My workload has definitely increased since before, and I’m really enjoying it! Autumn and I work on the mesocosms every day, checking the water quality of the eelgrass tanks and taking carbonate chemistry samples. We have also been given more responsibility in managing the Burke-o-lator, which is a carbonate chemistry instrument that quanitifes many different aspects of a water sample. The Burke-o-lator is named after Burke Hales at Oregon State University. It’s a state of the art instrument that, as of now, is only available for use in a few other laboratories. It was daunting to learn how to operate it at first, because each sample takes a while to run and you have to keep checking the internal wiring and making sure that nothing is wrong. When we started learning, our mentors were troubleshooting the instrument because one of the wires had sucked up water and the readings were all over the place, and so we were thoroughly warned about how to correctly operate it and to check for danger. We used to only run the Burke-o-lator when at least one of our mentors was present, but now Autumn and I trade off running it for the day and that way we can get a lot more done. I’m having a really great time learning about water chemistry!

Last week we also had a picnic for the rest of the Oregon Sea Grant Scholars and many past and present mentors were there. One of my mentors, Jim Kaldy, came and was able to meet everyone! It was a lot of fun – the food was so incredibly good. I had apple dumplings for the first time and I need to find that recipe. If this blog gets out to the owner of said dumplings, please know that they were divine and you are incredible, thank you very much. We also met some adorable puppies and walked along Beverly Beach, which is gorgeous.

Then we had a great seminar on what Soft Power is and how we can use it in our daily lives. The day after that we went on a camping trip to Rujada Campground in Umpqua National Forest, which was so incredibly fun! Honour taught us all how to make s’mores with Oreos and Reese’s peanut butter cups inside (there is a specific method, it’s scientific and the product is delicious), Naomi taught us how to skip rocks, and I jumped off a rock into very cold water and had a splash fight with a small kid who was playing nearby. I may or may not have used my long hair to my advantage and shaken it in order to splash him. It was an incredible weekend of hiking, falling in lakes on accident, jumping in lakes on purpose, amazing food, and wonderful company. Jenny Engels came along with us, drove us everywhere, and was such fun company! She was the first one to jump off the rock into the lake! On the way to and from the campground, we stopped in Corvallis to go grocery shopping and visited Tacovore, a taco restaurant in Corvallis, Newport, and Eugene. I had made a sandwich for lunch going there because I’m cheap, but the people who did eat there wouldn’t stop talking about their fantastic tacos, so we went on the way back and I have to say the tacos I had there were some of the best I’ve ever had in my entire life.

All in all it has been a very busy couple of weeks, and I’ve had a blast. I’m going to miss this place and these people so very much when I’m gone. There’s something magical about spending a summer doing research in beautiful Newport, Oregon. Everyone here is so funny, kind, and inspirational, and I’m loving every second.  

This past week has been very busy but very fun. I had a long week of field work but I saw and learned a lot. My research is going really well because I’ve managed to find 5 more parasites in my ghost shrimp samples. I was very happy to see that I was doing the digestion correctly and that all our hard work didn’t go to waste. Initially I was only able to see the parasite in the plastic cup that we did the digestion in but a lab member let me look at it under a microscope so that I could really see what it looked like. It looks like a little white worm that is constantly wiggling around.I can’t wait to do more field work and hopefully find more nematodes so that I can hopefully begin to figure out why they appear in these sites
We did take a break to have some fun during our trip and we stopped at the Tillamook creamery to get some fresh ice cream. I ended up getting a shake and I must say it was the best one I’ve ever had!

July 17^th, 2019:

Today officially marks one month of being a Sea Grant Scholar. This week is also the half way point of our program—5 weeks down 5 more to go! Crazy how fast time is flying—I swear just yesterday I met all the Scholars at the Corvallis orientation with super aesthetic donuts and banana bread.

