Last Days at Hatfield

Well, Hatfield ended about a month ago now, but I just realized I never told you all how it ended! During the last week my group mates and I diligently researched the Theory of Island Biogeography and its application to tidepools.

Basically, the theory is that the number of species on an island is related to the distance of the island from the mainland and the size of the island (makes sense right? larger islands can hold more species?). We measured and calculated the volume for 30 tidepools on the Oregon coast and then counted the number of invertebrate species in each of them.

On Thursday, we presented our findings in a research paper and in an educational forum open to the public and the scientific community (a whopping 8 people came not including our class and instructors). The project and presentation went really well (I got an "A" in the class!!). Even though we did not have a very large sample size, our study did show a positive relation between the size of our tidepools and the number of invertebrate species. Although the data pool isn't huge, this data can add to previous studies focusing on fish and algae diversity under the same circumstances and hopefully, eventually, prove the application of this theory to the rocky intertidal.

On Friday we celebrated the end of the term. Many of my friends from the class went on to great jobs and research projects this summer. Trista, Justin, and Kristen went on to work for a research group named PISCO (Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans) through OSU. Mike is studying marine iguanas in the Galapagos Islands with our former teaching assistant Luis. Esther is now the Marine Science Director at a Boyscouts Camp in Catalina. I am returning this summer to study Marine Mammals for two weeks with Jim (the crazy Figian at the top of the page).

Thanks for reading my site and sending me all of the great notes! See you this summer!

Darcie

Dead Whale

On Monday we drove down to the beach north of Seal Rock to see the 41-foot female grey whale that washed up Saturday morning. Surprisingly, it didn't actually smell that bad, except for the area downwind of the guts hanging out on the left side of the whale. So far, we haven't heard how the whale died. We do know that it died out at sea, the husband of a friend of ours actually saw it out floating in the water during a fishing trip a few days earlier. The guts hanging out are from a partial necropsy done by researchers from the OSU Marine Mammal Program. They also took a few sections of blubber from the whale that were several inches thick.

This is an image of the baleen that whales use to filter amphipods. A friend of mine took the same image the day before when the baleen stretched all the way across the mouth. In my photo you can see that most of the baleen has already been removed, which is actually pretty gutsy when you think about it. Because of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is illegal to be in possession of any marine mammal part (including teeth and skin) and it is also illegal to handle or damage a marine mammal without special permits. This one would be a double "no" because grey whales are actually endangered! If officials find out who took the baleen they face fines of up to ten grand!

Because of the dork that I am, I did have to stick my head in the whales mouth...don't ask me why. The whale was on it's back and actually was surprisingly tall, a good foot taller than I am. They estimated that it weighed about 8 tons.



This is a photo of my roommate and I sitting next to the tail. Most of the skin had already come off of it; it was peeling off like plastic. A lot of us have been discussing what you actually do with a dead animal of this size. We learned from Florence what not to do several years ago (if you don't know what I am talking about, go ahead and google "exploding whale video"). For this whale, a Newport pavement and driveway company received the contract to move and bury the whale (makes you think twice about that nice sand dune you sit on at the beach huh?). Later, they can dig it back up for the skeleton, which can be used for educational purposes.

Post script: Even though you couldn't smell the whale on 3 of the 4 sides, you could smell it several hundred yards away on the highway. We immediately washed everything that we had with us that day because we literally smelled like death...and fish.

Dune Day!

The best part about Hatfield was Dune Day, which we have been waiting for since day 1. Dune day started with a 3 hour drive out past Florence and a two mile hike across the dunes. The weather was awesome, but sand was still biting at our heels the entire way! For most of the trek we goofed around by jumping off of the crests of the dunes. This is also a great photo because you can see a lot of the changes that Oregon dunes gone through in recent years. Dunes used to be fairly fluid, with constantly moving sands, until the introduction of European dune grass. European dune grass was introduced on the Oregon coast to prevent sand from blocking river channels and roads. Unfortunately, it spread further than intended and disrupted sand movement across the Oregon Coast. At first it seems like it wouldn't be that important if the sand were not in motion, but because the movement of the sand was stopped, plants in addition to the dune grass were able to take hold. Today the forest and plants encroaching on the dunes invade an additional 22 feet of dune per year and with them bring a multitude of other organisms that wouldn't regularly be found in the dunes.

