although it is really hard to wade through deep estuary mud, it is doubly so if you stay out too long and the tide catches you! After washing the mud off, they also found something unexpected: Orthione griffenis parasitizes more female than male mud shrimp.

Caleb had a lot of cool results with his crab experiments, including that male Hemigrapsus shore crabs accumulate detritus in a patch of setae on their claws, and that this can feed them through a starvation period.

Shea found that to remove Pisaster from rocks without damaging them, the quicker you can do it the better! Also, a great way to transport them is in plastic baggies with water, because they don’t grip the plastic too hard and are easy to remove intact.

Matt looked at feeding differences in urchins with sunflower stars around, and though he did see that urchins eat less if there is a lurking Pycnopodia, he would need a lot more time and a bunch more tanks to demonstrate a significant result.

Wyatt and Kelsi went fishing and found that if you are a perch and want to have the largest, strongest babies, you should specialize in eating caprellid shrimp instead of gammarus. Yummy!

Emily and Shea developed mad algae-surgeon skills to remove the outer cuticle from Mazzaella blades, and found that unlike in terrestrial plants, that cuticle doesn’t help protect the algae from dessication.

Alex and Bekah’s experiment showed that octopus seem just as happy to find crabs by sight as by taste, as long as they get lots of crabs to eat! Also, that they have really good aim when spraying water out of their tanks to drench any nearby researchers. Those little suckers can really leave a mark!

After many hours of standing in traffic on the Alsea bridge staring at seals, Becca found that the temperature of the ocean water was an important factor in how many seals come up onto the sand bar for a snooze.

Finally, Kim looked at coloration of Pisaster sea stars related to the pigment levels of their mussel prey, and although the mussel colors have really vibrant differences, it wasn’t clear how or if that affected sea star color.

So here we are at the end. No more lab work, field work, data analysis, presentations, cold early mornings, exams, papers…. school is officially out! We’re happy to be finished, but equally we know we’re all a little sad to leave. No more bonfires, walks on the beach, fishing trips, Thai food, Gary the ground squirrel, Roxy the hummingbird, and more importantly… no more time together :-( We’ve had an epic 10 weeks, learned and partied in equal measure but always as friends. We all have the amazing people who work at HMSC to thank for the experience, and it almost goes without saying that we’ll remember this 10 weeks as one of the best of our college lives. Au revoir Hatfield, you will be missed!!

Projects!

2010-05-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

Projects began this week and students quickly showed great diversity in their selected topics. From the Danielles’ mapping of mud shrimp beds, to Shea’s experiment investigating the metabolic cost of podia loss in Pisaster, tank space in the lab rapidly became a precious commodity. After complaining of early starts in previous weeks, some groups now experienced 4 a.m. tides, with no instructor to blame for bleary eyes and copious quantities of coffee. Working on our own schedules allowed for frequent forays to and from the lab, at all times of night and day, with Caleb tending to his crabs every six hours.

Spearfishing moved from a hobby to an integral part of the research for some studies, and fish cook-outs became the order of the day. Biggest catch has to go to Wyatt for his massive lingcod, speared off the South jetty while looking for perch for his joint project with Kelsi. Sam, Aaron and Jack spent most of the week in their wetsuits also, as they surveyed populations of black rockfish.

Cameron, Alyssa and Brittany had some difficult moments running from waves at Boiler Bay while attempting to collect Leptasterias for their project, with Alyssa taking a plunge into the big blue.

Behavioural studies are well represented this year; with Becca looking at seal haul out patterns, Bekah and Alex observing octopus feeding habits and Matt looking at trait-mediated effects of Pycnopodia upon Strongylocentrotus.

Perhaps not as obvious as it seems, Shay and Emily considered the importance of the algal cuticle in desiccation rates between three Mazzaella species.

Jennie and Sarah were becoming well-travelled, as they notched up the miles between six study sites, comparing tidepool community structures along the coast. Kim spent hours in the field getting to know Pisaster, while looking at the relationship between feeding habits and varying color densities. Melissa, on the other hand, almost vanished from the social scene, becoming a lab rat and spending days with her microscope, searching for copepods to see the effects of ocean acidification. So, it's all go on the data collection, drawing everything together for our final week and bringing us ever closer to the end of BI450.

Community Ecology (continued)

2010-05-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Monday, May 17th began with group preparation and data analysis from the previous week of data collection at Boiler Bay and Strawberry Hill. Our class was divided into four groups; a group of eight students were responsible for community structure data collected from the transect-quadrats and belt-transects, a group of four students were assigned to analyze invertebrate and algae tide pool diversity, another group of four students analyzed predatory whelk and sea star diets, and the final group of six students compared biodiversity at Boiler Bay and Strawberry Hill. After group preparation we had a lecture on the structure and dynamics of communities becoming meta-ecosystems. The lecture described a meta-ecosystem has "a set of ecosystems connected by spatial flows of energy, materials and organisms across ecosystem boundaries." Group presentation preparation was continued after lecture. During the evening we had a guest lecture from a marine biology graduate student at Oregon State University named Sarah Close. Sarah discussed her graduate work and research on nutrient dynamics and macrophyte (algae :) assemblage structure along the Oregon coast and New Zealand.
Tuesday had a similar schedule with group presentation preparation in the morning followed by the last lecture of the section on the diversity and stability of marine communities. When lecture was finished we had the rest of the day to finish the group presentations.
Wednesday began with group presentations in the morning in the conference room of the library. Each group created a Powerpoint presentation which included questions about their topics, hypotheses to predict the answers to the questions, graphs displaying the data, results, interpretations of the results and finals conclusions. After presentations we had another guest lecture, Alison Iles who discussed her graduate work and research on body size and dynamics of the intertidal food webs. Since our community ecology final was the following day we had independent study time after Alison's lecture.
Thursday was the day of our last BIO 450 final! After the final we enjoyed relaxation in the sunshine and counted the months until the next time we would have to take a test.
Friday marked the beginning of our independent research section. Individuals or groups were assigned times to meet with Bruce Menge, Sally Hacker, Sarah Henkel, and Dafne Eerkes-Merdrano about project ideas. Once the projects were approved groups had until 5:00pm to submit the research project proposal. The proposal included the motives behind the projects, hypotheses, background information, project methods of data collection, a time line, and the importance of the research project. The last two weeks of the term will include independent data collected, writing the research paper, and a final symposium of the projects.

Community Ecology Begins

2010-05-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

After a three day weekend, the class of Marine Biology 450 went full-speed into a rigorous routine of early mornings, late nights, and lots of learning. We started our week with an introduction to community ecology with our new instructor, Bruce Menge. We learned about community patterns, community structure and dynamics, and attended a guest lecture on from our TA, Dafne regarding her thesis.

After Tuesday night we prepared for a series of 5:30, 6:00, and 6:30 field trips that tested our dedication to the field of marine biology. Our field trip on Wednesday was to Boiler Bay, where most of the class collected transect-quadrat data. The rest of the students collected data regarding whelk diet, tide pool diversity, and belt transects. After our field trip we returned to HMSC for a invigorating round of lectures on biotic interactions and community structure.

Thursday came as early as Wednesday, and we found ourselves at Strawberry Hill doing a more exciting and diverse set of data collections. Some of the class continued belt-transect and quadrat data collection, while others examined sea star and whelk diets or tidepool diversity. Thursday was a gorgeous day for data collection, and our early-morning field trip rewarded us with viewings of an orca and passing grey whales. After our field trip, we returned for an afternoon of lecture. In the evening, we attended a guest lecture by Jeremy Rose, a PhD candidate at OSU. Jeremy spoke to us regarding the ecological impacts of ocean acidification. Despite our long (15 hour!) day, we enjoyed this new perspective on an important ecological issue.

Friday morning awarded us with one extra hour of sleep (6:30!) and we headed out to Boiler Bay again to commence biodiversity surveys. Half of the class collected data on invertebrates and the other half searched for unique algae species. This set of data collection allowed us to comprehensively use all of the knowledge we have learned throughout the semester, and many of us were surprised as to how much we have remembered! The afternoon brought more information on complex interactions and community structure.

Since we were lucky enough to have Monday off, we more than made up for it by beginning our Saturday at 6:45 with a field trip to continue biodiversity surveys at Strawberry Hill. Despite our professor's noted absence from a back injury, the excitement continued with the sighting of a nearby newborn harbor seal pup. The class switched roles in looking for algae and invertebrates, and therefore were able to further test their ID skills of Oregon's rocky intertidal organisms. Due to Bruce's injury, Dafne led us in a discussion regarding larval dispersal and transport in the afternoon. We all looked forward to having Sunday off, and many of us slept in, went to the beach, and went out to dinner to make the most of our one-day weekend!

Monday would once again find us continuing community ecology, albeit without the early risings!

Conservation and Policy

2010-05-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

After Algae ended, we entered the realm of conservation and policy. We learned about the state of the oceans, which for many of us cast a shadow on the beautiful weather we were having (as abrupt as some of the weather changes were, we did not have hail or sideways rain). We became immersed in the developing ideas that are currently being put into action in order to help protect and repair the damage that has been done to our oceans. In addition to this we also learned about new, more ecologically friendly ways that are currently being debated for producing energy through utilizing wave power.

On Wednesday we had a long, gorgeous hike to learn about the Ten-Mile Creek Restoration Project. Everybody with a camera had gorgeous pictures of the forest. We were given passionately delivered and highly detailed information over the course of the hiking. Everyone we encountered was able to shed light on the state of the creek, the fish using it, and the connectivity that is present between our terrestrial environment, the river/streams, and our ocean.

We had our long-expected meeting with the owner of Local Ocean Seafoods. She gave us a tour of the docks and provided an astonishing amount of information about local fisheries, each of the boats docked, and how her views of commercial fishing have changed over the years. She then took us back to Local Ocean where we had an amazing lunch. Along the way back from the docks, we were greeted and briefly accompanied by a very friendly dog.

On Friday, we presented on current policies that were in effect for many of different areas of marine conservation topics, including but not limited to labeling, hypoxia, fisheries, and aquaculture. The presentations flowed smoothly, especially when the chocolate was brought out. Two groups provided brownies to the class, in order that we appreciate being the top of the food chain (which with brownies close to lunch time, I’m sure we all were).
With the three day weekend following, a lot of people went home, fished, attempted to crab, engaged in sword fighting in the sand pit, and in various other ways relaxed. With this three day weekend behind us, hopefully we are ready to tackle the final stretch of class before our final projects. Onward and forward we go- welcome to Community Ecology!

