{"id":4045,"date":"2021-04-19T13:06:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=4045"},"modified":"2021-04-19T13:21:19","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:21:19","slug":"into-the-krillscape-a-remote-expedition-in-research-and-mentorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2021\/04\/19\/into-the-krillscape-a-remote-expedition-in-research-and-mentorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Into the Krillscape: A Remote Expedition in Research and Mentorship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Rachel Kaplan, PhD student, Oregon State University College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Fisheries and Wildlife,\u00a0Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the most unexpected things you\u2019ve done on Zoom in the last year? Since the pandemic dramatically changed all our lives in 2020, I think we\u2019ve all been surprised by the diversity of things we\u2019ve done remotely. I\u2019ve baked bagels with a friend in Finland, done oceanography labs from my kitchen, had dance parties with people across the country, and conducted an award ceremony for my family\u2019s Thanksgiving scavenger hunt – all on Zoom. Over the last several months, I\u2019ve also mentored an Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, & the Arts (URSA) Engage student, named Amanda. Although we haven\u2019t met in person yet, we\u2019ve been connecting over Zoom since October. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda is an Ocean Sciences student working with me and Dr. Kim Bernard (CEOAS) to conduct a literature review about the two species of krill found off the coast of Oregon. Thysanoessa spinifera<\/em> and Euphausia pacifica <\/em>are an important food source for many of the animals that live off our coast — including blue, humpback, and fin whales. I am trying to learn how krill distributions shape those of humpback and blue whales as part of project OPAL<\/a>, as well as which oceanographic factors drive krill abundances and distributions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thysanoessa spinifera <\/em>(source: Scripps Institute of Oceanography<\/a>). <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re also interested in T. spinifera<\/em> and E. pacifica<\/em> for the crucial roles they serve in ecosystems, beyond providing dinner for whales. Krill do many things that are beneficial to ecosystems and people, termed \u201cecosystem services.\u201d These include facilitating carbon drawdown from the surface ocean to the deep, supporting lucrative fisheries species like salmon, flatfish, and rockfish, and feeding seabirds like auklets and shearwaters. We want to understand more fully the niche that T. spinifera<\/em> and E. pacifica<\/em> each fill off the coast of Oregon, which will help us anticipate how these important animals can be impacted by forces such as global climate change and marine management efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to understand the ecosystem services fulfilled by krill is inherently interdisciplinary, which means we have to learn a lot of new things, making this project a lot of fun. The questions Amanda and I have pursued together have ranged from intensely specific, to surprisingly broad. How many calories do blue whales need to eat in a day? How many krill do salmon need to eat? How big are krill fecal pellets, and how fast do they sink?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to answer these questions has basically amounted to a heroic scouring of the internet\u2019s krillscape by Amanda. She has hunted down papers dating back to the 1960s, pulled together findings from every corner of the world, and pursued what she refers to as \u201ctreasure troves\u201d of data. In the process, she has also revealed the holes that exist in the literature, and given us new questions. This is the basis of the scientific process: understanding the current state of knowledge, identifying gaps in that knowledge, and developing the questions and methods needed to fill those gaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Euphausia pacifica<\/em> (source: University of Irvine California, Peter J. Bryant<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filling in knowledge gaps about T. spinifera<\/em> and E. pacifica<\/em> can help us better understand these animals, the ecosystems where they live, and the whales and other animals that depend on them for prey. It\u2019s exciting to know that we will have the opportunity to help fill some of these gaps, as both Amanda and I continue this research over the course of our degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being able to engage in remote research and mentorship has been really rewarding, and it has shown me how far we\u2019ve all come over the last year. Learning how to work together remotely has been crucial as we have adjusted to the funny new normal of the pandemic. As much as I miss working with people in person, I\u2019ve learned that there\u2019s a lot of great connection to be found even in remote collaboration – I\u2019ve loved meeting Amanda\u2019s pets on Zoom, learning about her career goals, and seeing her incredibly artistic representations of the carbon cycle held up to the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though most of our conversations take place on Zoom from our homes, this research still feels plugged into a bigger community. Amanda and I also join Kim\u2019s bigger Zooplankton Ecology Lab<\/a> meetings, which include two other graduate students and eight undergraduate students, all of whom are working on zooplankton ecology questions that span from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Even though we\u2019ve never met in person, a supportive and curious community has developed among all of us, which I know will persist when we can move back to in-person research and mentorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Rachel Kaplan, PhD student, Oregon State University College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Fisheries and Wildlife,\u00a0Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab What are the most unexpected things you\u2019ve done on Zoom in the last year? Since the pandemic dramatically changed all our lives in 2020, I think we\u2019ve all been … Continue reading Into the Krillscape: A Remote Expedition in Research and Mentorship<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1310535],"tags":[1237832,634945,215877,712836,1237705],"class_list":["post-4045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oregon-whale-distribution","tag-blue-whales","tag-gray-whales","tag-humpback-whales","tag-krill","tag-research-questions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4045"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4048,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions\/4048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}