On our way to the coastline, we were still able to study the some of the original features of the dunes as well as some of the new ones. We saw these backwards, but it would probably make more sense if I described them to you from the coast to the forest. The first dune you come across when leaving the ocean is called a foredune, this is a low dune parallel to the water's edge. The dune is usually 20-30 feet high and is made of driftwood and sand. Today it is topped with dune grass (stabilizing it, remember?), which eliminates the ability of the dune to allow a natural sand source for the dunes behind it.


The next feature behind this dune is a series of hummocks, which are small mounds of sand formed around vegetation. Because sand is no longer supplied by the foredune and wind blows away the sand behind it, the next feature is a flat plain behind the foredune. This plain is called the deflation plain, where the sand has been stripped down to the wet sand underneath, and where even more vegetation thrives! Northwestern winds create a series of transverse dunes behind these which are formed perpendicular to the wind and typically crest at 5-20 feet high.


Once we got to the coastline we all dove into the Pacific, which was insanely cold!! Even though it is summer, this time of year we have upwelling on the Oregon coast so all the cold water from the bottom of the ocean is brought up to the surface. We dove under a few waves and then raced for the beach to get our core temperatures back up. Wren's fingers were white a lot longer than they should have been, but we got her warmed back up before we headed back over the dunes. Here is a picture of us huddling together to get warmed back up again.

Weeks of Catch-up Part 4: Salt Marshes

The second week of ecology was the best because Sally came back. Sally was our instructor for the first two weeks and by far our favorite. She was late for the field trip though, and being left alone in a gravel lot for an extra ten minutes forced us to find alternate means of entertainment. Good thing there were no hills in the parking lot!!!

Once she arrived, we headed out to the marshes where she taught us about the different tidal zones, the salinity differences between them, and the plant life. One of the plants was parasitic and looked a lot like orange silly string. It was everywhere! We also saw a lot of wolf spiders in the marsh. Many of them had eggs on their backs and we searched through the sedges to find one carrying their young (Baby wolf spiders will often pile onto their mother's back for protection).


One of the plants is commonly called pickleweed. It gets its name because it looks a lot like a pickle and is really salty. It is an edible plant and is classified as halophilic, which means, appropriately, salt-loving. Jim ate quite a few of these on our field trip, and quite a few plants that were not pickleweed before he realized his mistake in identifying the plant. So far he doesn't seem to sick so I am going to assume that the others were at least somewhat edible too!! (If you think he has a funny look on his face here, you should have seen the look on his face when he realized he was eating the wrong plant!)

Weeks of Catch-up Part 3: Marine Ecology

The first week of marine ecology was spent doing a lot of research "practice" and crunching a lot of data. At each site we did laid measuring tape across the intertidal and then randomly placed PVC squares with wire grids over the line. Everything in the grid had to be identified, counted (or extrapolated, barnacles can take a while to count), and recorded to give us a better idea of what lived in each zone and so that we were able to calculated species richness and abundance for the sites. We did LOADS of these. In short, we hated it. Which is probably why I can not find any pictures..

Weeks of Catch-up Part 2: Ten-mile Creek

Later that week we took a hike out to Ten-Mile Creek, a watershed that covers 15 thousand acres on the Oregon Coast. Besides being a gorgeous coastal temperate forest, this watershed is also the site of the Salmonoid Habitat Project, an ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) project that moniters fish populations.