The sun sets on algae!

2010-05-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

After two days of algae last week, we jumped into a full, and final week of algae after a very relaxing weekend. Students were frantically working to complete their species identifications on time, and we were beginning to think of the impending final that lay before us at the end of the week. Lecture and lab carried on as usually, but this week was a little different because we went on another field trip, displayed and discussed projects on algal groups, and finally had our finals on Friday to finish the section that is... Algae.

On Friday of last week, after our lecture on algal systematic, we met at the lab at 2pm for our trip to seal rock. Once each seaweed team had equipped themselves with scrappers, clipboards, Zip-lock bags and buckets of various sorts, we divided into two groups, one for each van, and were off. Twenty minutes later we had passed the local fudge shops and were wondering just what went into an “Evil Brownie”, when we arrived at our destination. We got out of the vans and made our way to the viewpoint where our instructor, Annette, pointed out the various features of the landscape. As we made our way down the slope, we noticed the spectacular waves crashing against the rocks in the distance. This caused many of our group to stop and take pictures.

Students gather as Annette describes the various species at different elevations.

While there, we noted many varieties of seaweed from the three phyla. Red, or Rhodophyta, was most prominent as we neared the tide pools. There we saw Mazzaella splendens, M. parksii, multiple coralline species, Mastocarpus species, as well as a variety of kelps and green algae.

Various Algae in a large tide pool at Seal Rock

Then on Wednesday morning we embarked on our second field trip to Boiler Bay. It was a dark and stormy morning when we met Annette at the lab at 6am for our trip to Boiler Bay. At this point in the section we had collected many samples already, so our mission this time around was to collect species we did not have or to collect specimens to replace the ones dying in our lab. The drive up was interesting. As we went farther north, we encountered heavy rain mixed with hail and began questioning the sanity of our instructor when, all of a sudden, the weather cleared up. We came to the public view point where Annette and our TA, Orissa, got out to talk strategy. We soon learned two things: 1) one of the benches was no longer available due to increased sea levels, and 2) we had not quite arrived at low tide as expected, so we couldn’t go as far out as planned.

Once down there, we split up into our groups and searched for new specimens. Every once in a while, Annette would summon us with her whistle to look at an interesting specimen or feature we couldn’t see in lab. It was nice to see our knowledge of invertebrates was still with us, as many of our number either sought out or happened across many different species. After a few hours it soon started to rain (harder), so it was time then to leave. When we got back to the lab, it was discovered that a Pacific Rock Crab, Cancer antennarius, had hitch-hiked its way back with us in Caleb’s sweatshirt pocket.

Wednesday afternoon finally rolled around and we all needed to present our projects that night at 7:00 pm, the only problem was that none of us were done! The good news is that after a brief lecture in the morning Annette let us have the rest of the day to prepare. The groups consisted of 2-3 students, and each group was responsible for a lab-like presentation of a specific group of algae. The groups were dominated by red algae, which seems to be the most common in these here parts, and the groups were as follows; green algae, small brown algae, coralline red algae, filamentous red algae, finely branched red axes, coarsely branched red axes, coarsely branched red blades, thin red blades, and finally the thick red blades... phew, that's a mouth full of algae!

Melissa, Shay, and Em showing off their Filamentous Reds

Once each group was organized and ready for a lot of research, they set about creating notecards for the species of algae that belonged to their group. The notecards were used in lab, along with fresh specimens from our previous field trips, to help explain to the other students the general information on those species, what to look for in the field and lab when identifying them, and of course similar taxa to look out for. Along with the thoroughly descriptive notecards, each group was also in charge of keying out two tricky taxa in their group that are both similar in looks and morphology, and explaining the minute differences between the two. Before 7:00pm the groups set up their stations to look like a normal lab, complete with pictures, descriptions, specimens, dissecting scopes, and even cross sections of the species in their group (we got awesome pictures seen below), and when everything was finally ready to go at 7:00, the fun filled algae fest began! Annette and Orissa provided the snacks and the students provided the entertainment, and between the excellent descriptions and first hand experience, all the students went away with a lot more than they came in with. The night provided a great experience for us all to get intimately acquainted with the diversity of of algal species along the Oregon Coast, and we all felt a little more prepared for the lab final that was scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Cross section of Acrosiphonia coalita hooks at 40x magnification.

By far, week 5 was the most demanding and stressful week yet...Half the class came down with a cold, sleep was a rarity (and commonly accompanied by nightmares of algal ID sheets), and to top it off, the weather took a slight turn for the worst. However, Annette's energy, enthusiasm, and poetry helped us through the gloomy week. Of course, getting a few hours of extra sleep due to a cancelled field trip always helps too. Caleb found a small pacific rock crab that hitchhiked back to the lab in his coat pocket, we became masters of keying out algae, learned about the various life cycles, and even got an ecology lecture on how summer neap tides and limpet grazing effect algal zonation.

(Note: not a Rock Crab, this is a very red Kelp Crab)

It was a lecture on a field study that Annette herself did and it was very interesting as it showed the natural history of the area by showing us how different climates can have differing affects on the local diversity. Because the summer tides are often so calm, even the high tides don't splash essential water to the higher growing algae, and in short, they die, which sends the limpets to lower zones to find food. Yes, it was an action-packed week of algae to say the least. And congratulations to Orissa Moulton on completing her masters program, and good luck with whatever the future may hold!! We had a great time with you as a T.A., and we know everyone here at HMSC will miss you greatly.

Swimming into Algae

2010-04-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

FISH! week came to an end Tuesday of week 4. Frazzled students studied HARD on Monday night. Studying continued into the wee hours of Tuesday morning. The studying paid off because we, brilliant and competent students of marine bio 450, conquered the FISH! final. Hook, line and sinker!

Many of us celebrated by taking part in Hawaiian shirt Tuesday at the Rogue Breweries. The evening carried on with friendly games and an epic dance party. PRIME TIME style! We were all extremely thankful for having Wednesday off for a mental health day. Many students relaxed by fishing and painting.

After the mental health day, students started the week off by being late to the first algae lecture, just call us all Jack. (Except Shea, Sarah, and Jennie who paid attention to the updated schedule. ) Despite this minor setback, we all charged on with our heads held high throughout our lab, and learned how to identify Chlorophyta.

Sunshine returned Friday to highlight our field trip to Seal Rock.This was an amazing hands on experience that complemented our morning lectures and lab time that focused on Chlorophyta and Ochrophyta. We saw a plethora of red, green and brown algae in a multitude of tidal zones. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend before we penetrate deeper into the algae!

FISH!

2010-04-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

FISH! Well week three is here and gone now and we learned more then we ever wanted to know about FISH!, including how to fillet, fry, and eat them. We started off the week with some great lectures and some disappointing news about not having the proper vertebrate permits in order to collect FISH! Local Ocean, a local seafood shop and cafe graciously donated some blue and black rock fish (Sebastes mystinus and S. melanops) and English sole (Parophrys vetulus) for us to dissect. We learned how to remove the otoliths from just below the brain and saved them for a later lab. That night Itchung Cheung brought us a wonderful spread of pizza, soda, salad and ice cream sandwiches for desert! We got to meet the director of HMSC, George Boehlert, who reveled us with tales of his travels.

Tuesday we did some catch and release beach seining right out front of the visitors center. We caught a few juvenile English sole, various sculpin (Family: Cottidae), Eulachon (Thalichthys pacificus), pipefish (Syngnathus leptorhynchus), Juvenile Chum Salmon (Oncorhynchus keta). In the afternoon we examined the otoliths we had removed Monday.

Wednesday a brave few ventured down to Seal Rock to return the inverts from the previous week and collect rare delicious scones. After that the day was sprinkled with interesting lectures about FISH! habitat and ontogenetic shifts. That evening a different set of brave few ventured out to Boiler Bay to examine tide pool FISH! on their own, they were mostly disappointed in their find of nothing but various sculpin, but they did find a cool cave...

Thursday morning we had a very interesting lecture on Dr. Heppel's research on the Nassau Grouper (Epinephelus striatus). His research involved some interesting stuff on their aggregation spawning. They used satellite tags to track currents from the aggregation spot to figure out what happens to the eggs and larvae after fertilization. It turns out the FISH! know exactly which day to spawn after the full moon so that the planktonic larvae head south in a curly cue pattern and then loop back around to return to Little Cayman Island. That afternoon we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium and took a look at numerous FISH!. Our assignment was to find our randomly assigned FISH! by picture alone and write down a few things about it in our notebook.

Friday was the day we were all waiting for! Behold the Elakha, Oregon State University's 54 foot coastal research vessel. We were randomly assigned (like a good lab experiment should be) to two groups. We did a single bottom trawl and only brought up a few FISH! and numerous shrimp. We caught and released a few Shiner Perch (Cymatogaster aggregata), and a couple of American Shad (Alosa sapidissima).

(Group 1 returning on left, and group 2 waiting on the dock below. Both pictures were taken at the exact same time almost causing a rift in the space time continuum.)

That evening our gracious instructor, Dr. Scott Heppel, gave us 4 Black Rockfish he had caught and we fried them up along with some other great food.

2 down, 8 to go

2010-04-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

So, week two is over, and we sadly say goodbye to Sally, Margot, and the invertebrates. We did have some good times this week though. Monday we heard an interesting lecture from Sylvia Yamada about Carcinus maenas, the invasive European Green Crab. These sneaky creatures moved in after being introduced in San Francisco in the early '80s. The strong El Nino of '97/'98 gave the larvae a warm current to ride up to our part of town, and here they have managed to hang on, despite the fact that they require very specific ocean temperatures for the larvae to survive. After the lecture we went out to explore the crab traps Margot had set the night before, and lo and behold, some crabs were found. We even found two green crabs! We let most of them go but we did keep a Dungeness (Cancer magister) and a Red Rock (Cancer productus) for our lab.

Tuesday was lots of fun as we finally got to go on our Cascade Head trip. This 300 mile long basalt lava flow was formed when a volcano erupted near idaho around 15 million years ago. It was a good thing we waited for the trip instead of going last Tuesday. The weather cooperated for once and it turned out to be a beautiful day (relatively speaking. :-P)
We all hiked up, getting our boots and pants muddy, but it was worth it. Some elk even decided to grace us with their presence on the next hill. A few people were brave enough (or foolhardy enough) to climb all the way to the top on a much steeper trail, and when they returned we took the customary picture before heading back down the trail. All in all, a good day.

