Heading to the 2nd sea

In a few short days, the Three Seas students will head south to Panama, where temperatures are considerably more comfortable than even the relatively mild winter weather we're currently experiencing in New England:

Here, courtesy of EW XXVII alum Monika LaPlante, is an introduction to the Panama portion of the program:

Merry Cephalopodmas!

Today is Cephalopodmas! May your days be filled with terror and tentacles.

HT to EW XXVI alum Natalie Low.

Trusting your data

HT to Andrew Gelman via Jeremy Fox at the Oikos blog.

A breakdown of my study habits across the semester (in convenient, comic form).

Study Habits

On a human-dominated planet: Part 3

In class, we focused largely on the negative effects of humans on biodiversity, and there is no denying that in manipulating the environment to serve our needs, we have displaced and killed inordinate numbers of plants and animals. Some species, particularly ones that are not native to a particular region, may thrive in human-dominated landscapes. One study, in particular, showed that diversity peaks in moderately disturbed habitats because native and exotic species co-exist there. Unique combinations of species occur along gradients from pristine to human-dominated.

Human dominance is associated with uniquely human attributes such as complex social interactions, economics, agriculture, and technology – the things that make us human. A primary concern moving forward is how our actions are affecting our own wellbeing. In the context of the current biodiversity crisis, we need to pay particular attention to species that contribute key ecological processes, functions, and services that are important for our own survival.

Panama in 25 days!

For our last lecture in marine ecology we got a mini orientation about Panama and STRI (Smithsonian Tropic Research Institute). During our time in Panama, we will be staying at The Bocas del Toro Research Station.

Some of the common marine invertebrates there, are Oreaster reticulates (cushioned seastar) and Diadema antillarium (long-spined sea urchin), which is a nice change from the common species we see here at Nahant. Although D. antillarium is vital to coral health due to grazing, landing on one of these during a dive might be slightly damaging to ours.

While I'm sure most of us cannot wait to go to Panama, our time at Nahant will definitely be missed. But for now, onto finals week!

On a human-dominated planet: Part 2

As a dominant organism on earth that is capable of rational thought and action, humans are in the unique position of being able to both help and harm other species. This dichotomy between stewardship and dominion is a central aspect of conservation biology. Take, for instance, the number of animals and plants that are deliberately cared for by humans as pets; livestock, crop, or aquaculture organisms; zoo, aquarium, or garden residents; and refugees from destroyed habitats or inhumane conditions. Approximately 29 million animals from 180 species are kept as livestock in the U.S. alone, and over 170 plant species account for over a trillion metric tons of agricultural production worldwide. Many of these organisms rely on humans for survival.

At the same time, we are impacting species in a variety of ways. In Marine Ecology, we discussed threats to marine systems associated with overfishing, climate change, pollution, and biological invasions. We are becoming increasingly aware of the impacts we have on our home. The task ahead is to modify our lifestyles to become more sustainable. Many conservation efforts to date have focused on species that directly affect our survival and well being. Moving forward, it will be necessary to consider both those species and others in the ecosystems we seek to conserve.

What I want for Christmas/Chanukah in Panama...

Now that the end of our time here in Nahant is drawing near, my co-eds and I are getting ready for Panama! The holidays are also coming up which means time for wish lists. I have a very particular wish that I hope to get fulfilled sometime during our Panama semester. While I enjoyed my courses this semester, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the course I am looking forward to the most in the Three Seas Program is Biology of Fishes. I took a similar course in my undergrad but we looked at Northern California fish. In Panama, it will be all of the tropical locals and I know very little about tropical fish, so I am really excited. My fish of choice is sharks and other elasmobranchs and they will be there in the reefs! Some of the Three Seas students from last year saw one shark in particular in Coiba. This also happens to be the largest shark in the world, the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), and this shark is on my holiday wish list (also the number 2 thing on my personal bucket list). So while most of my fellow co-eds hike a mountain, I will be in the water looking for one of these beauties.