This cool gizmo on the left actually catches all of the fish moving down the river and contains them in a pen that you can access by the square door that you see closest to you in the photo. The researchers on the project were telling us how frightening it can be opening that door though. They have caught live beaver in this trap before and even a dog (who did survive by the way). The wheel at the close end is to remove leaves and debri that might accumulate on the surface of the water in the cage. In in the photo on the right you can see the "dam" they use to ensure that all of the fish go through the device before heading downstream. Besides the occasional beaver they catch cutthroat, steelhead, coho, lamprey, smelt, and chinook salmon. They took many of these fish out and put them in a tank by the shore for us to look at. A sedative was put in the water so that they fish did not panic from being in such close quaters. Unfortunately, the sedative worked a little too well, we tried to attach the lamprey to our faces, but he was too drowsy to hold on ;(

Weeks of Catch-up Part 1: Foulweather Trawling

Hey Guys! As I was telling you in my last blog, part of our Marine Policy section was a trip to talk with local fishermen and their wives about their views on marine conservation and policy. To do this we paid a visit to a local Oregon company named Foulweather Trawl. This company manufactures fishing nets, cord, and twine and also does a number of fishing equipment repair. The owner and two wives of local fisherman gave us a tour of the facility, took us out to their husband's boats, and answered LOADS of questions from us.

My roommate Christine is standing by one of the nets they manufacture. They round grate you see in the middle is similar to a TED (turtle exclusion device). Because this net is used for shrimp, the shrimp can fit through the grate and into the end of the net (called the codend, remember?) anything bigger than a shrimp hits the grate and slides up, out of the net through a hole in the top.

Foulweather Trawling also taught us how to mend nets on our own. Here Kristen and I are testing it out ourselves, but some how I think our method could improve a bit. It sewing nets is fun for you though, you can do an unpaid internship of mending nets everyday for free (fun huh?).

One of the most remarkable things about seeing the nets was the size. Our tiny research trawl looked plenty big, but nets being set out to repair that are actually used on the coast were laid out over the entire parking lot. For example, remember the codend, the little funnel at the end of the net? This is a photo of the codend ALONE, no net attached. This is not a photo trick, the end of the net actually goes from the camera all the way out to the white van. To get an idea of how big the entire net is look at the diagram of a net from one of my old blogs and see where the codend actually is.

The next photo is of one of the trawling boats that we visited. We got a kick out of this guy because he was really excited about showing us "hookers" and "flashers", yeah we know its a fishing term, but that grade school humor never really seems to go away. One of the most interesting things about this visit was the reaction to Kulongoski's efforts to create a National Marine Sanctuary in Oregon. The fisherman said that they were in total support and that they cared about the health and population of the fish because they were their living. In the end though it was the answer that I expected, "just don't put them anywhere we fish." Is there anywhere that the "Not in my backyard" slogan can't go?

Ecosystem-based Management

This we are studying marine policy and management. The weather has been fantastic, but we have been stuck inside dutifully attending lectures...and more lectures...and more lectures. A lot of the material is on the establishment of marine protected areas and the reaction of the fishing community to marine ecosystem management.

We are also studying ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are the services provided by the environment (in this case the ocean) that don't have a direct value, yet. Many of these services are things like nutrient cycling, wave protection, and water purification. We don't realize how valuable they are until we start to lose them. For instance, at a site on the East coast the mountain ecosystem provided excellent water purification, but over the years the area has become polluted and eventually will no longer be able to provide the service. The cost of protecting and fixing this environment is $1 billion. BUT, the cost of building a manmade facility to perform the same function is up to $8 billion with an annual $300 million to keep it running.

Still, people are very hesitant to support protected areas because of the immediate short-term effects on the fishing industry, recreation, and property values. In the long run, protected areas will lead to larger fish who produce larger quantities of hardier young, but it will be a full generation to see the results. Many people are not willing to wait this long. Today we are going to the docks to talk to the fisherman's wives about how these topics effect their livelihood. I'm guessing they are not going to be too keen on the idea of protected areas either...

Testing

Well I just finished my final study session and am taking a little break before my fish biology lab practical and exam. I have studied really hard for this one, but still feel really unprepared. The section was great, but we got an entire term's worth of information on fish and it is hard to know which things to focus on when you have only one week. We have been catching lots of sculpin lately. This is a photo of my "yin and yang" sculpin that Christine and I caught at Strawberry Hill. Very Taoist, aren't they? The one on the right was particularly hard to catch. He wedged himself under a rock and after a huge length of girly squeaks I managed to pull him out. Needless to say , he wasn't very happy with me. He kept making this growling/croaking noise at me that sculpin do when they grind their teeth together. Here is a photo of me making it back at him. He is a buffalo sculpin and has huge horns on his head to prove it! Well, I better get to my exam, wish me luck!

