Week 4: The true meaning of Glory

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On Monday (my day off) I spent a few hours helping out with a “fish cutting party” that was be hosted in the NOAA building.

On Tuesday the aquarists took nearly all of the steelhead out of the “Open ocean” exhibit to see if that would stop the herring mortality’s. There has not been a herring mortality since then. We mostly worked on our projects that day and finally opened one of the wave tanks (the erosion tank) to the public. The exhibit seems to be quite popular. I got the idea for testing how a large sand dune might be able to dampen the effect of a tsunami. To test this i created an artificial sand dune (made of 50% sand and 50% glue) that i plan to coat with a varnish (for water proofness) for the tank.

On Wednesday I did an estuary walk at 11AM and later me and Brian tag teamed the Ocean Quest presentation. I also got to spend a lot of time manning the touch tank on Wednesday. We also attempted to get a video that i had downloaded (of Mt. St Helen’s erupting) to run on the ocean quest. For some reason it runs so slow that it just looks like a still picture (oh well). The day before we switched Squirt (our octopus) with Aurora. Aurora is much more shy than Squirt was and seems to be having trouble acclimating.

On Thursday I did another estuary walk . Later on i talked to mark about some of the building materials that i would like to have (ie. legos) for the tsunami tank and if there was a good place in town to buy them in bulk. Instead he just told me that i could buy whatever i needed off of the Lego website as long as I kept it under $100 (Alright). The tsunami tank has recently been having endless computer glitches that we are still trying to work out.

On Friday I did my first solo ocean quest. Fortunately (or unfortunately) only two people showed up for it.  Aurora finally came out from hiding in the corner (which was exciting for people) and explored the rest of the tank. The erosion tank while popular as proven to cause quite a mess when kids end up spilling sand and water on the floor. We are think of making some modifications to prevent this.  I decided that i did not want to run all the way back to my dorm to get a quick snack so I ended up buying some “astronaut ice cream” from the gift shop (or as what most people refer to it as, “chalk”).

On Saturday I did the estuary walk again in addition to Ocean Quest in exchange for taking a longer lunch break. Saturday was not as busy as it has been in the past (likely due to the county and country fairs). We also had to cover up the octopus tank due to the high amounts of stress that Aurora seemed to be under going. We will probably have to take her off of the exhibit and put Squirt back instead. We were able to get off at 4:15 that day in order to attend a barbecue for all of the visitor center volunteers. Good food, good time.

Surveys!

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This week, I added a new element to my job as I started conducting intercept interviews. These interviews basically consist of me walking up to visitors at the sites where I conduct pressure counts and asking them if they would be willing to take a survey on the place that they are visiting. The survey is very short and has many questions about distance traveled, travel cost, and opinions and general knowledge on marine reserves. Although the survey is very brief, it still allows ODFW to extract a lot of data about the type of people that visit the marine reserves and how they would be affected by the implementation of the reserves. The data can also be further analyzed for impacts on the local economy.

So far I think the surveys have gone much better than I was expecting. I was able to fit in 33 surveys over two days, and I have hardly ever been turned down. It’s so nice to be able to talk to people while I am in the field, and most of all I think it has given me an appreciation for being able to live on the coast this summer, because almost everyone gushes to me how much they love the area and how far they have traveled to enjoy it!  I have even surveyed people from as far away as Germany and France! I also encounter the occasional odd person,which helps make the day more interesting. One man tried to tell me all about his 5,000 year old pinniped tooth that he had found in the area previously and bragged that Cape Perpetua is the most bio-diverse place on the planet…I will have to do some fact-checking on that one haha. Another man lectured me that the marine reserves won’t solve the problem, because the problem is the ethics of the humans species….I just stand there and nod for these conversations.

I now wear a brown ODFW jacket for my job as well, which resulted in my question-load doubling because many people mistake me for a ranger. Luckily, I spend so much time in the area that I feel like I can answer most of the questions! I have learned that creating and conducting surveys for social science is actually very difficult, but luckily my mentor has had a lot of practice so I can avoid a lot of first time mistakes. All of the answers for each questions must be coded numerically so that the data can be quantitatively analyzed. I must also work hard to avoid bias while I am giving the survey, so when people try to have a conversation during the survey or pry me for more answers, I have to keep them focused. I am hoping that I can get in about 100+ surveys during my time at Cape Perpetua to give ODFW a really good idea about how people interact with the areas slated to become marine reserves.

 

Crabs revisited, carpentry, and a BBQ.

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Last week was pretty mellow and represented what one might call “more of the same,” but not in a bad way. In my last blog post I wrote that I was excited to begin my cockle project in earnest this past week. Well, turns out I got my dates mixed up, because that’s actually happening this coming week.

