These past couple weeks have been busy in Eugene due to outings with my outdoor leadership class, vertical rescue class, an overnight backpacking trip on the coast, and a term paper for my animal behavior class. The quarter is slowly winding down, as I was reminded last week when I signed up for spring classes at OIMB! I am very excited to take invertebrate zoology (I hear we get to do many dissections!) and deep sea ecology. I can’t wait to be back in less than a month!

At OIMB, classes are small and meet once or twice a week for the entire day. This allows plenty of time for hands on learning and actually doing science rather than simply reading and talking about it like most undergrad classes, which is why OIMB is such a great experience.

Ready to collect some data in the wee hours of the morning

My weeks during fall quarter started with Biological Oceanography on Mondays. Before this class, I was never particularly interested in the physical aspects of the ocean, but I soon discovered the fascinating relationship between the physical condition of the ocean and how it affects the biology. We learned all about the seasonal cycles of phytoplankton and zooplankton, currents, the thermocline, warm core rings, upwelling, the coriolus effect, and so much more.

During one of our classes we were supposed to go out on the boat to collect plankton samples, but the ocean was too choppy. I was disappointed we were unable to go on the ocean because I have only been out on a boat in the ocean once before. Instead, my classmates and I performed a 24-hour plankton survey off the Charleston Harbor docks.

The goal was to note the variation in abundance of different plankton during various physical conditions (tide, time of day, vertical distribution). We were split into groups of two to cover a six hour shift from 10 AM on Saturday to 10 AM the following Sunday. We sampled every two hours by lowering a CTD through the column and collecting phytoplankton and zooplankton samples from the surface and at depth.I felt like a real scientist while lowering the CTD and dragging a plankton net through the water. Chris, my partner, and I collected samples on Sunday morning from 2 AM to 10 AM. Despite the fact that it was early and cold, it was exciting to collect our own data.  The sunrise was also very rewarding!

We spent all of lab analyzing our samples, which mainly involved counting plankton. This may not sound exciting, but it was so much fun! The first couple days were more difficult, as we were learning what all the different plankton looked like, but soon it was easy to tell them apart. The phytoplankton we counted were Coscinodiscus, diatmos, Navicula, Pseudonitzchia, Tintinids, and Distephanus. The zooplankton we counted were harpacticoid copepods, calonoid copepods, copepod nauplii, barnacle nauplii, barnacle cyprids, bivalves, polychaetes, zoea, and gastropods. My professor and TA’s enthusiasm quickly rubbed off on me as I realized how intricate, beautiful, and exciting plankton are. I always appreciated how excited my TA was when she saw a cyprid. I was always excited when I saw one cyprid in the midst of an overwhelming number of copepods. I have a fond liking for cyprids now and I think they are pretty cute :).

The sun is about to come up!

In total we had 52 samples to count between 8 people. It took most of the quarter to count all the samples and once we finished, it was time to research what the abundance of plankton meant. At first I was overwhelmed by all the data we had, but my professor suggested to focus on relationships that I found interesting. I decided to focus on the influence of the tides and time of day on the abundance of zooplankton, specifically cyprids, barnacle nauplii, harpacticoid and calanoid copepods, gastropods, and polychaetes.

I found that the vertical distribution of zooplankton in the water column determines whether or not they enter, leave, or stay in the estuary. For example, harpacticoid copepods live in the brackish waters of estuaries, and during ebb tides, these copepods were more abundant at depth, possibly to avoid drifting out to the ocean with the tide.

Due to my fondness for cyprids, I was particularly interested in learning more about them as well as their earlier stage, the nauplius. Barnacle nauplii are late stage planktonic larvae while cyrpids are the non-feeding stage of a barnacle that is ready to settle in the estuary. Both nauplii and cyprids came in with the flood tide, but only nauplii left with the ebb tide, suggesting that the cyprids settled into the estuary to grow into adult barnacles.

This project was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I enjoyed collecting my own data and learning how to analyze the overwhelming amount. I was able to better understand all the relationships between the zooplankton and the water conditions because I collected this data rather than solely finding the information in a textbook our journal article. Learning from experience is the best (and most enjoyable) way to learn!