Hey Guys! The next batch of pictures are finally in! This week we have been doing a lot of field work where we do abundance and diversity counts. Our first site was Yaquina Bay. We collected shallow bay fishes using a net called a "seine". This net has lead weights on the bottom, floats on the top and two poles, one on each end, to hold it by. To take samples with the seine, one person has to wade into the water as deep as they can go while the other walks along side the water's edge with the second pole.
Once you have gone a certain distance you bring the net in and collect all of the fish. In this field sample we found several silversides, chum salmon, bay pipefish, english sole, and several varieties of sculpin. This picture is of "Gary", a staghorn sculpin that we took back to lab. We are trying to feed him while we are studying him, but he is incredibly picky so he may have an early release. You can tell many sculpin species apart by pushing on the top of their head. Gary has three points that stick out when you do this, like a staghorn deer!


Our second field collection was aboard the Elakha. We were still sampling the Yaquina Bay, but this time we did it by trawling several meters down. Many of you have probably seen trawling nets before (a ton of zombie-like fish get stuck in one in Finding Nemo), but if you haven't, I found a great image on the web. On each side there are boards that are held "open" by the force of the water as the boat moves. This is so that the net stays open. Our net was a little different from this image. First of all it wasn't nearly as big, and second we didn't have (or need) a TED. TEDs are metal grates that help sea turtles escape the trawl nets in larger set-ups. The hydraulics on the boat do a lot of the lifting when the sampling is done, but the end part you have to pull up onto the boat by hand (notice that the girls are hauling in the net and the guys are watching...).


After we pull the net in, we do the same thing that we did with the seine. We remove the fish, record them, and release them back into the bay. I thought we would get much bigger fish when we used the boat, but the largest fish we got was a starry flounder (only about 10 cm). We did get a really cool snake prickleback though!

Boiler Bay...again!!

Hey guys! Tomorrow morning at 5:45 a.m. we are going to Boiler Bay yet again. Boiler Bay is a great tidepool site. We went there for invertebrates, visited again for algae, and tomorrow morning we will check the same site for fish. I think it will be a lot of fun, but I kind of wish we would visit some different sites so that I would know about more hidden tidepool areas that I haven't visited. Boiler Bay has its name because there was a huge ship wreck there and several parts are still wedged in the rocks around the time pools. This picture is the actual Boiler that the bay is named after, but there are also smoke stacks, and other rubble around the tide pools. More info later when the pictures from the trip are loaded into the computer. Good night!

Fishes

Hey Blogger fans! This week we are studying fishes. Weird fact too, if you have many fish of the same species the plural tense is fish, if they are many fish of the same species, then use fishes! On the first day we did a dissection. There were lingcod, rockfish, and greenlings. I chose a China Rockfish, which was great until we had to remove the otoliths! Otoliths are these small bony plates inside the fishes ears. You have to saw half way through the fishes skull and then bend it over like a hinge to remove them!!! Once they are out you can break them in half, heat them over a flame, and them put them under a microscope. By counting the rings on the burnt otolith you can tell how old the fish actually is (just like a tree, but a little more grusome!).

SUNLIGHT!!!

Most of our algae section was spent inside. The number of lab pages was bumped up from the 10 we had last week to 25!!! Over five hours a day in the lab was pretty much required to get done in time...I miss sunlight.













On Tuesday we went to the docks to collect samples of microscopic algae. We used three different methods to take samples. First, we had to dip a bottle on a stick (high quality scientific equipment here) into the bay to take a sample a meter down.





We also sampled with nets , the best samples being taken by the Hatfield Five, of course...

End of inverts, bring on the algae!

As you all know it has been a while since the last blog, but a blog without pictures isn't nearly as interesting, so here is the catch-up from the last week! We took a field trip out to the docks of the Historic Bayfront where we continued to look for new invertebrates to add to our collection. The main focus of our hunt was to find a few ctenophores, which are kind of like jellies. They are clear and have rows of cilia on their body which they use for movement. On my dive last weekend, Trista and I saw one that was at least four inches long, but at the docks we only found a tiny one, the size of a dime!