Since my last blog, the “Intertidal Survey” baton has been passed down to me; I’m officially in charge of leading Intertidal Sea Star Surveys on my own! I’ve been training for this the minute I stepped foot in the Marine Reserves office—it’s super exciting to finally take on this responsibility. As the designated Intertidal Survey Leader, I’ll be recruiting volunteers and overseeing sea star data collection at both Otter Rock and Cascade Head for the remainder of the Marine Reserves’ low tide series. We record data on sea star species abundance, size (measured from the tip of the sea star’s arm to the middle of the body), and health; there are specific health affliction codes assigned to the varying degrees of SSWD disease symptoms (lesions, deflation, twisted arms, lost arms, disintegration etc.), and it’s our job in the field to categorize both the healthy and diseased sea stars as accurately as we can! Yesterday was my first day conducting the surveys at Otter Rock and it was a ton of fun. Autumn (my roommate and fellow Scholar) came to volunteer, and a few of us got waist-deep in water to record data in a tide pool that was washed by the tide (I had never even flooded a boot before this, so it was pretty fun to get wet in the field!) Tomorrow I’m doing the same thing with a different group of volunteers (including Suhn, another Scholar!) at Cascade Head—personally my favorite Marine Reserve :)

I’m just now realizing I forgot to give an update on my intertidal graveyard shift! This “shift” wasn’t technically a “shift” because it didn’t involve the Marine Reserves team nor my Sea Grant job at all; I was helping a CSUN graduate student, Jenn Fields (also stationed at the Hatfield Center), collect data and run water samples at Otter Rock. Let me begin by saying I have mad respect for Jenn and her project team—they pulled two intertidal all-nighters back to back, each time working for 8+ hours. Though we ended up working around 9-10 hours, pulling the all-nighter with them the first night surprisingly went a lot quicker than I had envisioned, probably because we were constantly kept busy. Overall, I’m really glad I went out to experience the rocky intertidal from dusk to dawn—can definitely say it was a “once in a lifetime” experience.

I’m not going to conclude this blog without an apartment-baking update; to add to the running list of baked goods, we have: a Dutch baby (a fluffy skillet pancake—I had never heard of this before Autumn) and homemade granola. Though this doesn’t exactly fall under the category of “desserts”, I’ve also been making myself skillet-popped popcorn every night from organic kernels I got from Oceana, the natural food store in town. Still, though, the salty/buttery combo contributes to the amazing “you-can-tell-we-just-cooked-something” scent perpetually wafting in our apartment. Continuing on the topic of food, Autumn and I went to the dock last weekend to pick up fresh Red Snapper from a boat coming back from a morning fishing trip! We both seared it on a cast-iron skillet and basted it with butter and fresh rosemary (courtesy of Autumn’s rosemary shrub she bought from the store). I can honestly say that meal made my list of Top 3 favorite fish dishes I ever had—will definitely buy fresh seafood from the docks again. If I’m feeling a bit more adventurous next time, I’ll buy a live Dungeness crab and attempt to prepare it!

I’m really looking forward to this upcoming week; the four other Scholars I haven’t seen since orientation will be joining us “Hatfield-stationed Scholars” for a beach picnic, professional development day, and a weekend camping trip! Will keep you posted on this action-packed week in the blogs to come! :)

This summer I am stationed in Charleston doing fieldwork with SEACOR, a project in the Marine Resources division of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. SEACOR conducts bay clam population and estuarine habitat studies in all of the bays along the Oregon coast. The primary focus includes “documenting where recreationally important bay clams are found and the abundance, biomass, and preferred habitat type for each species” (source: SEACOR website, click to learn more). Clams which are recreationally harvested are the main targets but information on other shellfish in the estuary is also collected. The SEACOR project is a unique and important project, contributing to conservation of estuaries and clam populations.

In order to obtain the data used for recreational clamming maps, including calculating clam population and documenting clam distribution, it is necessary to conduct estuary habitat surveys. Summer time is the season for field work, which is where I come in.

Conducting clam surveys uses two main methods:

• RAM- Rapid Assessment Method
• DAM- Detailed Assessment Method.