A little background information; according to Project Whale Shark, “the Whale shark the biggest fish in the sea and there are only a few whale species larger than it. Thought to reach up to a possible 20 meters and 34 tons it seems difficult to believe that Whale Sharks feed on microscopic plankton rarely more than 3 mm in size. The combination of its immense size and characteristic checkerboard pattern makes the Whale Shark almost unmistakable and completely comprises the only member of its family, Rhincodontidae.” This animal is a shark and NOT a whale because it is cold blooded, has gills and possesses a cartilaginous skeleton regardless of the fact that it eats plankton. Its body shape is also like a shark with a caudal tail fin and not a fluke like a whale. They are also ovoviviparous. (Ovoviviparity is the method of reproduction where fertilized eggs develop within the womb and gain no additional nutrition from the female before giving birth to fully developed young.)

In terms of distribution, Whale Sharks are found both in inshore and oceanic waters where surface sea water temperatures are between 18 to 30°C. However, tagging data indicates that Whale Sharks spend significant periods of time diving to depths greater than 980 m and into water colder than 10°C presumably to feed (Graham et al. 2005). Whale Sharks are highly migratory and utilize a vast habitat (the longest recorded Whale Shark journey spanned 13 000 km and took over 36 months).

Like most shark species, their biggest threats are humans (and occasionally orcas). According to IUCN, the whale shark is considered vulnerable, which is one spot below endangered. In terms of policy, this is not the ideal position for conservation but it is a start in getting people’s attention to its survival. It is a popular shark for in ecotourism and as sad as it is, may be the major saving point in its conservation in the future. Either way, I look forward to the adventure of looking for one in Panama. So I will write my letter to Santa/ "Chanukah" Harry and wish for a whale shark. Happy Holidays!

Presentations Round Two! Ding Ding!

Today in Marine Ecology we presented our group presentation data! Matt wanted a "creative" aspect to the presentation and all three groups delivered. The oceanography group told the tale of our trip on the Gulf Challenger and the data collected at the various sites while on the boat. The group depicted the tale through shadow puppets and powerpoint. They studied the relationship of the three sites and how factors, such as salinity, light, and depth, differed and interacted at these sites. Next up, the Nahant vs. Lubec group, depicted a sad story of the Oregon Snail which goes through some hardships like being drilled by a Three Seas student, eaten by a crab, and eventually dying of desiccation. Despite some very confusing numbers and graphs, the group pulled through and showed the difference of species, diversity, and evenness between tide heights and the two locations. Finally, the "snail pee" group (my group aka the best group) played our video of Matt reading Caden (Matt's son) and Summer (Sal's youngest daughter) a lovely bed time story about the interactions of snails and seaweed. (Caden ironically wanted nothing to do with the snails and wanted to read a story about space.) We then closed our presentation with a powerpoint explaining the rate of change in ammonium in different treatments with no organisms, snails, seaweed, and snails and seaweed. Everyone's presentation went extremely well and are now preparing for our final presentation in Botany tomorrow! BRING IT, DON!

The Red King Crab

We all presented yesterday on an invertebrate of our choosing and how it is affected, and will be affected, by our changing climate. I chose the Red King Crab, which is one of a few species of King Crabs that has been migrating towards the poles in search of colder waters. Bottom temperature has been increasing over the last few decades, and it's finally starting to affect the distribution, behavior, and growth of many species. Also, not only are the 6-foot crabs abandoning their native areas, they are destroying ecosystems on the way. These crabs eat pretty much anything they can find and have very few natural predators, so while they are readily fished (and very popular and tasty!), arctic conditions are not necessarily conducive for fishing (see "Deadliest Catch" on the Discovery Channel) so we are only able to make a small dent in the about of crabs that are taking over colder waters.

While there are few studies done in arctic ecosystems at this point, the evidence that something is wrong is staring us in the face. While it may be too late to save the arctic at this point from the reign of hungry crabs, making an effort to slow climate change can also slow the degradation of arctic ecosystems, as well as other warmer ecosystems. This is only the beginning of the effects that greenhouse gases will have on our planet.