Wednesday was the annual Marine Invertebrate Presentation and Dessert Extravaganza! But we don't actually know which number it is :) . Everybody had great presentations and there were tons of creative ideas. We got to see an octopus eat a crab, watched some crab racing, ate many delicious creatures (made of pastry items, of course), got little sea pens, were eviscerated on by a sea cucumber, got taught by a visiting crab, saw the dreaded Vampire Squid from Hell, learned about the medicinal properties of a new phylum, and played a game of jeopardy. It was both entertaining and informative.

Alas, the end has arrived. Thursday we had two study sessions, one for each exam, and Friday is the day of reckoning. Good luck to everybody. We shall all do fabulously. Bring on the invertebrates!

Next stop the fishes!

Spring 2010 Week 1!!!

2010-04-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

Our term started with a tour of the science center on Monday, introducing new students to the in's and out's of Hatfield. Tuesday's schedule included a trip to Cascade Head, but poor weather turned our field trip into a journey to the Newport dock's instead. On the docks we searched for invertebrates living near the surface and under discrete hiding spots and came upon a sea nettle. This was our first excursion, and all students had a chance to learn more about the town we now live in. The day ended with pie and discussion about our dream jobs.

Wednesday we went up to Boiler Bay, a site 20 minutes north of Newport. Here we happily collected tidal organisms in teams and brought them back to the lab for further investigation. We collected a wide variety of invertebrates including sea stars, nudibranchs, peanut worms, crabs, anemones, and urchins.

Thursday we ventured out to Strawberry Hill at Cape Perpetua. This unique ecosystem is habitat for a multitude of mussels. Since Strawberry Hill has a shallow shelf heading out to open ocean, upwelling events create trapped water and an area in which phytoplankton thrive. Since abundance in phytoplankton reduces visibility and light availability, algae have less opportunity to colonize. Because algae are mussel's greatest competition in tidal zones, this lack of algae results in an over abundance of mussels. The day ended with a guest lecture by John Chapman about biological invasions.

The week ended with a field trip planned to the mud flats in Yaquina Bay. Only a small group decided to brave the near hurricane conditions to go out and collect mud shrimp. The rest of the day was dedicated to lecture and laboratory work. Our first week went by quickly, and after a much needed couple days off, week 2 will surely be an exciting challenge.

Its that time of year again!

2010-03-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

Marine Biology 450 is about to gear up for action again.

The first week of class is just around the corner, after Spring Break.

We look forward to a fun term, and especially to the first section of the course - Inverts!

Updates from the field shortly,

Sally and Margot

Blog Week 10

2009-06-05T02:09:00.000-07:00

As we are all putting the final finishing touches on our projects and polishing up those presentations, I hope that we can all take a minute and reflect on this past term. Writing this blog has forced Nathan and I to travel back, (only ten weeks ago!) to when we first started this grand adventure. Here’s a few of our favorite moments from the past term:

1) Mudfights at Sally’s Bend. I’m not sure if it was a “fight” or a general free-for-all-get-everybody-as-muddy-as-you-can-fiasco. That was ten weeks ago and I don’t remember but either way, it was fun as hell.
2) Midnight paper ball fights in the library. Yeah… Unprovoked massacres of the “Quiet Side” by the “Collaborative Side”. And sometimes all out, balls-to-the-wall library wars. And on that note, library climbing, library Olympics, general library adventures, etc. were awesome. Don’t worry Sally, we didn’t break anything… too badly.
3) The 4th Invertebrates Presentation and Dessert Extravaganza. I remember Reed doing a ridiculous crab dance, some other hooligans performing another dance to Maddona, and an educational video about a new drug craze: The Green Tide. (I’ve tried it myself, and now I see why this thing could sweep the nation.)
4) Monday night dance parties. Reason? Because we can’t party on Thursday because we have finals on Friday.
5) Water balloon massacres on the Bunk House (and other miscellaneous pranks on the bunk house).
6) Annette eating, drinking, and partying with us after the algae section.
7) Donut Wednesdays. Nuff said.
8) Pirate day on the Elakah
9) Hotel party.
10) No Final for Karen’s section.
11) TAs playing sand vol with us.

And as the term ends and we part ways heading off to summer jobs, summer school, or *gasp* the real world. We all leave with a tear in our eye and look forward to the Hatfield Reunion in 2010.

Oh my god it's projects week!

2009-06-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

The plot thickens....
Monday morning came to greet us for the first time without a class day, but we still had a full week ahead of us in a different way....RESEARCH PROJECTS!!
And so it began...the chaos bubble came rolling in quickly, in fact some of us spent the weekend filling buckets with ice to try to keep a so called "cold room" cold, turned out that we were using the wrong thermostat to try to control the temperature the whole time, ah the perils of being new to research (and knowing what a thermostat looks like :).
Others of us scrambled to collect enough specimens to get the ball rolling. Learning how to collect and document data in a way that makes sense has been quite interesting as well.
There has been bartering to acquire and keep hold of supplies, as we are all running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Still we are oddly enough maintaining some sort of schedule and learning to be quite resourceful in the mean time.

From harassing fisherman at the docks to acquire crabs, numerous store visits for random supplies to rigging hand made filtration systems to tanks, we have persevered and should have some interesting presentations next week to show for it given that no one decides to have a melt down in the mean time, hee hee hee :).
We are almost done and getting sad about the thought of leaving, though we will definately enjoy the much need rest after this.

Despite some sleepless nights, we are getting to do science which is the coolest part of all. We have learned so much so far. Finally we get to use the knowledge we aquired through this course, our wonderful instructors, and T.A.'s, to produce something all our own. Exciting!
Till then bloggers, the project mayhem continues and we are still head strong and going full steam ahead!

The Adventures of the BI 450 class: week 8

2009-05-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

This week the BI 450 class continued to work with renowned ecologist Bruce Menge and his teaching assistant Alison Iles. No more field work for us. Nope, it's time to crunch the numbers! The class was divided five ways, each studying a different set of data including tide pool diversity, transect quadrats, belt transects, algae and invertebrate biodiversity, and Whelk and Pisater predator/prey studies. The projects proved to be a lot of graph making but we ended up with some interesting results.

After Bruce's test on Thursday, the BI 450 students worked furiously to write and turn in their project proposals. Though projects don't officially start until week nine, some students have already been collecting data. For example: Students Mackenzia Sullivan, Tyler Van Demelen, and Chelsea Stover were able to set up 20 pit-fall crab traps on Tuesday in the notoriously muddy Sally's bend in Yaquina Bay, Oregon. Also Kailtyn Mac Leod and Kaley Lischke have recently been seining in South Beach for bay Pipefish as part of their project. You may be wondering what students are studying. Well you'll have to wait and see!!!

In other silly news, in celebration of the return of beloved invertebrate professor Sally Hacker, the BI 45o class collaborated to surprise Sally with their own 80's day, dressing in the finest fashions of the 80's. Needless to say Sally got a good laugh and the class immensely enjoyed themselves!

Well that's all the news for this week. Stay tuned for next weeks adventures of the BI 450 class!!!

Ecology and Biodiversity Galore!

2009-05-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Hello all! This week brought Dr. Bruce Menge, world-renowned ecologist, out to Hatfield to show us the ins and outs of Community Ecology on the Oregon Coast. This was a week that could make or break any aspiring marine ecologist. With Bruce came very early tides, forcing us out of bed in the early morning hours for field outings to collect as much data as humanly possible. Most days included morning field trips followed by data entry and a lecture. In addition to learning data collection techniques in the intertidal zone, the week was a culmination of everything we have been working on up to this point.

Monday began at 5 am when we crawled out of bed for our first field trip of this section for some community sampling and transect surveys. We loaded up and by six we were headed out to a familiar spot: Boiler Bay. There we received a crash course in field sampling methods for the intertidal zone and every group was able to play a part in collecting data. This allowed us all the opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience which some of us might even use this summer for internships.

On Tuesday we were allowed to sleep in a tad longer before we took off to another well-known spot: Strawberry Hill. There we had a day much like Monday where each group was assigned a different task for collecting data. Luckily by Tuesday we were all somewhat well-versed in data collection and the day went more smoothly for everyone.

Wednesday and Thursday we spent time at Boiler Bay and Strawberry hill again, respectively. But on these two days we all individually focused on Biodiversity Surveys. This meant that we all had a data sheet and we separated ourselves into three zones (low, mid, and high) and spent half an hour in each zone marking off all of the either algae or invertebrate species which we could find. These were both more relaxed fun days for us. And Thursday even brought us surprises in the form of adorable seal pups at Strawberry Hill and a couple members of our class enjoying the cool, refreshing tide pool water…

Outside of class on Thursday, during a rousing game of sand volleyball, we learned that there was a washed up baby whale in Depoe Bay! So those of us present took off North up the 101 and scoured the beaches for a dead whale. Unfortunately we learned that the whale was in a small cove inaccessible from land and we were only able to see it from a distance.

The end of the week brought us a very short day with only one lecture in the morning. This allowed us time to work on our biodiversity projects in groups, and to play some sand volleyball in the afternoon. After an intense week this was a much needed break.

Overall the field section of Marine Community Ecology was a fast-paced, fun-filled, whirlwind of a learning experience which was valuable to all.

A conservative week for conservation

2009-05-11T21:40:00.001-07:00

After three fastball weeks of memorizing species and working hard in the field, the Bio 450 class threw us a change up last week with regular days and only one in the field. Three out of the five days had very similar schedules. Lectures were regular and discussions in the afternoons were a great trade from the late hours of drawing in our notebooks and identifying species till early hours in the morning. Karen McLeod gave a variety of lectures on marine conservations issues. She started by giving us a good overview of the state of the oceans and what policies were in place as well as what that meant in the science world. Karen then moved on to talk about marine reserves, fisheries, and other economical roles of the ocean. After each morning lecture informing us of these issues, she would always follow with an afternoon lecture on how to best approach them. The highlights this week included a field trip up ten mile creek: Hiking through a beautiful forest in the rain, learning about fish habitat restoration projects, and learning about endangered birds in the area. At the end of the week we had a full day of student presentations where we could dive deeper into the issues that we wanted to become learned about, and then present them to the class.