RAM allows for more sites to be surveyed because it is a quicker process than DAM. First, a square 1 meter area is marked off, then the habitat is examined in and around the marked off area. Observations are recorded, including eelgrass and algae cover, substrate type, number and type of burrow holes, temperature, and depth of anoxic (low oxygen) layer. Once all of that information is recorded the area marked off is raked by hand and any cockle or littleneck clams are noted. Some sites will have extra samples collected and will be revisited for a more detailed assessment.

DAM is a more time consuming and in-depth assessment of randomly chosen RAM sites. This method involves megacoring which means going out on a boat, lowering a steel ring into the ground, and vacuuming out everything inside the ring about a meter down. Specimens are collected, sorted, measured, all data recorded, and the specimens returned.

One of the biggest differences between the two methods is RAM has to be performed when the tide is low and the flats are exposed. DAM, because it requires a water vacuum the sediment, has to occur when there is at least half a meter of water over the site. DAM requires a dry suit because maneuvering the pump requires standing in water and the Northwest Pacific Ocean is cold. RAM requires waders and boots because it can be extremely messy. The SEACOR team has been awesome and has made sure I get to fully participate in both types of data collection. My first week was gathering information via RAM and it was MUDDY! Never having been on a tide flat or walked through a shrimp bed, I quickly realized you have to embrace the mud and get comfortable with being muddy. Once that happens, it is actually quite fun to play in the mud (though trying to walk through can be exhausting).

And to illustrate how muddy it can get, here is a picture of me in the mud after I lost my hiking boot in the mud. Ignore the weird face- I was talking and didn’t realize anyone was taking my picture!

My first week consisted of three days of RAM work and I was exhausted. Little did I know the next week would be megacoring, which is a different type of exhausting. It involves about six hours on a boat with a team of three people. Two people are in the water, one person maneuvering the pump nozzle and another person maneuvering the pump while a third person is on the boat sorting the sample collection from the previous site. Below is a picture of me holding the pump nozzle and dredging the site.

During the megacoring weeks, it has been interesting sorting through the samples and finding the crabs, clams, and shrimp collected. Everyone on the team has been quick to share their knowledge identifying what is dredged up so the sorting and measuring process has been great for learning to identify different the different types of shellfish in the estuary.

Next week is yet another new kind of data collection involving images taken by drones to map eelgrass habitats. I am excited to get to spend a week in the Tillamook area (I have never been there) and see firsthand how the data is gathered. Be prepared to read all about it in the next post!

Posted on behalf of Hannah Sinclair, 2019 Summer Scholar

Being here at the South Slough Reserve has been an interesting and exciting time! During my first week here my mentors Jamie and Deborah send me off to trail the researchers that work on the science projects here at the South Slough. On my second day here, I went with researcher Shon Schooler to see the work that they’re doing with Green Crabs. Schooler and his team have been monitoring this species to check their population growth and how they are affecting habitats in Coos Bay area. European Green Crabs are invasive species that affect many ecological communities around the world and over the last few decades, and they have hit the west coast!

My next day I went with Jenni Schnitt to see their work on Seagrass Net biomonitoring! The reserve monitors seagrass to check the well-being and health of Seagrass Meadows as seagrass provides essential habitats for many invertebrates here.

Later, the following week I went with Ian Rodger to help and understand the remarkable work on eDNA here at the South Slough.  As they’re using the information collected from eDNA to create a catalog of the species in the reserve as well as showing the tidal regime effects on eDNA sampling.

And lastly, I went with Alice Yeates to see their project on Eelgrass Monitoring as eelgrass has been decreasing in this area more and more, which has heavy impact on the ecosystem. Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Fish and wildlife, and the US environmental protection agency are working to create a map of the distribution of eelgrass throughout the Coos Bay estuary. Hopefully these new maps will show the progression of eelgrass coverage over the last couple of decades and what we need to do to protect it!

Tour of the Marine Reserves:

I am about halfway through my summer experience and so far I am loving Oregon’s southern coast!