The week started off with some light carpentry work at a storage space in the marina. ODFW will be moving some supplies (boat, crab traps, waders, misc. tools) from one storage garage to another, and we needed to build some shelves to accommodate the gear. It was simple construction involving electric screwdrivers and circular saws and served as a reminder that jobs in fisheries science aren’t always spent in the lab or in the field. It’s important to have a variety of skills in any profession, I think, and be prepared to use them when circumstances demand. The rest of the day and much of Tuesday was spent in front of the computer practicing my GIS and database skills. Scott introduced me to a series of nautical charts from NOAA called S-57 charts. They’re fairly powerful in that dozens of geographic features can be added or eliminated to create a chart that’s suitable to one’s needs. I had to download an add-on for ArcGIS in order to use the charts, and after some initial frustrations was successful in getting it to work.

The rest of the week involved revisiting the Red Rock crab (Cancer productus) life history study. After some exploratory analyses, it was determined that we need more data, so on Wednesday Scott, Jim (another shellfish biologist at ODFW), and I re-deployed the crab traps in Charleston marina in an effort to capture more crabs for tagging. We set 13 traps throughout “A-dock” in the inner boat basin. Thursday and Friday mornings were spent measuring, weighing, and tagging crabs just as we had the previous week. By now I’ve gotten pretty efficient at it, and it’s something I’ve developed a real enjoyment for. I’m very interested to see how the data will pan out towards the end of the year.

On Wednesday one of the biologists brought his grill to work, and we had a cook-out for lunch. Burgers, hot dogs, salad, halibut—all the basic necessities were there. I have to say that I’ve been eating quite well here in Charleston. OIMB employs professional chefs who always produce wonderful feats of culinary creation. I don’t think we’ve had the same thing twice yet. Thumbs up to the meal plan.

This week’s agenda includes urchin sampling and the beginning of my cockle study (for real!). Cockle sampling will occur Wednesday through Friday, and since I will be in Corvallis on Friday for midsummer check-in, Scott says he’ll recruit an extra person to help gather data. Looking forward to more exciting experiences with ODFW. Will hopefully have more photos to share.

Wave tank extravaganza!

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Who knew that my wave tank would cause such chaos?!? This past week we opened up the erosion wave tank to the public with certain items such as large rocks to represent rip rap, bags of gravel to represent dynamic reventment, plastic vegetation, legos to represent a seawall.  There were also a small squeegee to design the sand with and to move the sand from one end of the tank to the other end.  I wasn’t sure if we should open it to the public yet because there weren’t any signs around or directions really and there weren’t any containers for the objects.  In addition, 2 school groups with 20 kids each ranging from 1st graders to 6th graders were going to use the tank when it first opened.  Oh Man, it was crazy!!! Kids were created such imaginative things in the sand that I wouldn’t even be able to think of it.  Their minds were amazing and I was happy I got to see them at work.   I was a lurker this past week to see how different people used the tank and I got some great feedback and notes on it.  Overall, this past week I’ve been working at the front desk and touch tank most of the day while doing estuary tours and the Ocean Quest presentation.  One of the main fun things I did was go to the Volunteer and Staff picnic where I got to talk to volunteers and staff a like in a more casual setting with good food and good conversation.  I had a blast and got some terrific leftovers like awesome tuna stakes and hamburgers plus dessert.

It looks like Aurora the octopus is adjusting to the tank in the visitor’s center.  She is showing small signs of stress.  We have her shrouded and in the dark to try and help her but it makes it hard for the visitor’s that come specifically to see the octopus or feeding it.  We had to cancel the feeding this past Saturday which upset some people, but most understand that Aurora is a live animal, not our pet.  Hopefully we can help her and make her feel more at home :)

Tomorrow, I will be thoroughly working on my wave tank.  I’m gonna try some new methods with the tank like putting in new ramps to distribute the sand or new toys that will be more durable in the tank for kids of all ages.  I  went to the Lincoln county festival and it wasn’t too shabby.  I got some good fair food, saw a few animals and rode a few rides.  Overall, for the $5 admission fee, it was worth it.  Also, I got sleep in on my weekend (Wednesdays and Thursdays) as well as go to seal rock and the historic bayfront of Newport.  My next stop at the Bayfront will be local ocean, because I love seafood and I hear it’s the place to go.

Week 4 – Giant Pacific Octopus, and gearing up for planning session

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This week I was actually on vacation most of the time. I took my kids to Seattle with various stops on the way up and back.  One gem that I originally didn’t think was going to be that amazing was the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville Oregon.  They have the actual Spruce Goose!  It was HUGE.  We even got to go up into the cockpit which I found quite exciting, and my 4-year-old did too until we had to go back down the skinny, steep stairs.  I have a post on BioGeoNerd.blogspot.com about the places we went to if you’d like to hear more about it (and see pictures which I should have up by Monday I hope).