Student presentations were much more formal than the presentations about inverts or the in-lab presentations of algae. Dressed in our best we delivered presentations on current issues. Throughout the day we learned about hypoxia, coastal development, Humboldt squid, ocean acidification, jelly fish blooms, shark fining, wave energy, harmful algal blooms, and even seafood origination labeling. This was a very mixed array of knowledge but never the less enthralling. We also got to eat cookies shaped like squid and some that were not.

Tuesday Morning we got a special talk delivered by Karen describing her work with COMPASS. She explained to us how the organization compiles credible research data and facilitates the scientific community. By developing a concerted front, the labor of many professionals can be channeled into an effective political tool. The focus is kept away from public education and outreach, in order to reinforce the goal of commitment towards policy amendment.
On Wednesday we got the chance to hike at Ten-Mile Creek, the site including the largest stand of old-growth remaining in the nation! It was pouring rain almost continuously, so we kept morale high by calling in the owls (unsuccessfully). The focus of the trip was to give us a tour of the stream restoration project, and to show us the methods used for sampling fry and smelt. We got to see Salmon, river Sculpin, and even a Lamprey! The fish were chemically sedated so we could take a closer look. We had a brief talk regarding the restoration of the stream, including the removal of old roads, and the input of timber utilizing helicopters. We also had the chance to learn about a unique species that nests in the Pacific North-West. The Marbled Murrelet uses moss platforms high in the branches of old-growth evergreens. It will fly in from the ocean, travelling many miles inland to find protected home sites. Flying back and forth to the ocean to gather food for the young is not uncommon. This site at ten-mile creek is one of the last remaining habitats suitable for the species. Corvids, mainly crows, have begun to compete in most areas because the chicks are left unattended.
The most notable topic from our field-trip was the discussion about fry-boxes for hatchery steelhead and salmon. We learned that attempts to include the public in raising stocks have perhaps been counter-productive. Usually the hatchery stocks lose much of their natural instinct, as well as the ability to sense a home range. They also compete strongly enough with native fish to have become a serious threat. In the end it doesn’t matter whether we retain all that we heard. We have all been struggling to cope overstressed. And as it turns out, school doesn’t get much better than this!

A is for Algae...

2009-05-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

…And Freakin’ A!!!! Week 5 started Monday April 27th at 6:45am, which was rough as most of us are not morning people.We headed out to Boiler Bay to continue our algae education (the algae section started Thursday of week 4) collecting brown and red algae specimens to bring back to the lab. Annette tried to teach us about the algae in the lower intertidal but was pretty well thwarted by uncooperative waves. There were a lot of mixed feelings on this fieldtrip, some were tired and possibly a little bored, some were trying to be optimistic, but most of us were trying really hard to focus on what Annette had to say. Upon moving to another sect ion of the intertidal, some of our classmates found a very special algae, Egregia, which is commonly known as the feather boa. We all agree that this is a very classy look. The rest of Monday was filled with lectures and lab time focused on phylum Ochrophyta, aka the Phaophytes, aka brown algae.

Tuesday turned out to be a beautiful day, despite the forecast of rain and 40 degree weather. We left for Seal Rock at 7:45am with a much needed extra hour of sleep. We had some reminders of our days studying inverts, which now seems like a long time ago, but then quickly returned our focus to algae. On this trip we found another interesting algae, Desmerestia which secretes an acid and should not be stored with other algae. The next neat looking algae is Postelsia palmaeformis, which ironically looks like something tropical here on the Oregon coast. Back in the rocks at Seal Rock called the “needles,” there was algae that couldn’t be seen from the beach which was a treat for those who dared to climb through. Finally, we found that algae can be fun! This bull kelp makes a great jump rope! Rock encrusting Codium setchellii

could be found surrounded by other algae including Mazzaella spp. and a bushy branched red algae that would have to be identified in the lab. Tuesday and Wednesday we spent a lot of time in class and lab learning about phylum Rhodophyta, aka Red algae, aka the ”Dreaded Reds.”

Wednesday came quickly and we spent a large portion of the day setting up for our group projects. The projects entailed each group becoming experts on a specific type of algae through out the week and presenting them to the class Wednesday night with the main focus of helping each other out for the final and lab practicum. This also came in handy on Thursday when we had lab review because then we were not fighting over Annette like usual because there were experts at all the sections. We then studied all day and all night Thursday for our finals Friday. After the final and lab practicum some parents showed up for Mom’s weekend and we had an awesome chicken dinner/ get together to finalize our week of FREAKIN’ A!!!!

50-50 Fish and Algae: The Perfect Combination!

2009-04-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

Ahoy, mateys! Arrrgh, this exciting week began with a voyage on one of OSU's two research vessels, the Elakha, dressed as pirates. Instead of pillaging and plundering, we went trawling for fish in Yaquina bay. The first trip departed bright and early in the wee hours of the morning, and proved to be more successful than the later trip, catching sculpin, gunnels, starry flounder, and a Pacific sanddab. The second group of scallywags was defeated in a battle just before their turn to board the Elahka. Although the weather was nicer, all they caught was a few flounder. Oh, and some sea stars.

After the voyage on the Elahka, it was full speed ahead to the aquarium where we went on a treasure hunt to find our assigned fishes for a habitat study.

The rest of the day was a scramble to put the finishing touches on our presentations for that evening. We had to create a proposal for marine protected areas off of the Oregon coast. Everyone from the "local community" was there to hear out our proposals: the upset fishermen, critical scientists, annoying ocean resource managers, tree-hugging (or in this case fish-hugging) hippies, and of course the town crazies, who looked a lot like Reed and Mackenzie...

After a late night of cramming, our two exams went off without a hitch. We were glad to have the rest of day and Wednesday off to do absolutely nothing and prepare for the beginning of our algae section on Thursday. We started off with a nice transition between animals and plants, where Annette Olson had us think of different interactions - both good and bad - between algae and sea critters - including limpet hats (an invertebrate we studied weeks ago shows up wearing cute algae attire!). We ended the week with a trip to seal rock on a beautiful day to collect algae specimens for our group presentations. Luckily for Gimpy (aka Kaley), there isn't a hike down a steep cliff to get to the Seal Rock site. We encountered many different types of algae, and learned the very important lesson of which algae you can walk on and not fall on your butt, "Endo is our friendo". There were a lot of specimens for the 'little brown people,' but not so many for other groups.

From our short preview on algae thus far, we can be sure that we will learn a lot in this coming week. Finally we will know the difference between green algae that's really green and green algae that's really red. As well as what these little things are...

Week 3 Marine Fishes

2009-04-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

Week 3 started out by welcoming Scott Heppell, Assistant Professor (Senior Research), from Fisheries & Wildlife to our class to teach the Marine Fishes section.

Monday started by heading out to the Yaquina Bayfront and netting fish using a seine net to collect shallow bay fishes. These specimens were then taken back to our lab for study and classification.

Tuesday was a day filled with lecture and a disection of fish. We all disected either an Albacore Tuna, a Black Rockfish or a Dover Sole. We looked at their internal organs and how they are specialized for the lifestye of the fish: such as the large heart of the Tuna, fitting for its high energy lifestyle.

On Wednesday we returned to Strawberry Hill but this time with hand nets in hand to collect tidepool fishes. We then returned to the classroom for a facinating lecture on ontogenetic shift which is a change in lifestyle associated with growth and development. Later, Scott presented a section on the reproductive biology of fishes.

On Thursday Boiler Bay was our destination to collect marine fish while Gray Whales fed just offshore of the bay. Later in the day during lab we learned how to use otoliths (the ear bone of fish) to determine the age of fish and what we can learn about their life history from the spacial arrangment of the rings. This data especially comes in handy when studying the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems. By looking at the rings scientist can decifer whether it was a good year of biological productivity or whether food sources were scarce (much like that of the rings of terrestrial trees) often linked to an increase of temperature in the oceans.

Friday was spent in lecture learning about Fish Habitat, the Red Grouper as an ecosystem engineer, and about fisheries and their impact on the ocean's resources. Also preparation took place on the group project determining which areas would be suitable to conserve as Natural Resource Reservations.

This Week in HMSC: Guests Lectures, Confused Fishermen, and Cramming for a Test

2009-04-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

Oh snap! The second week of BI 450 is passing us in a flash and it’s been great!

The week started out with two very informed guest lectures. First was an in depth look at the mechanisms of invasive species from Dr. John Chapman, focusing on Yaquina Bay’s own mud shrimp, Upogebia pugenttensis, and its quite damaging isopod parasite Orthione griffensis, a relationship we saw first hand last week while visiting Sally’s Bend. Then we had a talk from Dr. Sylvia Yamada, a specialist on the invasive European Green Crab. Sylvia took us down to the shore of HMSC to take data on the crabs she caught so we could get an idea of how diverse the range of species is in our backyard. Much pinching of fingers ensued.

Tuesday was an adventure out at the boat yard where we diligently searched the waters for any signs of life. Mostly we just confused the fishermen. But we did not go away empty handed! We found an abundance of Polyorchis penicillatus, commonly named red-eyed medusa, along with a ctenophore, Pleurobrachia bachei, also known as a sea gooseberry. A quick break for ice cream was a well deserved reward.

Wednesday came with a mad rush to finish our Favorite Invertebrate projects. There was dancing and games, lots of food and an odd new drug craze involving some unfortunate anemones and interviewees. It was a wonderful break from our diligent studying, but now it is time to get back to the grind and finish those darn notebooks!

Donuts, Pie, Beer and the Occasional Ecological Trek: A Beginner's Guide to The Oregon Coast

2009-03-31T21:34:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Spring is here, and with it a new class of 450'ers has blown into Newport for what some have called "the reason why I chose OSU in the first place!!" Our great adventure started on Monday with an orientation to the Hatfield Marine Science Center by Itchung Cheung, the Academic Program Coordinator of the facility. Tuesday we had our first lecture by BI450's head professor Dr. Sally Hacker, then headed directly to Cascade Head, just north of Lincoln City. This headland serves as a prime example of the many geological processes and events we had just discussed in lecture that morning- beach deposition, rip tides, headland erosion (see photo), estuary formation and several types of coastal dunes (see photo) can all be seen at a single glance!