Anyway, enjoy this video of a King Crab species in action:

Kelp Farming

One of the most important lessons I have gained from my time here in Three Seas, is that learning continues outside of the classroom, lab and field. I recently had the pleasure of attending Boston's 16th annual vegetarian food festival. I expected to eat lots of vegetarian treats that day, but I did not expect to put my knowledge of marine biology to use. However, I met the two men who started the first and only kelp farm in the United States. Ocean Approved, is a company that farms kelp and packages it frozen to be used as a food source. I tried their kelp cole slaw, which was very delicious. I was curious, however as to why the kelp that I was eating was green in color. The farmers told me that I was eating Laminaria digitata, and as I know as a Three Seas student, this is a brown algae. They explained that when the kelp is cooked the fucoxanthin dies off and the kelp then becomes green in color.

Molecular structure of fucoxanthin [source]

I was also curious about how the farming process takes place with respect to kelp's somewhat complex life cycle. The farmers told me that the kelp starts out in the lab. They produce a zygote from the male and female gametophytes. When the zygote has matured into a sporophyte they encourage it to settle on a rope, when the sporophytes grows to about 5cm in length they place the ropes (now covered in baby plants) into plots in the Gulf of Maine and allow them to grow into long, healthy blades. The blades are then harvested, cooked, packaged and frozen for future consumption.

Laminaria life cycle [source]

This farming process takes place in the cold winter months in Maine. Because of this, Ocean Approved has begun selling kelp seeds to lobstermen, who are unable to harvest lobster in the winter. The lobstermen can then farm kelp in the off season. This has obvious benefits for the lobstermen, as well as Ocean Approved, both parties benefit in a responsible and sustainable way.

Ocean Approved is commited to the sustainabilty of not only their product, but to the Gulf of Maine ecosystem, as well. The farmers explain that through the farming of kelp they are helping to reduce CO2 levels in the Gulf. World wide we have seen an increase in CO2 in the oceans due to increased amounts of CO2 being released into the atmosphere from anthropogenic activities and then dissolving into the oceans. Through chemical reactions, this dissolved CO2 reduces the pH of the ocean, spelling trouble for many and varied marine organisms. Marine plants, such as kelp, require CO2 for photosynthesis, thus removing the dissolved CO2 from the water. Making kelp farming healthy for the ocean, economy, and people!

Please enjoy this short video explaining these points further:

Maine Farm Growing Business Through Unlikely Food

Tollef Olsen, co-founder of Ocean Approved shows large, healthy, harvested kelp blades [source]

We LOVE Inverts!

As the semester winds down to a crazy stressful end, projects and exams are among us. Today, everyone presented their favorite invertebrate to the class and discussed how climate change, ocean acidification, deep sea drilling, over fishing, and many other detrimental factors will affect their beloved creature. Hannah spoke of the "classy" deep sea giant isopod. Sean taught us how to train our blue dragons to survive climate change. Lindsey spoke about the delicious american lobster, and Trevor awed us with the indestructible water bear. I did my presentation on the blooming Pacific sea nettles that are seemingly taking over the West Coast of the US and Japan. The presentations were fun to watch and showed how much we have learned about and grown to love these fantastic creature's in Luke's class. Presentation week is not over yet! Tomorrow we have Ecology presentations and on Friday we present our Botany experiments. Did I mention that next week is finals? Are Three Seas Students stressed? Yes. Are we loving every minute of it? Of course!

On a human-dominated planet: Part 1

If a species has a large effect on a system, will that species also experience less overall competition? Has that species driven another species to local extinction? If that species vanishes, will others take its place, allowing for the community's continued existence?

Life has been around for a while, and in many cases species have evolved in ways that not only benefit themselves, but also others.

As a species, we are concerned about our own survival. However, we are also - somewhat paradoxically - concerned with maintaining species richness and intact food webs. No other species on the planet goes out of their way as selflessly as we do, but no other species casts as long a shadow as we do.