The first week of my internship entailed a two-day tour of Oregon’s Marine Reserves. The first reserve I visited was the Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve in Port Orford. My supervisor and I then visited the Cape Perpetua Marine reserve near the town of Yachats. I learned the pronunciation of Yachats is Yaa-hots with a soft a sound, you may find this handy!

After visiting Cape Perpetua we continued northward to the other reserves. At each reserve we visited with community members who worked with the reserves. It was useful meeting in person with these individuals since establishing good contacts was one of the main components of this trip. While visiting the reserves, I took photos and videos that I am using in the courses. My favorite marine reserve is the northernmost reserve – Cape Falcon.

Here is a photo for reference:

A week later I found this photogenic guy at the same place:

Marine Reserve Modules:

Good progress has been made on the modules I am creating. Soon I am hoping to test the courses so that they can be evaluated by other interns or volunteers. I am expecting to spend lots of time editing and communicating with community partners until the finishing touches are done!

All of the courses make up the Oregon Marine Reserve Training Program. This program will allow people to earn a certification after they complete the program. For now, this certification process will target people working in the guide industry and people who work directly with the reserves.

I hope to exercise some of my creative abilities to create a logo for this program that could be used on stickers, pins, and other fun things that could help increase awareness for this program. I am excited to see how these coursesl turn out!

To learn about the marine reserves you can visit this website: https://oregonmarinereserves.com/

On Tuesday, June 18th the drive that I made from Corvallis to Cannon Beach was the farthest distance and longest time I have ever gone in a car by myself. If you are sitting in your car for hours back home on Oʻahu, it is not because of distance but because of traffic. The journey was exhilarating and a familiar playlist made the drive less scary. Any remaining anxiety was relinquished when I accepted that I would not be there in 3 hours due to traffic and areas where the speed limit was 35 mph. Though I passed many coffee shops and antique stores, I did not stop. The further I got, the more an overwhelming feeling of gratitude towards my Dad and Stepmom welled up in me, as I would not be experiencing such freedom without the car they lent me.

The view from the porch at my first residence in Astoria.

After arriving at Cannon Beach City Hall and getting set up in the office, Lisa took me down to the beach so I would know where to go the next morning for the beach shift. What surprised me was that I was not that cold. I have never been on the Oregon Coast before — that was the first time my feet touched sand in a week. The beach was so wide and the sand was so fine, I could immediately feel the difference between the quartz grains been my toes and the calcareous sand that I am used to. Though I wanted to stay and explore, my na’au (intestines, also gut, like gut-feeling) reminded me that I had not eaten in 5 hours and I would soon be dancing on the edge of hangry. Luckily my “work” day ended upon returning from the beach and I was free to go to the Farmer’s Market, which happens every Tuesday, to get some of the fish tacos I had already heard so much about before journeying on to Astoria where I would be staying for the rest of the week.

My first housemates…

As I continued north on the 101, the dependence of the area on visitors became apparent. Services and amenities that cater to tourists line the main highway and many signs announced camping sites. Astoria seems to capture many of the iconic features of the Pacific Northwest. Foggy, overcast and by the sea, it was difficult to not fall in love with the ambiance of the area. Over the weekend, I was able to attend the Scandanavian Midsummer Festival and experience some of the “local” culture. Tried pickled herring for the first and went back for a second helping. My stay in Astoria was short lived, however I plan on returning when I make the drive to Longview Washington to visit my paternal grandmother.

The five countries represented at the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival in Astoria.

My new lodging in Cannon Beach is incredibly close to work and Haystack Rock. I spied a beach access on my walk to Fresh Foods (to get what was probably the best strawberry rhubarb pie I have ever had — its the lard in the crust that really makes it!) and decided to check it out. From the beach access I could see Haystack Rock and thought “I can walk that far.” I was right — it only took 35 minutes and that was with stopping to take pictures of mole crab babies eating their parents and a decaying common murre. While I am staying so close to work, I will be walking to and from the office everyday for a morning and afternoon kilo (observation), respectively. These observations will provide material for my next blog, so stayed tuned to learn more about what washes ashore in the wrack line!

Gull foot prints above the high tide line.