A half-mile hike up 500ft of muddy, twisting, single track trail opened up onto a large grassy hill with a sweeping view of land and sea, where we could see a most dramatic example of coastal geology:

A giant landslide on the western face of the hill just north of the headland (see photo) sent tons of rocks, sandstone and other debris washing down into the sea, toppling dozens of trees and creating a jagged scar on the hillside! General erosion of the cliffs and hillsides that come in direct contact with the sea over thousands of years was discussed in class, but to see such a dramatic example of this on such a massive and rapid scale was incredible.

As the day wrapped up and multiple group photos were taken, an increasing sense of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead left us all in high spirits. The feast of pie and witty banter at the close of the evening solidified this feeling and helped us relax, if only for a few hours before the next day's adventure swept us off again.

Until next time, peace and firm footing to you all!!

2009

2009-03-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

Marine Bio 450 2009 is about to gear up.
One week and counting before we kick off the course with the Marine Invertebrate section.
See you at the Hatfield Marine Science Center!

A long, long time ago in a reality not so far away...

2008-06-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

Greetings, bloggers! We thought that as a last post we would present a compilation of the semester in pictures! So, sit back and enjoy...

Who could forget day 2 at Cascade Head? After a relaxing 1500 foot vertical climb, we were treated to stunning views of the ocean and wonderful weather. Unfortunately, it was not to last.

Our first group photo. And our second. And third. And 20th. We would never look this young again.

The search for invertebrates was the agenda for the first week, with the occasional dead and decomposing octopus to keep us entertained.

Visiting the local docks in Newport in the continuing search for those elusive Ctenophores!

(They showed up about a week later)

Trips to the local aquarium helped in adding more critters to our ever expanding notebooks, while also allowing us to spend some quality time together.

Having helpful TA's ever available was a boon to those of us trying to memorize vast amounts of science. Here, Margot was helping us tell the difference between Cryptosiphonia and
Polysiphonia. Of course, many of us can now tell these two apart in our sleep. Then again, many of us can't.

And who could forget this momentous occasion? For the first time in 30 years of teaching, Bruce Menge canceled a field trip due to weather. It wasn't too bad, if you liked 50 mph winds. Instead, we got to go back and listen to 4 hours of lectures. Woohoo!

After our day "off," it was back to business community ecology style. Now let's see... was that 5,276 C. dalli, or 5,277?

After 1 day off, we jumped into fish week and broke the trawling net!

It was nice to see Yaquina Bay from a different perspective (other than covered in about 2 feet of mud).

We caught many more specimens to once again fill our notebooks full of beautiful drawings. Every fish caught was another opportunity to draw another picture in our books. All of us were extremely excited and motivated by that prospect!

Karen showed up the next week, and we became familiar with the business end of marine conservation and policy.

We also had a chance to visit the Audubon Sanctuary. Before we arrived, there was a playground that was empty. Some folks (Megan and Christine) couldn't resist...

At Ten Mile Creek, we were shown a fishery monitoring station and the efforts by ODFW to manage this basin.

Another group shot. At this point, nobody was interested in setting up 20 cameras anymore.

Then, our research projects began. We had a week "off" to collect our field data, then a week back "on" to finish up in community ecology, part 2. Here, we were more interested in the biological interactions that affected organisms within the estuarine, salt marsh, and dune environments.

Our final group shot. If you look closely, you will see a lot more gray hairs in this photo.

The last couple days have been devoted to the arduous task of compiling the mountain of data that many of us have accumulated and trying to organize it in such a way that it will actually make sense. Sound easy? It is until you actually start.

Here is a typical scene for those of us whose data wasn't compiling in such a way that made sense. It was a good idea to take a number so that you could be seen in order by Sally.

And the end result? A moment of glory! A chance to shine! Or not...

It's been a long road, but none of us are the same people we were when we started out 2 months ago. Thanks to all the great staff including Sally, Annette, Bruce, Scott, and Karen. Also, thanks to all the great TA's including Margot, Alison, and Jeremy.

Final Fiesta

2008-05-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

DUNE DAY!
Our first stop was to see the cobra like flower the Darlingtonia, it lures insects in with tantalizing nectar and brilliant colors once inside they get confused, it traps and then digests them. We only caught a glimpse and we were off for Honeyman.

We got a taste of the dunes with our lunch.

Upon arrival at the Umpqua Dunes we were excited to see no rain. We began our hike climbing the dune.

It felt like we were in the desert just walking and walking and walking. Then we came upon an oasis. Well, not really it was actually just a pond with some shrubs.

We continued our trek where upon nearing the wetland area we found cute little frogs of all colors. The wetlands were not there historically but with the introduction of Ammophilia the sand was stabilized and the dunes changed shape. A foredune was created and behind it moisture built up, providing a wetland habitat for many species.

Finally we made it to the beach, there were many sand dollars collected, a lone girl (Megan Cook) ventured in for a swim. Then it began to mist, causing us to begin our homeward journey.I didn't remember it being so steep. A last group field trip photo and we headed for pizza.

Only Two Weeks Left!

2008-05-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

After returning from a fabulous 3 day weekend it was back to work. Sally started out the day with a lecture on Community Ecology. We discussed Estuaries before heading out to the Salt Marsh in front of our apartments here at Hatfield.
We stopped to chat on the boardwalk before venturing into the Salt Marsh. First we stopped and ate some Salicornia, an edible plant that can be pickled. It was very salty.

Sally busted out the Redox meter and began testing the mud for oxygen content. In a Neotrypaea (ghost shrimp) burrow the redox meter read 10, but in the black anoxic mud the oxygen content was as low as -299. Here is Aleshia taking measurements.

Along for the journey was another fun tool the Refractometer. Ashley, a little confused at first used it to measure the salinity of the water.

We wandered around the marsh for awhile looking at unique plants like Triglochin, which smells like coriander. We also found a now rare three edged plant used by Native Americans for basket weaving. Our T.A. Jeremy got stuck in the mud. Tomorrow the dunes...

Research Extravaganza!

2008-05-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

Hello 450 faithfuls!

If you've been reading our blog up until now, it's fairly apparent that our schedule is pretty rigorous. This week, however, we've been set loose on the intertidal! That's right: we get to conduct our very own research! Basically, the last three weeks of the course are set aside (well, mostly) for these over-arching projects. The best part is, we can look into whatever we want! Let the evil plans commence! Bwahahahaha!

The project subjects range from work with crabs to work with urchins, limpets, chitons, sea stars, snailfish, sculpin and tidepools! There are many interesting ideas and setups. The creative jucies are definitely flowing! Things are just underway though, so more is definitely to come. We should be looking forward to some very interesting data and presentations come Week 10!

Oh, it's not all fun-and-games, though...waking up at 5 AM to scour the rocky intertidal can be pretty trying, not to mention tiring! We split some of the class into two groups (SH and BB) to get the projects underway. Other groups took their own initiative and worked on their own elsewhere. We all know that Strawberry Hill is usually a blast, but not at 6 in the morning. Boiler Bay wasn't much better. Thankfully to save some of us from getting even sicker the weather held up fairly nicely and the rain subsided. Still, with these comprising 25% of our total grade for the course, we think that it's worth it (rain or shine!).

A photo of the Strawberry Hill crew:

Various research project photos:

Calista and Ashley hard at work in the lab:

Their setup:

Megan Poole's setup:

Sean, Alissa and Shiane's setup:

More photos to come later in the week! ;)

Answer: Have someone throw it at you

2008-05-15T21:23:00.001-07:00

Our riddle has been answered (see previous blog titles), hopefully you all guessed somewhat close! (Although I know with this weeks lectures, we could have come up with many conservation answers to our riddle about ecosystem based management, marine reserves, and ecosystem restoration.)

Wednesday was spent down South of Hatfield in an ongoing restoration effort. First we headed out to Yachats City Hall for a passionate lecture by Paul Engelmeyer . He informed us of ongoing projects that he and several other members of the Audubon Society have been working on. He also described the state of many salmon, rockfish, sea birds, and mammals that have raised concerns along the Oregon coasts.

After a quick diversion on the City Hall playground, we were off in our vans to meet up with Chris, who had been monitoring a section of Ten Mile Creek searching mostly for juvenile salmon swimming out to sea and back again. Chris explained their methods of collecting and releasing the younger fish back upstream. He also showed us a few examples of different aged species living in the cool waters. One thing Paul pointed out to us was the extreme importance of loose logs and stumps that provide a habitat and refuge for the larvae, eggs, and younger species (They are similar to Kelp beds in marine environments that create a more 3-D structured habitat).

From there we did some trekking through a few wooded areas, concentrating mostly on forest growth and habitat restoration. We also enjoyed our delicious packed lunches while listening to Jack, another important contributor to the restoration project.

Thursday began with a lecture on ecosystem based management and meetings about our conservation presentations (to be given Friday afternoon). After a sweltering lunch hour, we headed back into the classroom (or what some deemed as "sauna" due to extreme Newport temperatures). Our afternoon was filled with questions such as "Should marine reserves be in state waters?" and "How do we MANAGE these marine reserves?" There to help inform us about current Oregon policies and political contreversies was Dr. Selina Heppell. Her discussion left with plenty to think about:

**What evidence is needed to answer the question, “why do we need marine reserves in Oregon state waters?”

Well, that about wraps up conservation week. Hope you all had fun and can now explain the difference between MPAs, EBM, Marine sanctuaries, and Marine reserves. Good luck on Friday's presentations and op-eds! And don't forget, as Karen pointed out to us, we are the future of marine conservation.

Question: What is the best way to catch a fish?

2008-05-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we started off our conservation biology week with a slew of celebrities including Dr. Jane Lubchenco and former President Bill Clinton (who was speaking just a hop, skip, and jump away from Hatfield)! (Not to mention our infamous marine ecologist, professor, and amazing van driver- Dr. McLeod)

While Bill Clinton was entertaining the rest of Newport, we were more interested in Dr. Lubchenco's two lectures she gave on marine conservation biology. She touched on topics such as global ocean trends, fishing practices, climate change, and options for the future. Dr. Lubchenco talked about declining fish stocks on a global scale giving such options for improving them as: improving fishery management and enforcement, adopting ecosystem and evolutionary management, establishing networks of no-take marine reserves, making aquaculture sustainable, and aligning economic and environmental incentives. We also had an afternoon discussion with our new professor for the week, Dr. Karen McLeod. We talked about science, policy and ethics and everyone was fired up and interested about the topic and their ideas were very broad. We discussed what the difference between a scientist and an advocate is and how they can walk a very fine line.