Connections

After almost a full semester, a lot of knowledge has been crammed into my head, but one fact in particular has stuck out the most. By taking part in this program and getting to know all the speakers and faculty, you will make more connections than you could possibly dream of in such a short amount of time. The list of speakers Ryan posted earlier is alone impressive, but then after reading countless journal articles and becoming familiar with the big names in the field, I realized that many of these people are either teaching us directly or will be meeting with us later on in the semester. These meetings can open many doors for us as we try to break into the real (job) world. For graduate students, this means we can find out potential internships, which could turn into jobs at the end of this program. There are also many opportunities for undergraduates to work in a professor's lab and gain valuable research and laboratory experience. This is just one more thing to add to the resume once you graduate.

It also recently occured to me that even if a desired internship is unavailable, opportunities can come from another direction. Typically a professor or researcher who does not have any space in his lab will try to set you up with another friend who is looking for an intern. This is a connection from a connection. I have also learned that the biology community is very small and everyone seems to know everyone else. For example, I personally ran into a friend I went to undergrad with just last week at one of the speaker's talks. We started to catch up and by the end of the intermission I was introduced to another person who had internship opportunities. As anyone in the real world will tell you, it is all about who you know, and the sooner you begin to make the connections, the better off you will be.

Food web courtesy of The Onion

Seminars

While we all take the same classes and work on the same projects, there are generally graduate students and undergraduate students enrolled in the Three Seas Program. This year, there are 6 grads and 14 undergrads. One of the few things that separates us is the requirement to take a careers seminar which includes attending lectures by visiting faculty.

So far, we have heard from the following people:
- Dr. Celine Godard-Codding on the toxicology of endangered marine mammals and turtles.
- Dr. Matt Bracken on the consequences of biodiversity changes in marine ecosystems.
- Dr. Timery DeBoer on DNA banks and the ocean genome resource
- Dr. Jon Grabowski on groundfish closures in the Gulf of Maine.
- Dr. James Douglass on animals in seagrass beds.
- Dr. Geoff Trussell on the ecology of fear and how predation affects animal behavior.
- Dr. John Mandelman on fisheries bycatch in New England.
- Dr. Randi Rotjan on temperate corals and hermit crab shell preferences.
- Anita Metzler on lobster behavior and shell disease.
- Dr. Michael Berumen on the importance of reef fish recruitment.

Besides hearing what have all been really interesting talks from really smart people, we usually get to go out for dinner and drinks afterward. All in all, it's a great way to find out about interesting research that is happening in the field and spend a little time networking while we're at it.

Damn Nature, You Scary

Watch in horror as an icy finger of death entombs hapless sea stars. The "brinicle" is an icicle caused by water molecules freezing into ice, after which the remaining super-salty water is too dense to stay at the surface and has a lower freezing temperature than the surrounding water. As it sinks, the water around it freezes quickly, causing the brinicle to grow. It freezes so quickly that the animals it touches freeze before they can run. Only Sir David Fredrickson Attenborough can narrate it more eloquently than I.

"Christmas" Pudding

Not only are seaweeds harvested for food, but they are also used for their “gums,” including carrageenan, which are commonly used as thickeners and settling agents in many foods. Carageenens are a type of phycocolloid, and their production nets approximately 600 million dollars annually in industrial applications based on seaweeds. The phycocolloids are extracted from the cell walls of dried red algae by placing it in hot water and once cooled, the gel hardens and can be used for different commercial usage. Some products that use carrageenan are things like toothpaste, jams, peanut butter, ice cream, and puddings. For our blancmange pudding, kappa carrageenan is extracted from Chondrus crispus, which is also known as Irish moss.

Recipe for C. crispus pudding:

4 cups of whole milk

1 cup of cleaned Chondrus crispus

Pinch of salt

sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Cognac (optional)

1. Using a double boiler, steam 4 cups of milk then add 1 cup of crispus. Do not boil.

2. Drain the C. crispus from the milk.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients. Let the pudding thicken.

4. Eat it?

Climate Change and Biodiversity

As the fall semester comes to a close, I thought I would share one of the most striking messages we have experienced so far. In our Marine Ecology class we have been discussing the importance of biodiversity and the interactions that structure marine ecosystems.