So far my time here at Hatfield has been truly amazing. My roommates and I get along really well and I can always count on someone to bake wonderful pastries for us to eat. I’ve made a point to explore the city and my walks usually end with me grabbing some food from anywhere that catches my eye.

My research is going really well and my favorite part of it all is doing field work. At first I was a bit hesitant about rolling in mud but it has grown on me. The purpose of my experiment is to collect ghost shrimp from different sites in Willipa Bay to see if they contain a parasite that affects their behavior. The parasite comes out when it’s in the stomach of staghorn sculpins so in order to get the parasite out I have to recreate the stomach acid of the sculpin using a pepsin digest. I’ve completed a few digestions for my nematode project and I actually found the parasite we were looking for which was really exciting!! I can’t wait to finish all of my digestions and see the areas that the parasite occupies.

I absolutely love my lab because my lab mates and I are really close and we spend most of our time laughing rather than working. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer holds!

I’m writing this blog post sitting on the porch outside my apartment at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, enjoying an unreasonably beautiful morning. I’m giving my legs a chance to catch up to my tan arms, since I wear pants all the time for the lab. I can smell my roommate’s dutch baby pancake cooking in the oven, my sunscreen, and the sea. Who knew you could spend part of a summer doing research but still feel like you’re getting a much-needed break?

I’ve had many prior experiences working in science laboratories performing research, but being able to be an intern at the Environmental Protection Agency has given me a glimpse into many different avenues that I can take, and all of them make me really excited. I’ve volunteered with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife doing intertidal surveys documenting communities after the sea star wasting disease, I’ve spent days falling and crawling (but mostly falling) through mud flats to pick eelgrass and take water samples, and I’ve thrown (and then pulled back up) water quality instruments over bridges to collect samples of streams for laboratory testing. All of this has happened in gorgeous Oregon.

Pulling up a water sample to take back to the lab

I don’t think it’s possible to emphasize how incredibly kind and patient everyone has been. My mentors have spent hours training us and explaining the core concepts of their work. A lot of my work has to do with the estuaries in Newport, Oregon. The first time we went to the mud flats was to collect sand for the eelgrass we were going to get later during low tide. When we went to pick the plants, however, we found almost all of them were desiccated and showed signs of eelgrass wasting disease, a disease that caused a large eelgrass decline in the 1930’s. We took some back with us to study, but then when we went out again we found the eelgrass were much healthier. Some time later I went to Sally’s Bend with Dr. Fiona Tomas Nash’s team to document characteristics of the wasting disease as part of a project they were involved in.

So far I spend my days learning how to operate new instruments for water quality testing. In the morning and afternoon my colleague and roommate, Autumn Herrington, and I monitor and sample the tanks holding eelgrass we collected from the estuary. When I get home afterwards I go to the beach, just a few minutes of a walk from the dorms. I swear the beaches here are some of the cleanest I’ve ever seen – they are beautiful! I also take advantage of the kitchen and cook as many things as I can. So far I’ve baked a cherry pie for my roommate’s birthday, a carrot cake, banana bread, and banana muffins (with oats – see, I can be healthy), and cinnamon rolls. Luckily my roommates eat the food as well so I’m not tempted to eat everything myself.

South Beach, just a short walk from the dorms!

I’ve been an Oregon Sea Grant Scholar for four weeks. I love the work and the people I’m with every day, and I’m very excited for the rest of my internship.

July 10, 2019:

