first day of class!

hi

2008

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!

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

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!

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