Winds of Change

Posted on March 27, 2012 by sea_red

Greetings SG Blog readers,

Although Oregon’s marine spatial planning process continues to unfold, the State is undoubtedly getting closer to developing a finalized, spatially explicit comprehensive plan for Oregon’s territorial sea. In its completed form, the plan will document how the State intends to protect important ecological areas, fishing grounds, beneficial uses such as recreation, and identify some preliminary areas for ocean renewable energy development within nearshore waters.

Over the last several months I’ve provided assistance to both DLCD and ODFW in support of this planning effort. In February, I attended seven TSPWG-sponsored public work sessions in Portland, Eugene, Warrenton, Cannon Beach, Waldport, and Reedsport. I assisted DLCD by developing promotional materials and recording public comment during the meetings. As for ODFW, the major pressing event has been the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee‘s peer review of the Nearshore Ecological Data Atlas. I developed two specific documents for the review: a list of data gaps related to territorial sea planning, and a list of data that was considered by ODFW, but not used in the analysis of nearshore ecological resources. In the name of data management, I’ve also been working with ODFW staff to develop a relational database, using Access, to organize the vast amount of STUFF (spatial data, literature, scientific findings, etc.) that we’ve accumulated through this planning process.

….I don’t want to bore you too much…but that’s a quick summary of what’s been going on in my fellowship world….

And now I’d like to reflect on the title of this post – “Winds of Change.” For Oregon, this is definitely the dawn of a new era in terms of ocean planning and management, and for the addition of new human uses within the marine environment. In one way, the title is a nod in that direction. However, it also refers to a huge change in my life. Several weeks ago, I received an unexpected surprise – I was offered a full-time, permanent position with NOAA’s Pacific Services Center (PSC). For many reasons, the offer was something that I just couldn’t pass up! In my new position as a GIS analyst, I will focus on developing GIS-based tools to support coastal and marine planning in the Pacific region, and provide general technical assistance to PSC partners in Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Marinas Islands.

As the winds of change blow, my time as a Sea Grant fellow is quickly coming to an end. In the near future, I will be leaving the quaint coastal town of Newport, Oregon and relocating to the tourist mecca of Hawaii. It will be quite the change! I will miss the Oregon coast, surfing South Beach, the friendly Oregon sharks, porcini mushrooms, my coworkers, and new friends….but of course, I also look forward to a new and exciting opportunity. On a final note, I want to say thank you! to both Sea Grant and ODFW for making my fellowship experience priceless! It’s been a complete joy. I will definitely stay in touch, and by all means….if anyone comes tromping through Hawaii, please do not hesitate to look me up!

Cheers (soon to be ALOHA),

Ben

Taking advantage of fellowship benefits

Posted on March 5, 2012 by eardleyc

Howdy folks. I’m now about 5 months into my SeaGrant fellowship and lately I’ve been taking advantage of all the perks of being a Fellow. Supported by Oregon SeaGrant and ODFW, I recently attended the 17th Western Groudfish Conference (WGC) in Seattle. My Natural Resources Policy fellowship includes a handy educational budget good for travel to conferences, and the folks organizing the WGC were also hugely supportive of my attendance.

As I’ve been working with ODFW’s Marine Reserves program and spending a lot of time thinking about groundfish (marine reserves are expected to benefit rockfish, lingcod, flatfish and other “groundfish” and a host of other marine species), I decided to attend the WGC. I was particularly interested in learning about how other groups were approaching the monitoring of fish relative to their research or management questions and accompanying complications. At ODFW, we’ve been wrestling with how to approach monitoring of Oregon’s marine reserves in the near-term and long-term and recently held a workshop in Corvallis to solicit expert advise. The workshop featured over 30 scientists from west coast universities, non-profits, and agencies, and provided ODFW with valuable suggestions on future monitoring. A summary of the workshop can be found at www.oregonocean.info.

I helped to plan and design materials for this meeting and found it to integrate nicely with WGC. I was able to build on workshop introductions at the WGC and connected with a wide variety of people interested in west coast fish. Having spent the better parts of the last two years thinking about marine invertebrates (oysters!), the WGC was a great crash course in west coast fish management and research issues. Some of my favorite talks included ones on the use of a jetski (with a giant aircraft-style propellor on the back) to map areas of the coastal ocean inaccessible to boats (R. Kvitek); seasonal habitat use by copper rockfish in coastal BC (J. Marliave); constraints on sandlance burrowing (J. Bizarro); innovative reduction in halibut bycatch (M. Lomeli); and a nostalgia-inducing talk on correlating haddock sound production and reproductive maturity (I once worked as a deckhand on New England fishing boats; F. Juanes;). My friend Tom included a good presentation on his project studying home ranges and movement behaviors of fishes of Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve (http://www.fishtracker.org) and another talk has ODFW Marine Reserves wondering if some sandy areas punctuated with large scour depressions might be valuable juvenile fish habitat (Oregon marine reserves have lots of sandy bottom).