I worked in the visitor center today for part of the day, helping to open and close.  Aurora, the Giant Pacific Octopus who was moved to the front this week, was having a hard day and had the shades put up all around the tank. I hope she will be okay soon. It must be scary to be in such a new place with all these people staring at you. The octopus is really the central exhibit for the VC. Not only is it literally in the center, but many people come mainly to see the octopus. Naturally, they were rather disappointed. I think also the fact that the octopus at the aquarium across the street is always hiding in a dark corner and the exhibit itself is in a dark corner, probably draws people to Hatfield even more. Here they can (usually) get a much better look at this beautiful animal.

I opted not to go to the volunteer barbecue which I’m sure I’ll regret but I had a ton of laundry to do and wanted to catch up on some research after being gone most of the week.

This coming Monday I will have the chance to meet with my mentor Nancee Hunter as well as Shawn Rowe and Mark Farley to go over the plans for the Climate Change exhibit. It’s my opportunity to present the things I’ve researched and then, as a team, we’ll discuss the desired direction of the exhibit. I’m looking forward to working with these great people and getting their feedback and ideas. It will be great to have some concrete direction on the exhibit. I look forward to sharing the valuable information I’ve gathered and fully participating as a member of this team.
I’m gaining a cornucopia of experiences on this internship and I will walk away from this summer having made great connections and refined my skills in teamwork, creativity, organization, interpretation, presentation, and more.

Let me tell you a bit about presenting

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WEEK 3 and the VC is running about as smoothly as it possible could considering we are implementing a state of the art wave tank for the public.  Much of the week was spent brainstorming ways to create an erosion exhibit friendly to both children, adults, and grandparents.  The idea is that the public will create their own erodible beach and see how different structures on the beach are affected by waves.  We are playing around with miniature jetties, trees, dynamic revetment, etc.  It’s all pretty fun and nearly all of Tuesday was spent playing with sand and Legos.  Not to shabby of a day if you ask me.

Our new octopus, Aurora, was moved from the back to the front tank on Sunday.  Pearl was released because she laid a couple thousand eggs.  Normally octopuses stop feeding after the lay eggs but that wasn’t the case with Pearl.  The aquarist and the vet decided because she kept feeding she would still be a reproductively viable female in the wild.  Aurora spent much of Sunday exploring the much larger tank in the VC.  It was really fun to the curiosity get the best of her.  She was playing around with the anemones and quickly found out they sting.  Today the aquarist turned off the lights above the tank and put a shade on one side of the tank to give her a break from the public and allow her to acclimate to the environment.

The most interesting part of work right now is Ocean Quest, our 30 minute presentation on deep sea volcanism off the Oregon Coast.  The powerpoint has been a work in progress…first we have to learn about this stuff, then present it, and finally reevaluate to see what parts of effective and which are not.  We worked out a lot of the kinks with the initial powerpoint and now have one that is more relatable to people of all ages.  The most valuable lesson learned this week: know your presentation before you give it.

Week 3: Happy 4th!

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Well first of all, happy belated Fourth of July! This past week I spent time further analyzing the data from the first run through of the experiment, while also doing all the preparation necessary to start it up again. Interestingly, a test used to more accurately measure chlorophyll (a different test from the initial results) showed less confidence in our data set. As a consequence we have decided to add another replicate to each treatment. For those keeping track at home, the math now changes to 4 x 4 x4 or 64 bottles floating around in our little mesocosms. I won’t bore you with the details, but this significantly adds to the work involved in running the experiment.

I promised last week to discuss the consequences of nutrient limitations in estuaries, so lets delve into that a bit. Nutrient limitations of phytoplankton are an interesting topic of discussion. You may have heard about two relatively popular topics in the media related to these ideas. These are iron fertilization and the dreaded “dead zones.” These topics show the potential benefits of understanding nutrient limitation, and also the potential for havoc. They are two sides of the same coin. Iron fertilization seeks to enhance phytoplankton blooms in an under productive area of the ocean in an attempt to remove carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. In these areas, iron is largely seen as the limiting nutrient. “Dead zones” in contrast to the less productive open ocean, usually occur in the productive areas and result in eutrophication. Eutrophication is the direct result of an abundance of the nutrients in a system. These nutrients may come from natural processes like upwelling events and nitrogen fixers, but also from human wastes. These nutrients, in contrast with the iron limited open ocean, are largely nitrogen and phosphorous. Eutrophication decreases the available dissolved oxygen in the water as an abundance of phytoplankton bloom and ultimately die like all life on earth. This decrease in available oxygen is the reason for the term “dead zone.” As you can imagine, a decrease in available oxygen is undesirable for marine ecosystems.

