Week 8: The Final Countdown - Research Projects!

Week 8: The Final Countdown - Research Projects!

Monday 05/20

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

A group dissecting mussels to study microplastics.

Tuesday 05/21

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

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

Wednesday 05/22

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

A pipefish monitoring experiment underway.

A group getting ready to head out for project collections!

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

Thursday 05/23

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

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

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

Friday 05/24

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

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

Eric Cole with a Carcinus maenas posing for its close up

Week 9 - Group Research Projects Week 1

Monday, May 28

Memorial Day! No classes, but a few research groups started their research projects over the Memorial Day weekend.

Tuesday, May 29 through Friday, June 1

After a relaxing three-day weekend for most of the BI 450 students, group research projects commenced on a round-the-clock basis. Throughout the rest of the week, groups worked independently on various research projects. The projects were a little shaky at the start but the problems were ironed out as the week progressed. Most of the research projects involved research in the rocky intertidal region, the BI 450 laboratory, or in Yaquina Bay. Yaquina Bay, Oregon is a small drowned river estuary that contains various river channels, a slough, and tidelands. The main channel of the estuary is annually dredged starting between the jetties and continues toward the river mouth to a particular distance. Yaquina Bay experiences seasonal upwelling and downwelling events throughout the year.

Here is what all BI 450 students did throughout the week:

Andy and Nikki went out to various field sites looking for zonation patterns of Hemigrapsus nudus and Hemigrapsus oregonensis in the rocky intertidal region. In addition, they were comparing the two Hemigrapsus species to each other to observe if they compete with one another.

Nikki  in the rocky intertidal using a transect and quadrat
to look for zonation patterns of Hemigrapsus spp.

Hemigrapsus nudus perched on top of Mytilus californianus

Billie and Elizabeth conducted three temperature treatments on four species of coralline algae to determine how warming oceans affect turf algae in relation to ocean acidification.

Bleached Corallina vancouveriensis

Billie and Elizabeth's temperature treatments in the BI 450 lab

Alexa and Erica had many sleepless nights deploying and retrieving zooplankton light traps off of a dock in front of the Hatfield Marine Science Center. They were looking for a correlation between zooplankton diversity, tidal state, and the lunar cycle.

Erica holding up a zooplankton light trap on the dock in
front of the Hatfield Marine Science Center

Crab megalope larvae under a dissecting microscope

Andrew and Beth used Potassium Hydroxide to liquefy Nucella ostrina and Mytilus californianus in order to quantify the microplastics found within each species.

Beth and Andrew's experiment samples

Simone set up a feeding study to determine what Hermissenda crassicornis prefer to eat. While Alex ran a feeding study on Carcinus maenas to determine prey preference between whelks and Mytilus trossulus.

Alex's feeding experiment on Carcinus maenas in the BI 450 lab

Throughout the week, Kris and Caroline got up at the crack of dawn to conduct community surveys on fish species found in both the invasive eelgrass Zostera japonica and the native eelgrass Zostera marina.

Sydney and Milan looked at chaetognatha abundance at various locations along the West Coast using old NOAA trawl samples. While Bri and Lisa tested the aggression level of various crab species in response to the presence or absence of female pheromones.

Bri holding a male Cancer magister in Yaquina Bay, Oregon

Bucket full of Cancer magister and Cancer productus

By the end of the crazy and tiring week with many sleep deprived students, we had reached the mid-way point of the research projects and nearly all experiments were concluded.

Week 8: Community Ecology Papers and Presentations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Week 9: Individual Research

Week 9 marked the beginning of our individual research projects. The long weekend served us well as optimal low tides allowed for ample time of marine sampling in the intertidal. With lectures and exams finished, individuals and groups visited Boiler Bay, Tokatee Klootchman, Yachats Beach, and many other coastal sites to begin answering their research questions. Some projects include topics like gastropod abundance on varying algal species, factors influencing crab claw strength, density of Katharina around Saccharina beds, and the effect of parasitism on Upogebia pugettensis; a type of mud shrimp. The two week effort is to be concluded by the construction of a research paper and presentation open to the public. Symposiums will be held June 9th at the Hatfield Visitor Center.

Alanna and Sonora spend their morning moving 90 lb crab pots for their experiment at Tokatee Klootchman. All smiles :)

Haley and Tyler's urchin feeding experiment involving inclusion and exclusion of Pisaster.

The quick segue into the middle of the week dampened the responsibilities of field work and demanded attentive lab time. As if overnight, the lab was transformed from its dull, empty state to a factory of engineered curiosity. Previously bare bins now held an abundance of creatures of the intertidal, from sculpins to sea stars. Many of us carefully ran through trials of experimentation and intrigue. With minimal casualties, experiments started to fall into place.

Kate and David patiently observe feeding preferences of Pisaster in their handcrafted Y-maze. Troublesome sea stars were aptly nicknamed "Steve".

Sierra looks into shelter material preferences of tidepool sculpins.