Today, we had a lecture on fisheries and took a trip down to the Newport docks to investigate the fisherman's side of the conservation biology we'd learned the day before. Charlie from Local Ocean Seafoods took us on a tour to look at boats and talk to fishermen such as the man pictured below. He talked to us about different types of fishing and the methods he uses. He was a Salmon fisherman until the fishery was closed this year. Pictured below (from right to left) are weights used in Salmon fishing, empty weight containers on a boat no longer fishing for Salmon, and how expensive the "last" wild Salmon fillet is.

The fisherman has now moved on to Tuna as well as Lingcod. Some fishermen we saw were remodeling their boats in order to start fishing for Hagfish instead of their usual fish in hopes of finding more money on the Asian market. Hagfish are long, jawless fish that release slime when scared and so the fishermen have nicknamed them "Slime Eels." You wouldn't want to sit down to a Hagfish dinner now would you?!

After our tour we went back to Local Ocean Seafoods and Charlie did a fish filleting demonstration. He showed us how to fillet a Lingcod and a Rockfish. Pictured below, the mouth of a Lingcod! He told us a funny story about a time he was attempting to fillet a Lingcod and it had no intentions of being filleted! He had to wrestle with it and even took out its brain and it still wouldn't die! He eventually got it on the filleting table brainless but still moving. After his demonstration he let Sean get in on the filleting action!

We wrapped up our day with a discussion, this time on sustainable fisheries and seafood as well as catch share programs. Through catch share programs, fishermen are given a share of the total allowable catch and given the flexibility and accountability for meeting it. Throughout our discussion there were a lot of questions brought up about how we are going to maintain current fish stocks. Hope everyone has gotten a good start on our conservation research projects for Friday, we'll be back with the answer to our riddle next time!

Dissection Day!

2008-05-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone had a steady hand today in our fish dissection lab. We had rock fish on the cutting board, which was graciously donated by Local Oceans Seafood (best seafood in town). First we had to identify which species we had and then we got to dig in to identify the internal organs.

From the image above we can see the liver, heart, and intestines very clearly. The most interesting part of the dissection was retrieving the lens from the eye and two of the otoliths from the head. We can see these both in the image below with the lens on the bottom and otolith on the top.

Determining the sex of a dead fish is always exciting. We can tell this by removing the gonads and looking at the shape of them in a cross section. For males the cross section is triangular as opposed to females, which are more rounded. We can see an example of female gonads in the image below.

And of course we had to have some fun!

Gone Fishing!

2008-05-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

There’s nothing like starting your week with a little dash of statistical analysis! With our community ecology presentations on Tuesday, Monday was a day full of analyzing data the class collected over the previous week in the field. The class split into groups to highlight and discuss the predator feeding dynamics, biodiversity, tidal pool diversity and community structure of Boiler Bay and Strawberry Hill. Many hours of hard work produced great results when Tuesday morning all the groups presented their findings. It was rewarding to watch our personal data evolve into the recognizable trends we study in class. Also on Tuesday, we wrapped up the community ecology unit with a charming exam written by Dr. Bruce Menge. During that celebration of learning we had the opportunity to showcase our mastery of the Oregon intertidal, or perhaps our mastery of a small glimpse of the intertidal communities. We’re sure all emerged with flying colors.

Wednesday was a well-needed day of rest for all of the Hatfielders. A few dedicated classmates just couldn’t get enough of the intertidal and spent the day tidepooling and relaxing on the beach. Others couldn’t get enough of their pillows and caught up on some necessary sleep hours.

Thursday morning began swimmingly with our introduction to Dr. Scott Heppell and our fish unit! After a morning of lectures we met once again with our dear friend- the intertidal mudflat. Rather than digging for Upogebia sp. today’s adventure was beach seining. We used a quarter inch mesh net, four feet tall and fifty feet long to catch bay fish along the water’s edge. A dedicated class mate would wade out about chest deep in the water carrying one end of the net until it was outstretched. Their partner on the beach would walk along combing the water with the net. After approximately thirty feet of collection the deep edge was brought back to shore capturing any fish that may have been within the sampling area. Fish were identified and counted by our eagerly waiting class and then returned to the estuary. Most fish we found we small juveniles, presumably using the estuary as a nursing ground. We identified English sole, pipefish, chum salmon, smelt, and many species of sculpin. Samples were returned to lab so we could begin our drawings and descriptions for lab notebooks.

We are looking forward to a great day tomorrow with a trawling trip aboard the RV Elahka and a visit to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It will be very exciting to get to sample the larger life of Yaquina Bay that swims each day just outside our classroom. Think sunny thoughts!

Community Ecology Week Part II

2008-04-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

Today was our last fieldtrip for community ecology. The beautiful weather welcomed us into Boiler Bay’s and Strawberry Hill’s intertidal! The class split up between the different sites to make up for our canceled field trip. We surveyed the biodiversity at each site in the low, mid, and high zones for 30 minutes each. Half the team looked for algal species, while the other half identified invertebrates.

Half of the group: The Boiler Bay Biodiversity Babes!

For all of the field trips we had this week, vertical zonation patterns in the intertidal were extremely important to consider when we were collecting data. There are three different zones we collected data from defined by the following:
Low-zone: The low zone is the area below mussel beds
Mid-zone: The mid-zone is the area where the mussel beds are found
High-zone: The high-zone is the area above the mussel beds that is characterized by species that can tolerate desiccation.

A view of the zonation (low and mid intertidal zones) at Boiler Bay.

This zonation is strongly structured by environmental gradients like tides, wave action, and temperature (related to desiccation and physiological processes). These characteristics change vertically as you move farther away from the ocean
Zonation also is a result of complex species interactions. For example, different distributions of barnacle species competing with mussels for space or seastars eating mussels. Overall, these environmental gradients and species interactions heavily influence the overall composition of the rocky intertidal and thus, likely had a large impact on the data we collected this week.

Lydia and Ashley working on a quadrat in the protected zone at Strawberry Hill.

We also started working on our mini research projects with the data the class has gathered over the last week. Some of the topics are predator diets, tide pool diversity, transect-quadrat data for community structure, and biodiversity throughout the intertidal. We also must mention the amazing potluck we had on Thursday night! Yay for delicious dinners and food babies!

Community Ecology Week Part I

2008-04-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

For the community ecology section Bruce Menge is our instructor, along with Annette Olson, and Alison Iles is our new TA. On Monday we prepared for our 4 field trips this week and learned how to use transects and quadrats. Our alarm clocks shocked us at 5:30 am for a field trip at 6 am to Boiler Bay to collect data on community structure and predator diets. We lucked out and avoided the storm that was predicted. The next day however.... The storm was raging! Once again we got up at 5:30 am only to arrive at Strawberry Hill and find crashing waves upon our study site. THE HISTORICAL EVENT: Bruce Menge cancels the field trip for the first time in over 20 years!

It was so windy, we had to take a group picture.

On a higher note, no more species names to memorize! We are learning about important studies that have strongly influenced our understanding of community ecology. These studies include some of our very own Oregon State University professors such as Mark Hixon, Jane Lubchenco, Bruce Menge, and various graduate students from OSU labs.

Some principles covered in these studies include key stone species which are species that have a disproportionately large effect on the community relative to their abundance. One of our own keystone species on the Oregon Coast is the one and only Pisaster ochraceous (Paine 1966).

Algae week

2008-04-19T21:50:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day of algae and many of us are happy to see the weekend. We had our lecture exam at 10 a.m. and our lab practical at 2 p.m. Both tests weren't as bad as many of us expected and a bunch of us are going to sushi tonight and to a musical based on Animal House on Sunday.

Since we were so busy studying for the exams, we weren't able to post the pictures from our field trip to Seal Rock on Wednesday. We were there for about 3 hours and Annette split us up into groups and had us specialize on certain algae groups. We were basically supposed to become experts of our algae and then teach it to the rest of the students.

Since we've been focusing on algae this week, we thought it would be a good idea to give a little review to those of you who are reading this blog.

This is Pelvetiopsis limitata and is found normally next to Fucus distichus, another species of algae that is very similar except for the presence of a midrib.

This is Mastocarpus jardinii and we found it at Seal Rock. We also found Mastocarpus papillatus.

This was our last week with Margot and we are very sad to see her go. She has been amazing and so patient while we have been slowly learning invertebrates and algae. She was really amazing this week when we were keying algal species out in the lab.

2008-04-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

The hardest things so far about the algae section has been the earlier lecture hours,

falling in at Boiler Bay (It was so cold and wet!), and learning to key out red algae species. It's hard to key out species because each description contain 5 words that we don't understand and have to look up in the glossary. We all learned what pit plugs were the other day while trying to identify Neorhodomela larix. Frustrations raged when we didn't even know the terms used in the glossary definitions, but Margot and Annette helped us out.

While at Boiler Bay, we each had a partner and a list of particular algae to look for and learned. Then we reconvened while different groups "taught" us their algae. We learned the differences between Neorhodomela and Odonthalia. Some of us got caught up in a search for "Ralph." (Ralfsia sp) We haven't found the elusive brown alga yet, but we're going to Seal Rock today, so maybe we'll find him there. Let's hope so!

2008-04-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

We started studying algae this week and it has been an interesting transition from invertebrates to algae. The variety of body plans, color and special features of the invertebrates was amazing and, well, algae just don't have many of the features that made the invertebrates so interesting. Nonetheless, we've been having a great time with Annette - our lecturer for this section. Annette has a contagious laugh that makes us all giggle our way through the algae lectures. I never would have thought I'd be laughing over algae!

The first day of class, we had a lecture about the importances of algae in the intertidal. We made a list, and Annette asked us to post it for everyone to see.

1. List at least 4 ways that invertebrates “use” or interact with seaweeds.
Use seaweed as food- limpets, sea urchins, chitons
Use seaweed as habitat- crabs and isopods
Dead invertebrates are a nutrition source for seaweed
Camouflage used by the decorator crab and limpets
Symbiosis with lichens
2. List 2 or 3 invertebrates you have seen “wearing” epibonts of marine algae
Decorator crab, limpets, urchins, cnidarians (endozoic), mussels and barnacles
3. List 1 invertebrate you have observed that seems to be “disturbed” by seaweeds. How?3.
It inhibits feeding through the whiplash effect
4. List 1 invertebrate that you have observed that seemed to be controlling seaweed species composition. How?
Urchins and limpets (halo effect)

LATE NIGHT STUDY FUN!!