So what does all this mean for Oregon’s estuaries? Well, if out of our 64 bottles a treatment shows a significant response for say phosphorous or “P”, we know that region is phosphorous limited. For an agency like the EPA, this directly translates into tools for management and policy. My advisor is  working on tools for scientists from states throughout the country to be able to identify conditions in which nutrient limitations may be a factor. Regulations may also be crafted to prevent phosphorous wastes in fertilizers and other sources from polluting aquatic systems and ultimately harming species by depleting the available oxygen.  And so, while I spend my hours of the day pulling bottles out of a tank and doing science on them, I can take pride in knowing that yes, this matters. Alrighty, that’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next week in which I may have some more results from the experiment! Here’s hoping for clarity!

Workshop Happenings

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This last week planning for the upcoming workshop really took off. I soon found out how easy it is to miss an important message or reply in a string of 20 emails, and how complicated collaborating and communicating with people across the U.S. can be.

I spent the first part of the week catching up on the last week’s email communication and keeping my eye on any emerging tsunami marine debris/invasive information, mostly because the entire steering committee still wanted to wait on any word from D.C. about the proposal. As confirmation about its acceptance filtered through, plans to get the formal invites out began.

The second half of my week I worked remotely with a Knauss Sea Grant fellow on amending the invite list, and then with others to draft an invite letter and modify it according to the steering committee’s wishes. After a conference call to nail down some important details, I began work personalizing each of the invites (some 90!). The hope here was to reduce transmission of invite letter around to other non-invitees, simply because while interest in this topic is high, a productive workshop cannot be held with hundreds of people trying to contribute.

The invites are due to go out early this week, and then work keeping track of RSVPs will begin, as well as figuring out the best ways to compensate participants for travel, and also allocate funds for facilities, refreshments, AV equipment, and more!

How to weigh and measure a gaper clam

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After spending 3 days this week digging up gaper clams (Tresus capax) to weigh and measure, I’d like to think I’m an expert. So here’s a how-to for what I was doing most of the week!

Step 1: Find your clam! Gapers have fairly large siphon holes and you can feel their siphon retract when you stick your finger in the hole (also called a show). They can be found in sandy areas about halfway down the tideflat.

Step 2: Dig it up! Gapers are one of the hardest clams to dig up because the actual clam body is found deep under the sand, sometimes over 2 feet under. My team used a combination of shovels, shrimp guns, and hand digging to get them out. But be careful! Their shells are surprisingly fragile.

Step 3: Measure them! We take a length and a width measurement of the gapers. For length, you start at the siphon edge (the flat edge of the shell on the left in this picture) and travel across the valve (single shell; clams are bivalves, meaning “two shells”) to the longest point. For width, you place the calipers over the umbo – the raised portion where the two valves connect, on the top in the photo- and measure across the widest spot. Finally, you weigh them on a scale.

Easy, yeah? But it’s not as exciting when you have 50+ clams a day to measure, and you don’t even get to eat them.

You are probably curious why we are doing all this digging and measuring in the first place. We want to determine the size/weight distribution of gapers in the Yaquina. We dug up clams in the sand flat under the bridge (Bridge Flat) and the sand/mud flat behind the Hatfield EPA office (Idaho Flat). We noticed right away that there were a lot more gapers in Bridge Flat, but they were smaller than the ones we found in Idaho Flat.

After we were done with the clams, we gave them to a food share here in Newport so they can be eaten by those in need. I was really surprised and happy to see this, as I have a personal interest in our nations food system. There is a lot of food that gets wasted in our country, especially in scientific experiments where things are often frozen and thawed and thus cannot be used for food. I didn’t specifically ask why we couldn’t return them to the bay, but I think it is because these clams live so deep and they wouldn’t be able to dig back down before getting eaten/harmed.

As far as adventurers in Oregon, we had quite a week with the holiday! We had a wonderful potluck on Wednesday and I brought some homemade berry pie. This weekend I rode my bike over the bridge with Kate to the farmers market and then went surfing this afternoon with Hilary and another intern, Liz.

The next 2 weeks at work will be very long, so I apologize in advance if I post at a strange time. I will be doing subtidal dredge work (like last week) in Tillamook from Tuesday to Friday, and again Sunday to Thursday of next week. It will be quite an adventure I think!

Also, because we can’t go “picture crazy” here, I made a separate blog so I can post as many pictures as I want. check it out!  http://travelingtegula.blogspot.com/

 

Until next week, stay classy Oregon Sea Grant…