Some researchers believe that we are currently in the 6th Mass Extinction in the history of the planet. Extinction rates across a broad range of taxa are increasing, and some predictions of global climate change may push these rates even higher (1). Itis predicted that this mass extinction may have extinction rates greater thanany event in the history of the planet. That’s right, bigger than even the extinction event responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs.

Courtesy of Matt Bracken 2011

This loss of so manyspecies may have a greater impact on ecosystems than the removal of any single species. There are many marine examples demonstrating that diversity can enhance the growth or fitness of organisms compared to when those same organisms are found in isolation. For example, studies have shown that intertidal algal assemblagesare more productive than predicted by the component algae species (2). Many marine systems also rely on subsidies such as nitrogen from marine bird guano to fertilize intertidal algae (3). These subsidies can play large roles in some coastal systems. If multiple species are lost and diversity decreases theremaining species may not be able to be able to “take up the slack.”

I don’t believe thatthis is a “Doom’s Day” message but rather a resounding call to reexamine the effects of global climate change in light of declining global biodiversity. The climate is changing, and regardless of whether or not you believe it is anthropogenic (caused by humans), the world we live in is changing. I hope that we have the tools and the care to both make our lives comfortable and maintaining the species diversity that we rely on.

1 - Pimm SL, GJ Russell, JL Gittleman, TM Brooks. 1995. The Future of Biodiversity. Science 269:347-350.

2 - Stachowitz JJ, M Graham, ME Bracken, AI Szoboszlai. 2008. Diversity enhances cover and stability of seaweed assemblages: The role of heterogeneity and time. Ecology 89:3008-3019.

3 - Wainright SC, JC Haney, C Kerr, AN Golovkin, MV Flint. 1998. Ultiziation of nitrogen derived from seabird guano by terrestrial and marine plants at St. Paul, Pribilof Islands, Bering Sea, Alaska. Marine Biology 131:63-71.

Sesame Street and marine conservation

An important message for all of us, courtesy of

Fisherman: "That means, if I put back the plants, the fish will come back."

Clam: "Right."

An inside look into our closest friends

A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to dissect a few creatures in our marine invertebrates lab. The results were surprising...and for some refined palettes, very tasty!

The stomach of a sea star extends down each of the legs.

The orange globs are urchin gonads, also known as roe and is a popular Asian dish.

Having some fun while cutting open the tough calcium carbonate test.

We fished out the beak of our squid, which is found in the mouth.

Does size really matter?

The intertidal zone is one of the most unforgiving marine ecosystems. Waves constantly crash on you, and when the tides are low you are likely to get eaten by voracious predators, stomped on by curious scientists, or fried sunny-side up.

Rocky intertidal shores are also rich in their abundance of invertebrates and seaweeds. If you aren’t out-competed, then you are likely to die from the harsh elements, unless of course you evolved to not only survive but thrive.

Survival and success are dominated by factors including nourishment acquisition, mobility, reproduction, flexibility, and, of course, SIZE!

As I said before, the intertidal is a rough place to live, but many are adapted and thrive in this ecosystem. An organism’s response to wave strength with respect to its size will almost always result in smaller organisms outliving the larger. Not the result you expected, right?

The size of an organism is important in many other ways. Smaller organisms respond to viscous forces more readily than inertial forces, they can create their own feeding currents (barnacles and copepods), and they are less likely to get ripped off a rock by waves. (Don’t forget that the smallest organisms are basal food sources for marine consumers and therefore are very important to the biological success of the ocean).

Big WIN for the little guy!

Barnacles are one of the smallest invertebrate organisms on rocky shores and are still the most efficient at staying on the rocks.

(They can also attach themselves to ships, wharves, and other marine animals)

This graph shows, on a logarithmic scale, how easy it is to remove an object from a rock with respect to the height of a breaking wave.

So, the next time you step on a barnacle, squishing its little crustacean head into the rock, think about how if it could laugh at you when you get swept off the rock by a wave, it probably would.