A lot of the week was also spent in preparation of our first exam and lab practicum. To study, we took a trip back to Strawberry Hill. There are so many inverts in the rocks that I never even noticed before this class! Our professor Sally would go from rock to rock, pointing out every invertebrate she found, while giving a review of the Latin names, life history, and taxonomic classification.




We also spent a lot of hours in the lab practicing our identification and completing our notebooks. This is a page from my notebook of a Hermissenda that we took back with us.

The exam was on Friday and we all did really well. I mixed up a few of my Latin names, but when you are learning over 75 in a week it is tough not to!!

Catching up!

It has been a stretch since the last blog because this last week was the end up our first section: Invertebrates. Mostly, this week was a lot of preparation for our first exam and our lab practical. But between all of the Latin and take-out food we did manage to still see a few cool things!

On Monday we attended a guest lecture by researcher, Sylvia Yamada. Sylvia took us all out to Yaquina Bay where we collected the crab traps for her current research on the European Green Crab, an invasive species that starting to show up in Pacific Northwest estuaries. This first picture is one of the other crabs that was in the pot. It is difficult to see the anatomy in this picture, but I think it is a Red Rock Crab, Cancer productus.

This is Sylvia with a male crab from the trap. You can tell which crabs are male and which are female by the shape of the plate between the legs. Long and thin is a male, squat and triangle shaped is a female. Unfortunately, (or fortunately I guess) we only got two European Green Crabs because of the storm we had over the weekend!

On Wednesday night we had our Invertebrate and Dessert Extravaganza. Everyone had to do a presentation on a certain invertebrate, the more entertaining the better. My group did a "build your own nudibranch workshop". The photo below is my roommate Kristen with one of the edible "nudis".


The other skits were fantastic too. Mike wrote a song about sea urchin to the Tenecious D tune "Kickapoo" and played it on his guitar. Dan and Robbie dressed up as a sea anemone and a zooxanthelle. Lotti and Skylar performed "Eat It", their version of Michael Jackson's "Beat It", about the feeding behavior of the sunflower seastar.

After all of our study sessions the exams felt like they went pretty well, but we don't have the results yet. We finished the week with a crab bake hosted by our professor, Sally.

I hope you all enjoyed this week's blog! Tune in next week for our new topic: Phycology!

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter Everyone! While you are all eating your hardboiled eggs, we are studying hard learning latin names and phyla for every specimen we have collected, which reminded me that some of the lingo I have thrown out here might be a little confusing. First of all, nudies. Although both kinds are equally fascinating, this is a "nudie."



His name is Hermissenda crassicornis and he grows to be about 3 inches long. Even though he is really cute, he is a voracious eater, ill-tempered, and a cannibal! He is also my favorite critter so far. I had never seen these in a tidepool before, but now that I know what to look for I find them EVERYWHERE!

Second, this is my class:


Everyday we have a field trip of some sort, 2 lectures, a lab, and a beer (or two). Unfortunately for me though, I just made a deal with Chris that everyday he runs a mile, I will turn down a beer. So, if these field trip stay as strenuous as they have been we will both be in shape by the wedding! In all, there are 20 of us, all from Oregon State, but originally from Hawaii, Alaska, Cali, and even Figi.

Mud Flats on the Bay

Here are some excellent pictures of our latest fieldtrip to the mudflats! We went out with buckets, and tools to collect samples.


In the mudflats you lose your shoes fast and will probably end up at least hip deep in sludge. For some of us this meant wear waders, but Jansen took the speedo approach!






This piece of gear is kind of like a five-gallon metal bucket without a bottom. You stand on it and shake your hips until it sinks all the way down into the mud. Afterwards, you can dig it out without your specimens getting away!














Mmm..

Shrimp





How to have a fantastic mud fight:
Step 1: Find a victim, preferably a clean one
Step 2: Do NOT try to run away, this will only make you a bigger target
Step 3: Stay standing...once you are down, it is all over
Step 4: Celebrate!