The WGC was relevant to what I’ve been working on and was hugely informative. Plus, it was fun–I ran along Puget Sound with a view of the Olympics every day and met dozens of interesting people. I’m looking forward to pursuing other educational opportunities before my time here is up, and in the meantime, ODFW is keeping me busy. Between analyzing video data, providing GIS services, an ongoing community profile, and pending field work, I’ve got plenty to do and its great to be working in the field I just finished studying 5 short months ago.

Territorial Sea Planning in Oregon: report from the field

Posted on February 27, 2012 by sea_red

Hello OSG Community,

This is Ben Reder, one of the Natural Resource Policy Fellows, reporting to you from Newport, Oregon. To give you a refresher – I am working with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) Marine Resources Program (MRP). As a fellow, I am assisting with the current Territorial Sea Plan (TSP) amendment process (aka Oregon’s marine spatial planning effort). This process will eventually lead to the identification of potential areas for renewable energy development within state waters.

When I joined MRP this past October, the data collection effort for the spatial planning process was well underway. What has now been coined the “Nearshore Ecological Data Atlas” (NEDA), is the product of that effort. NEDA consists of data layers that depict oceanographic conditions, important ecological habitats, and information about fish, seabird, and marine mammal distribution. NEDA is now available for public viewing on Oregon MarineMap. As for my fellowship duties, I’ve been assisting in the coordination and review process of metadata for the NEDA geospatial layers. The descriptive information from the metadata was used as abstract information on Oregon MarineMap (OMM). Essentially, users can now click on any given data layer in OMM and access information about when the data was collected, who collected it, and how the data was collected.

MRP is responsible for identifying ecologically significant areas within the territorial sea. DLCD has been responsible for mapping existing human uses, and Ecotrust developed the fishing grounds maps. MRP utilized a software program, Marxan, to help identify the ecological hotspots. Marxan was used to summarize the vast amount of ecological spatial information. For MRP, Marxan provided decision support by identifying areas where many species occur in relatively high abundance.

MRP has wrapped up the effort to produce the “ecological hotspots” map, and DLCD and Ecotrust have also completed their spatial analyses. We now have a series of maps that delineate hotspots for each of the three main Goal 19 resources. This information is now being reviewed by the Territorial Sea Plan Working Group (TSPWG), a sub-group of the Ocean Policy Advisory Council. In addition, the methodology used to identify the ecological significant areas is being reviewed by the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC). The TSPWG has begun a series of public meetings to touch base with interested citizens regarding the current status of the TSP amendment process, present resource maps and planning options, and receive feedback on how best to proceed with this planning exercise. These public meetings will occur in various locations along the Oregon coast through March 6, 2012. Visit the Oregon Ocean Info website to see the schedule.

That is what I’ve been up to. I will definitely keep you posted on exciting highlights and events related to marine spatial planning in Oregon. Till next time…

Cheers to all,

Ben

Orals are done!!!

Posted on February 17, 2012 by sea_lras

So last Friday I had my oral exams and I passed!! Although the last few months of studying have been very stressful, the time I put in was beneficial. The whole process was much less stressful than I expected but still something I do not want to do again. I am really looking forward to getting to the microscope and starting to count the samples that I picked up from NOAA. In addition to counting samples I will be working on designing some rapid deployment mooring for putting out thermistors and an ADCP this summer while I am sampling internal waves. I look forward to sharing some of the interesting creatures I find in the samples with everyone.

Wow where did the term go!?!?