The timing of my previous blog post was a bit off sync, but now I’m finally up-to-date and writing in (somewhat) real-time. So much has happened these past few weeks that I honestly don’t know where or how to begin explaining it all. I guess I’ll start off with what I know best: DESSERTS! To keep you updated on my ~food and cooking endeavors~ at the Hatfield dorms with my roommates, I’ll disclose our running tally of baked goods thus far: cherry pie, carrot cake, banana bread, olive rosemary baguettes, strawberry rhubarb cobbler, cinnamon rolls, and banana oat muffins. At this point, the only thing we’re missing (and what I’ve been craving) is a chocolate-chip pizookie (for those who aren’t from Southern California—as I’ve realized it’s a SoCal thing (my roommates had no idea what it was)—a “pizookie” is a pizza cookie. You bake a massive-sized cookie in a skillet and put ice-cream on top: quite certainly my all-time favorite dessert). For the record, we bake everything from scratch (one of my cooking-connoisseur roommates came fully prepared with a separate suitcase packed with spices and baking ingredients, so our pantry’s fully loaded). Preparing these desserts from scratch means that each recipe comes with hours of planning, shopping, prepping, baking, cooling, and best of all: gorging. It also means that for an entire day, the apartment smells of melted butter and cinnamon, seasonal cut berries, fluffy, eggy, dough, and caramelizing brown sugar. Heaven or Hatfield? You tell me.

Autumn’s Olive Rosemary Bread

Autumn’s Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble (so so amazing)

Aside from all the baking, I’ve been incredibly busy in the field. As promised in my previous blog, I’ll elaborate now on my role as a Marine Reserves intern and the root of our efforts—monitoring Sea Star Wasting Disease (SSWD). First, let me paint a holistic picture of the rocky intertidal: when you think of sea stars, you think of cute, dainty, innocent little tide pool gems, right? Wrong—(well, at least for mussels, barnacles, urchins, snails and other intertidal critters who frantically flee at their sight).  Sea stars are considered the “Great White’s” of the intertidal—they’re the top predator of the intertidal trophic cascade. Since sea stars have such a strong top-down influence, they’re what you call a keystone species—when you remove them from their habitat (as ~80% of the sea stars were wiped out along the Oregon Coast in 2014 from SSWD) the dynamics of an intertidal community dramatically change.

Me with a rare Leather Star that was spotted along one of our sea star survey transects!

With all that said, I’ve spent a majority of my time this past week conducting field surveys with the Marine Reserves team, MARINe, and Bio Blitz—two other data collecting marine science groups. The data we collect from these surveys gives us insight on how the community dynamics have shifted since the devastating loss of sea stars in 2014. Are mussels and other prey proliferating in the absence of sea stars? Are there fluxes in juvenile sea star recruits? Are there new predators dominating the rocky intertidal? These are the questions we seek to answer!

Collecting data and admirin’ the rocky intertidal :)

This past Monday and Tuesday, we were up at 1:30 am cataloguing all the different species of intertidal organisms found at Otter Rock and Cascade Head. Running on 1 hour of sleep and working 8 hours in the field may seem like quite the task, but my sheer love for gumboot chitons, lemon peel nudibranchs, and celebratory group Pig N’ Pancake breakfasts made those early intertidal mornings some of the best so far. On Thursday I switched gears a bit—we took a break from intertidal surveys and worked off the ODFW boat! I helped a graduate student, Megan, collect juvenile rockfish off the coast of Cape Foulweather with SMURFS (Standard Monitoring Units for the Recruitment of Fishes). The SMURFS are large, plastic entanglements that are suspended a few feet below the surface of the water—when a juvenile rockfish swims through it, they hide and take refuge in their new “cozy condominium”. The collected juvenile fish are brought back to the lab for measurements, where the data is then used to create fishing stock projections–these projections are used to aid marine reserve and fishing preservation efforts. At each of the 8 SMURF sites, Megan and I would back-roll off the boat, snorkel to the buoy, swim down to the SMURF, and enclose it with a net. We would then swim the SMURF back to the boat and remove the juvenile fish. SMURF-ing is easily my favorite thing I’ve done so far—give me an excuse to ride a boat and snorkel and I’m here for it.

SMURFING with a SMURF!!

The MARINe and Marine Reserves teams finishing up transects at 5 am–almost done for the day!

As I speak, I’m preparing myself for THE ultimate testament to my love for field work: my first intertidal graveyard shift. It’s exactly what it sounds like—I’ll be in the field from 10pm to 6am. Will keep you posted on this hefty field day (*night) in the next blog–I’m leaving the office now so I can attempt to power-nap and power-chug some coffee!!