2008-04-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, finlas are finally here! Only one more to go, better cram now only 2 hours left until the final lab practicum. For those of you who decided to get some sleep before the finals, heres a look at what went on in the library until the wee hours of the morning, and for those like me, hardly slept! Our night began with studious work studying all the names of our organisms and writting out our study guides. But soon the mood turned from studious work to stimulating conversation to wacky antics then finally to full out craziness. We got a lot of work done, and a lot of craziness was produced throughout the night in our caffeine indused haze. For all those late nighters it was a blast! Good luck to everyone on the lab practicum and have a great weekend!

3 days and counting till EXAM time...

2008-04-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

Monday was filled with the "Phylum" Arthropoda of which we learned all about, mostly regarding the Subphylum Crustacea plus its classes and orders. We were granted with great guest lectures, one of which was from Sylvia Yamada, regarding the introduced and invasive European Green Crabs of which get tied to posts to be sacrificed to the mean giant Red Rock Crab! We got to count crab species in the traps Sylvia had set the day before. Another guest, John Chapman, enlightened us with the endangered Burrowing Shrimp and its introduced parasitic isopod, yuck! After a day full of lectures and crab hunting, we had the chance to venture over to the aquarium to see all the invertebrates in action, and test our identification skills.
Tuesday was what we call "the real fun of being a marine biology student!" Words can't explain what exactly we did, but for the most part it was a "pig pen," oh, and something about those shrimp that live in the mud and nasty parasites? :) Pictures in the album are the only way to explain it, so take a look!

Devious lil' Stingers

2008-04-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Sally taught us all there is to know about Cnidarians and Ctenophores today! The Phyla Cniria includes sea anemones, jellies, and corals and stands for "stinging thread". With 19 girls in the class there was a lot of "ooohhing" and "aaaahhing" at the pictures of all the cute little jellies! We had the pleasure of having Dr. Virginia Weiss come over from the OSU main campus and talk to us about the symbioses between Cnidarians and marine algae. To wrap up the day we spent alomst two hours in the field at Strawberry Hill collecting invertebrates to bring back to our laboratory at Hatfield. As a class we collected anemones, sea stars, nudibranchs, limpets, chitins, mussels, barnacles, marine worms, annelids, and more, and introduced them to their temporary home at HMSC! These animals will be our learning buddies (or teachers if you will) in the lab for the next week while we learn all there is to know about marine invertebrates!

Day 2

2008-04-01T22:25:00.002-07:00

Day #2 of the HMSC Learning Expeience...today we learned about coastal geology and oceanography and had the invaluable opportunity to venture into the field and take a look at some of the geological formations and ocean wave processes discussed in class. Our field trip took us up one of the ten major Rocky Capes along the Oregon Coast called Cascade Head located just North of Lincoln City. We hiked the mile-and-a-half trail to a grassy plain where we were able to observe the estuary where the Salmon River meets the Pacific Ocean. As we took a seat on the edge of the cape and were enjoying our lunch someone shouted, “and we have whales!” We were able to see where the whales were breaching in the open ocean right in front of our perch!

Overall, it was a unique bonding experience for the group elaborating on the feeling that this is an educational vacation rather than a school-based program.

Day 1

2008-04-01T22:25:00.001-07:00

Gear: $100.00
Books: $97.00
Rent: $500.00
Spending 10 weeks in Newport, OR at the Hatfield Marine Science Center doing Marine Biology, PRICELESS.

22 of us are living at the Hatfield Marine Science Center for BI 450/451. Our first day of class consisted of taking a tour of the different buildings on campus and getting a quick run-through of the different organizations on campus (NOAA, ODFW, USDFW, OSU, etc.) and the research being done here. We also got to tour a 185 ft. research vessel called the Welcoma. The ship uses Yaquina bay at the footsteps of HMSC for it’s main docking location. The Welcoma is a high tech., versatile “machine” that is preparing to leave on a 50-day research venture up the Oregon and Washington coastline to take collect sediment data. Later in the day we experienced our first lecture and the Rogue Brewery. Tonight, we walked away with a feeling that this is an incredible opportunity for the students at OSU to be able to live and breathe Marine Biology together for ten whole weeks. We will be introduced to an array of Professors and Graduate Students, and get the opportunity to experience the work they do in their specific fields, not to mention the ability to network ourselves among leading researchers in a variety of fields.

first day of class!

2008-03-31T15:37:00.001-07:00

2008

2008-03-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Spring 2008 students!
We will be using this blog as a means of communicating with the world outside of the Hatfield Marine Science Center during your stay on the coast. This will be a way for others to see and hear about all that is happening in the course. I've left the postings from 2007 to give you an idea of what a blog posting might look like. This blog is a work of art in progress, so as a group and as individual editors, feel free to improve the lay-out of this blog.

Fishtastic!

2007-05-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

So we had an eventful few days, full of fish, fun and sun.

We went out and did some seining oh the Elakha cove and on the open beach, recording what species we saw and how many there were of each. It was fun going out with Scott and Luis, our new teacher and TA.

Here's our group shot out on the beach.

So we had an eventful few days, full of fish, fun and sun.
Later in the week, we went out on the Elakha and did some trawling. It was really fun to go out on the water. We split up in to two groups with one group going out on the boat and one going to the aquarium to do a sort of fish scavenger hunt. I was in group 1, so I got to go out on the boat first. We motored up the river a bit to sites 4 and 5. We put the trawl in; everyone had a job to do. I recorded all the data from dissolved oxygen and temperature to how many fish and crabs we got in the nets.

Scott is telling us what we'll be doing and telling us what jobs need to be done.

Here's a group shot of everyone working together.

It turns out that group 2 broke the net on their first trawl, so they just went on a nice, relaxing cruise around the bay while Group 1 did all the work. All I know is, I really liked getting to do the trawling, seeing how it works and actually catching fish. A nice boat ride is fun, but I guess I am too much of a nerd to want to just sit still for it, when I could be collecting specimens and recording data.

Back in lab, we had several different families of fish. There was family Syngnathidae, the family which includes seahorses, represented by the Bay Pipefish. we had Vinny the Starry Flounder, family Pleuronectidae and Gary the Staghorn Sculpin, family Cottidae.

Here's a picture of Gary from when we caught him on the beach....He's so cute! For a fish...

Later in the week, we took trips to both Boiler Bay and Strawberry Hill to do some more fish collectings, running around the tidepools with our little goldfish nets. We caught lots and lots of sculpin, a couple gunnels, snailfish, a clingfish and a goby. At the end of the week we compiled all our data from the 6 locations (The cove and the open beach seine, site 4 and site 5 from the trawl, Boiler Bay, and Strawberry Hill) and looked at the species richness and diversity, using the Shannon-Weaver Index.

Turns out, the cove and the beach had the most species diversity. This was probably due to the fact that there were several schools of fish passing by when we did our second seine out there...Oh well.

Thursday, as everyone frantically studied and tried to finish lab drawings, disaster struck. Gary was dead! Who could have done it?? Why would they do such a thing?? Why were we keeping him in a tank, away from his natural habitat and expecting him to live?? Oh...that's our bad.

We were all quite surprised to find Gary slowly defrosting in the lab come friday...he was part of the lab practical! The irony, the slightly disturbing irony of it all....poor Gary.

RIP Gary. We love you. May you live on with the ctenophore in the special place all who die in the name of research go; Memphis.

By the way...fish are pretty cool. That's what I learned.

From Algae to Fish

2007-04-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

Well, we survived algae. It was a very tough section but our professor, Annette Olson, was very passionate about all things sessile and leafy in the intertidal. Her passion helped to make the section far more interesting than we ever thought it could be. We spent a few mornings out in the sun identifying species (and then playing frisbee). We also spent many afternoons and evenings in the lab drawing specimens, while fighting our desire to play volleyball in the sun.

The end of the algae section marked the end of our time with Margot (our TA for the past few weeks). We already miss her. She was really devoted, helpful and friendly. Thank you Margot for all of your help. We look forward to seeing you again!

We've now moved onto fish. Scott Heppell (our prof for this section) took us out to the bay yesterday. We did some net trawling: one person stands on the shore holding one end of a net and the other person gets in chest deep with the other end and walks in a crescent shape line. We found many really interesting little fish (and one large staghorn sculpin that we named Gary). One of the most interesting finds was the large quantity of baby salmonoids. We probably found nearly 100 of them in one of the trawls. We were very careful with them and put them back in the water as quickly as we could. Here's hoping that large number is a good sign for the salmon population!

Tidepool Frisbee... and other anticks!

2007-04-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

We might have been a little bit grouchy when we loaded up the vans at six-thirty this morning but once the sun came out over the tidepools at Strawberry Hill, things were looking up. The now familiar Hawaiian soundtrack from Jansen’s boom-box kept us smiling as Annette led us through the intertidal zone pointing out the different algae and how to distinguish them. We saw areas almost carpeted with analipus and its golden, goose-pimpled crust. All three coralline red algae were present for our evaluation (I think I can almost tell the difference now). After studying algae all week, we are beginning to identify these species on our own and enjoying noticing the habits and habitats of the algae. I also found a cute little limpet that grazes exclusively on the epibiotic algae on Pollicipes pollimerus. I thought that was pretty cool.

By the time we got down to the low zone, the surf was high and awesome. Examining the larger kelps, we ventured right down to the edge where the waves were breaking, testing our bravery to stand still as the waves crashed and rushed in. It was awesome. Every wave was like a train coming right at you, roaring to a halt as it crashed over the kelp beds and became foam at our boots. (well I guess we might have gotten a little bit wet, once or twice) The power of the ocean is truly humbling. I think that must be why we are all attracted to it.

There was a little impromptu karaoke on the beach and we passed the Frisbee all the way back to the vans. We stopped in Yachats on the way home to visit the Ye Old Green Salmon for coffee and pastries. Everything was so tasty we kept going back to the counter for more and it was hard to pull ourselves away.

Back at Hatfield, a game of beach volleyball started up and before too long, we had sixteen people (at least!!) We bumped and spiked and ran after the ball to the tune of salsa dance music for hours until we had to go in for lecture. Lab time quickly turned into free time as the warm sunshine enticed everyone to come outside. Robbie and Dan entertained with their guitar and drum and When the sun went down, we gathered at the Rogue Brewery to celebrate my birthday (thanks guys- you’re awesome!) and later enjoyed a little bonfire on the beach. What a day! ~Lou

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOU!