Posted on December 12, 2011 by sea_lras

Well the term ended and it was a whirl wind. The majority of the term was spent either TAing biological oceanography or studying and preparing for my oral exam. The TAing went extremely well and I really enjoyed getting to hear the lectures again. Hearing the lectures really helped me to feel more prepared for my upcoming orals. For part of my project I am using plankton samples collected by NOAA to better understand the vertical migratory patterns of Dungeness crabs. This quarter I went to pick up the samples from Newport and they filled the back of a pickup truck!!!! It definitely seems I have my work cut out for me. However, the majority of the quarter has been spent preparing for orals which has entailed reading countless scientific articles. Before the oral exam I have to turn in a written form of my proposal so the next few weeks will be spent finalizing this. I am looking forward to getting past the orals portion of my PhD so I can get to work counting samples and building my computer model. I will be posting sometime in February to update everyone on how the orals went.

Scholars update: Ian Heller (2010)

Posted on November 30, 2011 by kightp

2010 Summer Scholar Ian Heller presented a poster earlier this month at the Biennial meeting of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Foundation in Daytona Beach, FL.

Ian was co-author with Chelsea Woodworth (Clemson University, a US Environmental Protection Agency intern in 2011), Tedd Dewitt and David Young (EPA scientists who were Ian’s mentors during his Summer Scholars assignment).

The poster, “Nekton Species Distribution Within and Among Four Oregon Estuaries,” presented a first look at field data collected as part of a large project to measure how different different estuarine wetland habitats contribute to the production of Dungeness crabs and fishes. Ian helped collect and analyze the data as an Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholar in 2010 and returned to the project as an EPA intern this summer. In the process, he learned different hypotheses about how habitat might affect the distribution of crabs and fishes, trawled for nekton, and synthesized the data into the results presented in the poster.

At the CERF meeting, Ian had a chance to present the research and field questions from scientists and students. “I was able to see the scientific method to the end, and it was satisfying to see a product come out of my summer work,” he wrote.

Besides flying to exotic places to talk about crabs, Ian is back at Vassar College working on his senior thesis on sea anemone development and fretting about life post-graduation. He hopes to spend the next year assisting with biological research and applying to graduate schools. Perhaps he’ll once again find himself on the Oregon Coast!

Howdy!

Posted on November 28, 2011 by eardleyc

I’m Chris Eardley, a Natural Resources Policy Fellow for Oregon SeaGrant. I’ve been paired up with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marine Reserves program, and I’m excited to be gaining agency experience in management of marine resources. I’ll be putting the inter-disciplinary training I received from OSU’s Marine Resource Management to work on both the biological and social sides of management. On the social side, I’ll be developing a socio-cultural profile of a local fishing community that will seek to inform future ocean management discussions (not just marine reserves).

With the biological side, I’ll be contributing to the development of pre-reserves baselines by analyzing footage gathered using a variety of underwater video survey techniques. This includes supporting field deployment of video equipment such as ROVS and video sleds, reviewing video footage, and helping to develop protocols. I’ll focus largely on invertebrates and I’ll also be supporting GIS work. Hopefully, I’ll even get one of those cool ODFW winter hats.

In a nutshell, I’m going to be busy and I’m learning a ton–including what sideways rain looks like and how many types of precipitation are possible in the span of an hour on the Oregon coast.

Should make for an interesting winter!

Cheers,

Chris

Hello from Newport, OR….

Posted on November 14, 2011 by sea_red

Hello OSG Community,

I wanted to introduce myself and give you a brief summary of what I’ll be up to.

So…hello and nice to meet you! I am one of the two new Natural Resource Policy Fellows. I joined the ranks in October and I am now working with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) Marine Resource Program (MRP) in Newport, Oregon.

Generally speaking, over the next year I will provide support for the current statewide marine spatial planning effort. More specifically, I will assist with the development of the “Nearshore Ecological Data Atlas” (NEDA), a GIS-based resource that will be displayed on Oregon MarineMap. NEDA will feature a collection of ecological data sets (biological, oceanographic, habitat, etc.) and will be an important resource for current and future planning and management efforts. I will also help with public outreach efforts and serve as MRP’s primary coordinator between NEDA and Oregon MarineMap project partners.

That is a general overview of what I will be up to. But, if I’ve learned anything over the last month or so….everyday is a new day, and everyday brings something different and exciting. My fellowship is just beginning to pick up steam and I look forward to keeping you abreast of exciting highlights and accomplishments over the next year!

Cheers to all,

Ben

Greetings From the new Malouf Scholar

Posted on September 7, 2011 by sea_lras

Hi All,

My name is Leif Rasmuson and I am graduate student at the University of Oregon’s Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, OIMB. I am just beginning my second year as a PhD student in Dr. Alan Shanks lab. I am interested in how hydrodynamics affect the larval stages of commercially important marine invertebrates. For my PhD I am focusing my research on the larvae of the Dungeness crab, Cancer magister.