In an interesting turn of events, the first octopus of the course was found! It is hypothesized that this is a young Enteroctopus dofleini. Sonora and Alanna found the little guy in a tide pool at Manipulation Bay.

A momentary greeting occurs.

Octopus are very smart and strong creatures. They can fit through almost any crevasse large enough for their beak. Interestingly, the arms of the octopus contain two thirds of their neurons. This makes the arms somewhat autonomous - they literally have a mind of their own! Disc-like suckers lining the arms can taste and smell anything they touch, allowing them octopus to sense nearby prey. When this juvenile octopus grows up, it can have up to 280 suckers per arm. That's like having 2240 mouth-noses. Best of luck to you, small friend!

A baby seal hangs out in the high zone of Fogarty Creek.

By the time Thursday had arrived, most groups were finishing their data collection. With the help and guidance of some awesome TAs, students began running (and troubleshooting) statistical analyses on software programs such as RStudio and Microsoft Excel. For some of the students, this was their first time working with statistical softwares such as R, but individuals quickly became accustomed. Many cups of coffee and tea were consumed in this phase of the research.

Chris outwits RStudio to form an ANOVA table.

A feast of freshly caught crab to end the week! 

In attempt to unwind after many hours spent on research, we closed out the week by spending an afternoon cooking crab! Students who spent the better part of the week catching crab wrangled their test subjects into pots and even grabbed enough crab for the whole class to enjoy. Specimens that weren't consumed were safely returned to the intertidal. Who knew science could be so delicious!

Friday also brought a bout of sunshine, which had many students basking in the sun all afternoon. It was truly a wonderful way to ring in the weekend.

Week 8: Policy and Independent Projects

Enjoying the sun and spectacular view on Cape Perpetua while on the lookout for whales.

We started off the week with a beautiful hike at Cape Perpetua. Paul Englemeyer led us up to the top of Cape Perpetua and talked about Oregon’s marine reserves and conservation policies. His work involves rehabilitation of old growth forests for birds and stream restoration for salmon and other fish. We took a moment to whale watch from our high vantage point, but had no luck. However, a few sea lions were spotted playing in the water! We then walked along the Ten-Mile Creek trail, stopping from time to time to enjoy the scenery and talk about efforts to restore and protect the plants and animals in the area. We ate lunch along the creek and some students practiced their rock skipping skills while others waded into the water to cool off.

Hiking through the old growth forest at Ten-Mile Creek

Dr. Sarah Henkel and Paul Englemeyer showing us a map of northwest rivers and the health of the watersheds. Most of them (in red) have poor water quality.

Redfish Rocks, one of the first marine reserves in Oregon.

Oregon marine reserves are managed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. These sites are dedicated to research and conservation, prohibiting all removal of species. The protected areas range from 3 sq km to 36.5 sq km. The first marine reserves became protected in early 2012 with the newest addition at Cape Falcon, in 2016, for a total of five along our coast. Each reserve has different attractions, from hiking trails, to sea lion caves and lighthouses. Despite their differences they all give  unique views of our beautiful coastline.

On Tuesday we went down to the docks to meet up with Laura Anderson, the owner of Local Ocean Seafoods. She took us to the docks where we talked to some fishermen about their work. They told us about the various regulations placed on the fish they were catching and showed us what types of gear they used to catch different types of fish. Afterwards we filed into Local Ocean to enjoy a delicious lunch! Once back at Hatfield we had lectures on tools used to aid fisheries management and  science policy. Thanks to the great weather we were able to sit out on the grass for a discussion on science, policy, and ethics. During the discussion we talked about ways to communicate science to the public, career ideas in the field of marine biology, and the difficulties of writing research papers.

I’M ON A BOAT

Food is life.

Wednesday was our final day of class. We had lectures about aquaculture and wave energy in the morning and gave group presentations in the afternoon. These were different than our normal presentations because we had to pick a non-science audience (i.e. state lawmakers) and provide non-partial information about a current issue to guide their decisions. It was more challenging than we expected to provide options without “telling them what they should want to do.” Regardless, communicating science to non-scientists is important and we need to learn how to do it effectively.  We also wrote practice op-ed articles about our presentation topic. It was a long day, but none of us could believe that eight weeks have flown by and we only have two left!

Dana and Melissa presenting about plastic pollution in the ocean.

Thursday we decided on our final research project ideas and discussed them with the teachers and TA’s. They helped us hammer out kinks in our methods or steered us in the right direction if we weren’t sure what question to explore. After the meetings we started writing our proposals, which were due at 5:00 pm, leaving us only a few hours to finish! Several of us got up early to collect organisms for our projects, taking advantage of some of the lowest tides of the entire year. The tidepooling was excellent!

Science has begun!

Friday kicked off the start of our final research projects! Many groups took advantage of the low tide and were out in the field by 6:00 am conducting surveys or collecting organisms. The sunshine was worth the early start!

By: Katie, Miranda, and Melissa