2007-04-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

A very happy birthday to you, Lou, from all your friends here at Hatfield and under the sea!!

Here's lookin at you, Pisaster...

2007-04-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

Last Friday we said goodbye to our invertebrate section, going out in style with our finals, dutifully administered by Sally and Margo. However, the fun didn't start there. It actually begin two days preious. The night: Wednesday. The location: the library conference room. We were all gathered for our "My Favorite Invertebrate" presentations, not to mention the accompanying cheese cake and coffee. Since creativity was apparently a factor in our grading for this project everyone came prepared to give their best (and potentially funniest) presentations of all time. And we did not fail!

Presentation subjects included sponges, anemones, nudibranchs, jellyfish, even a giant squid! People used costumes, song and dance routines, guitar solos, edible inverts, crazy salesman routines, a play, original art, and videos to make their presentations. There were many laughs shared and I'm sure that we walked away knowing a little more about our favorite inverts than we had earlier in the evening. (These pictures were taken by Kathryn Stewart-Smith)

Faced with a real homework-free weekend (a rare occurance during a normal term) we were almost at a loss for what to do. Two whole days to spend doing whatever you wanted? Very nice. Several people made the trip over the river and through the woods back to the valley but others chose to go diving or having other adventures on the coast. On Sunday several Intrepid Explorers made their way down to a wilderness area across the Alsea river about 8 miles up Highway 34 from Waldport. They made their way down through old growth forest to a lovely creek and skipped rocks and had lunch. They also found a large tree which they took pictures on. They decided that the creek was such a wicked cool place that it would be amazing to have an overnight there.

Which brings us to today, where we begin our week long adventure into Algae Land! Nothing more exciting than that.

-posted by Esther Eder

Invasive Arthropods

2007-04-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

We met the arthropods today and my goodness they are neat! Sally gave us the lightning run down of the whole phylum and two guest lecturers introduced us to the arthropods they are studying. Sylvia Yamada told us about the European green crab, an introduced and potentially ruinous arthropod. She set traps for us and we got to check out a couple different species and even caught two green crabs! They're chilling in the lab, little do they know they will never see the light of day again... hahaha

After lunch, John Chapman (of HMSC) told us all about his pursuit of Orthione griffenis, another introduced arthropod. Orthione griffenis is an isopod parasite of Upogebia pugetensis (those charming blue bay shrimp from the mudflats) that according to John, may have been introduced as early as 1983 in ballast water. These little guys are pretty nasty: what they do is crawl inside the gill cavity of the shrimp and attach themselves there to suck blood right out of the shrimp's carapace. The female isopod can get pretty big, about 24mm. If 24mm doesn't scare you, imagine you are a shrimp, total length about 80mm. That little parasite is bigger than your head! What's worse, the isopods always come in pairs. The male, much smaller, actually lives off the female, latching onto her hips! (more or less)

So what are the implications of this introduced species? Potentially quite great. By removing nutrients from the shrimp, the parasite prevents it from reproducing (hey, if you had a parasite bigger than your head sucking your blood, you wouldn't be in the mood, either). Although some clam diggers might see Upogebia as a pest (their burrowing activities can burry clam recruits), they are extremely important habitat engineers. In an estuary like Yaquina Bay, they can filter up to 80% of the water and their burrows are used by lots of other invertebrates. John's surveys have revealed that 45% of Upogebia in Yaquina Bay (and maybe 80% of the sexually mature adults) are already parasitized by Orthione. So what's next? John is now studying why the parasite causes the shrimp to stop reproducing and how that is going to affect the population of Upogebia and the entire estuarine ecosystem.

You can probably see the male isopod (he's the little white guy). The female pretty much fills the shrimp's gill cavity and she's got a fat pile of eggs. We were able to pull them out with tweasers to get a closer look. Yep, they're pretty nasty. ~Lou

Nudis and Cape Perpetua

2007-04-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we headed out to Cape Perpetua to observe and gather specemins at Strawberry Hill. The weather was perfect and the tide pools were amazing!! On Wednesday we only managed to see a few nudibranchs but today there were everywhere! We have more than doubled our collection here in the lab and there is still one that we can't identify yet. This location is known for its large and bountiful supply of invertebrates and we found several things that we didn't see yesterday on top of the usual sea stars and anemones. By 10 AM it was 64 degrees out and when we got back a game of beach volleyball was started and provided entertainment for the rest of us while we ate lunch and sat on the porch. Everyone seems to be doing ok, some dealing with the sleep schedule better than others but we have almost survived our first week. Tomorrow we get to investigate the mud here in the bay and so we'll see how that goes. Laters ~ Kathryn

Above are a purple shore crab (Emigrapsus nudus) and a hermit crab without its shell.

Week 1 COMPLETE!!!!

2007-04-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!! It's been an insane week of a packed full schedule and every minute was at least interesting if not down right entertaining. Today's low tide wake up call took us to the mud flats. Our mission was simple: relearning how to walk. Shrouded by early morning fog, we arrived at Sally's Bend of Yaquina Bay and geared up...or, well, some of us geared down, way down. The key to mud mucking is to either wear a lot of gear or very, very little. I'm not giving names, but we even had a brave man sporting the Speedo! TOO FUNNY! What we wore didn't really matter; I think all of us lost a shoe at some point or another and DEFINITELY don't stand in one place too long. It sucks you in so fast! We had mud Frisbee, mud back stroke, mud wrestling...crazy, crazy kids I tell ya. We had a blast!! But most importantly we did get our work done.

The mud is a tan/buff color on the thin top layer with layers of very black underneath due to anoxygenic conditions (very low oxygen concentration). We discussed two habitat zones, middle and lower, with very different mud consistencies because of different mud shrimp species that inhabit them. We used a mud core to collect and identify specimens of each. Neotrypaea californiensis ("Ghost shrimp") are a sexually dimorphc species that are sediment feeders living in the middle zone. They are a waxy pale pink or orange color and can grow to about 10 cm. These are considered habitat engineers due to their ability to change the mud as they burrow and eat their way through it. VERY hard to stay afoot; don't forget to check for the photos. Pressing on further out into the flat we felt the mud consistency shift, signalling the lower zone where we found our second mud shrimp Upogebia pugettensis ("Blue mud shrimp"). It is tan to bluish-gray and grows to about 15 cm. In contrast to Neotypaea, it burrows into a hole and remains there throughout it's life. This behavior does not disrupt the sediments as much and allows us to walk with a bit more ease, and at this point we needed a break from the workout! Other invertebrates we collected included butter clams and various types of worms we haven't identified just yet. We took two salinity measurements at 25 and 27.

Returning from the field we set the specimens' new homes in the lab, hit the showers and headed into lectures by Dr. Sally Hacker and our guest from Dr. Weiss' lab, doctoral student Christine Schnitzler. We ended our day with a visit to our neighbors, the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

Time to take a breath. Sitting in the dark library I'm reflecting on the past week and I feel I could write an adventure novel on each individual day. I want to fill in every detail. What an amazing week. I can't believe I'm so lucky to be here. Not only are studying hands on and being taught by some of the worlds most famous scientists we also just inherited a whole new huge network of friends! We're getting to know each other better and are starting to settle in.

More to come. ~Micah

more photos on Picasa

2007-04-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

I am also posting photos on Picasa which you can check out at http://picasaweb.google.com/marinebiology450 and everyone can put pictures on there easily- just don't forget to put your name in the album title!! enjoy ~Lou

Web Photos!

2007-04-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

We'll be posting group pictures on Flickr.
Go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marinebio450/
to check out some pictures from the first week of classes.
More to come!

Cascade Head Hike

2007-04-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

Tuesday started off with a lecture on coastal geography. What better way to learn this topic, than to actually go out and see it? We rode off in our 12 passenger vans North, past Depoe Bay, past Lincoln City, to 3 Mile Road. We parked at the trailhead and set off on foot. Little did we know just how far we had to go.

The hike to the first viepoint was ok. Sally set a fast pace, practically running down the trail, making it hard for us students to keep up. Then there were a lot of stairs. I mean a lot. It was definitely at least 11 stories of stair climbing. My legs were on fire.

The scenery was quite nice though. Rich green foliage and the smell of coastal forest. It was good to be outside, even if we were literally working our butts off. Our counterparts back at Oregon State were sitting in desks, taking notes...while we were out hiking! We get credit for this? Excellent.

We hit the viewpoint and stopped to have lunch. Pictures abound. We took a group photo, or 6, as is the Hatfield tradition Sally claims exists. It was a pretty great view. We were right on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by protected grassland where an endangered butterfly lives.

Someone almost lost their bag over the cliff. It was all rather exciting.

Then the hard part came. The hike to the next viewpoint was grueling. Kudos to those who powered up the hill, but I felt more like I was plodding...one foot in front of the other. The older couple who jauntily strolled back down from the top made my question just how hard this hike really was...and how out of shape I really am. I checked the trail guide though and it is a pretty grueling second stretch. The first viewpoint was at an elevation of 520 ft. The second was at 1217ft. It was basically a set of switchbacks straight up the hillside. Not exactly a stroll in the park. I hope I can breeze up that bad boy when I'm 65.

The walk back down was far easier. On the way home we stopped in Otis at the Otis Cafe. We got pie which was for the impending discussion of our 60 pages of reading on coastal formation and plate tectonics. Of course, the pies were in the van with Sally, so we proceeded to taunt the pie-less van with signs saying things like "We have pie" and "You don't". All we needed was a good "Ne-ner Ne-ner" to top it all off.

That night we sat around and ate pie in the Dining Hall as we all got to know each other a little better. I know it was day two, but I swear there were people there eating pie that I had never met before. Maybe there were...we did show our "We have pie" signs to more than just the other van of students.

-Kristen

So lucky to be here

2007-04-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

So for the first day of class, we had three hours of welcome speeches and tours, a walk-about on the Wecoma, and a great lecture from distinguished professor Jane Lubchenco. The evening was completed by a delicious pizza dinner courtesy of Itchung. Most of the group migrated to the Rogue Brewery (just down the street!) for a little extra-curricular "team building" (hey, someone want to let me in on what happened there?) Anyhow, it was the best first day of school ever. The Wecoma was amazing, I'd do anything to get on that boat. Everyone was super nice to us and we have keys for the library and we pretty much feel completely honored to be here. We're gonna work hard to earn all the support these wonderful people are giving us. Yea for marine biology! ~Lou