Dr. Shanks has been using a light trap (see the image below) to capture Dungeness crab megalopae for 10 years. In Dr. Shanks’ work he has found a strong correlation between the number of returning larvae and the commercial catch four years later. The number of returning megalopae was found to be negatively correlated with the date of the spring transition, which is an atmospheric shift in winds causing the ocean currents to shift from southerlies to northerlies. With this change in winds comes a seasonal switch from downwelling favorable conditions to upwelling favorable conditions. Furthermore, in Dr. Shanks work a negative correlation was found between the number of megalopae recruiting and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The PDO is decadal oscillation in water temperature from warm to cold temperatures off Alaska caused by variation in the flow of the West Wind Drift as it enters the California Current. During cool, or negative phase years, more cool water is shifted into the California current causing the southward flowing California current to be stronger. In negative phase years there were far more megalopae caught in the light trap (about 20 times more), larval return was very strong, suggesting that the increased southward flow may strongly influence the dispersal of the larvae.

For my PhD I intend to use an individual-based couple biophysical computer model to mimic annual hydrographic conditions to examine the correlations talked about earlier. The output from the computer model will be tested against ongoing and historic light trap data to ensure that the model is accurate and provides a realistic description of the movement of larvae. Since the light trap has been in operation for ten recruitment seasons, I will be able to model many years of ocean currents and PDO regimes allowing me to ground truth the models with historic larval return data ensuring that it is providing an accurate depiction of larval movements.

Since I am just entering into my second year of my PhD I am in the process of preparing for my oral defense that will be occurring this coming fall. Unfortunately this means the majority of my time I will be reading and writing which do not lend themselves to interesting blog posts or pictures. However, I will be sure to post any interesting happenings that occur and fun pictures.

Finishing touches

Posted on August 29, 2011 by barbkned

Faithful blog followers: I regret to inform you that today’s post will most likely be my last post on the Sea Grant Scholars blog. I know, I know, what are you going to do with your spare time now? Do not fret, you can receive your weekly dose of AnnaRose adventures at AnnaRose and the Sea. This week marks my final week of working with Oregon Sea Grant. Come Friday, I will be leaving Corvallis and preparing for my journey

In regards to last week, I do not have much to report. My work days right now are pretty predictable. I’ll answer a lot of emails, make a couple phone calls, and go to a meeting or two. My main task for myself is to move forward on as many logistical details as possible before I finish at the end of this week. That said, a lot of my tasks have been getting contracts signed and preparing documents. One large, and slightly tedious, project I am working on is creating a comprehensive list with all the faculty from the Oregon University System that we want to try to invite to the workshop. While it is repetitive, it is interesting to learn about faculty doing marine research who I did not know about. Hopefully, by the time I leave at the end of this week, the major logistical kinks will be worked out so that thing will run smoothly for others that will be planning the event.

Thanks to those who followed my posts! Stay tuned to my other blog for updates on my continued adventures in marine science and policy. As part of my final post, I will leave you with a section of my Reflection Essay for the final portfolio of my internship:

The sum of both my summer experiences with Oregon Sea Grant has significantly shaped my career aspirations. In short, I have learned that I find marine policy very interesting, particularly CMSP, but in order to be at a level of influence to where I am satisfied with my job I need to obtain a PhD and more career experience. The policy world is very hierarchical and my experience has made it very apparent to me that I need at minimum a Master’s degree before I can make a meaningful contribution towards marine management.

An ongoing internal debate I had throughout my last couple years of college was whether I was going to choose a graduate path in science or policy. Largely as a result of what I have learned from my Sea Grant experiences, I have decided that I am going to pursue a PhD in the sciences and spend my early-career as a research scientist. Quite often, scientists who are established in their field will be called to contribute to policy and management decisions. My hope is that by starting in science, I will later be able to contribute to policy in a meaningful way.

Another way Oregon Sea Grant has significantly influenced my career decision is by exposing me to Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning. Throughout this past year, I had been entertaining the idea of incorporating geospatial science into my academic repertoire. Learning about CMSP and the importance of science that orients marine data geospatially has prompted me to pursue a Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) this coming January. After obtaining my GIS certificate, I intend to apply to graduate school next fall. My plan is to pursue a PhD in coral reef biogeography, studying spatial patterns in reef ecosystems in response to climate change and habitat fragmentation.

Pasa bon dia,