It is pupping season for the harbor seals and this week started off with a baby harbor seal sighting. Just as I made it over the dunes separating the forest from the beach, I saw the little guy flopped out on the sand. During their first three to four weeks of life baby seals need to spend time resting. Their mothers often leave them alone for hours at a time on the beach. People naturally are concerned when they find them alone and report the seals as abandoned or worse try to move them. Sure enough, I spotted a group of people not too far away peering over at him.

What a cutie :)

Putting on my concerned citizen scientist hat, I approached the group of tourists, mentally going over the marine mammal protection talking points. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I approached the group to have my talking points fed back right to me. They were not plotting out their seal selfie strategy as I had assumed but were keeping a appropriate distance and informing others to do the same.

I’ve always believed that the public wants to do the right thing when it comes to the environment, a view that is often challenged by reports of climate change deniers and the carelessly tossed trash I always find on the beach. However, moments like this one where it is clear that the message has reached the public renew my confidence. As a scientists it is so important to remember that education must be a key part of conservation if we are to protect the environments we study.

This week marks the halfway point for the summer. Friday, all of the scholars got together to present the research we have worked on the past five weeks. We attended a few seminars on science communication and then headed out for a camping trip in the beautiful Willamette National forest. The change of scenery was spectacular. It was great to trade the bunk room by the beach for a tent in the forest.

A spectacular view from the Oregon section of the PCT

Hiking was my favorite part of the weekend. We explored the Willamette forest full of creeks and lakes and the headed towards Bend, Oregon and the alpine landscape surrounding Mt. Bachelor.

As far as CBRAT goes, the initial part of my crab research is nearly complete. I have compiled all of the most important research papers. Now, I am editing my spreadsheet that I will review with my mentors at our meeting next week and begin looking at which pH values indicate high, moderate or low risk for decapods. 

Despite being a short week for 4^th of July weekend this week was full of activity.

Morning at the Cascade Head marine reserve

Tuesday, I helped with a fellow intern with his sea star survey. We went out to the tide pools at Cascade Head and measured all of the sea stars we could find and checked them for signs of wasting. Wasting disease has decimated sea star populations all along the pacific coast. Scientists are curious to see if populations are recovering this year and how the juvenile recruits are faring. We searched on hands and knees in every nook and crevasse and found some juveniles on the scale of millimeters as well as many larger adults.

Sea stars were not the only thing we found. The tide pools at Cascade Head are some of the best I have ever seen. We found a tiny octopus, a school of rockfish and my personal favorite, opalescent nudibranchs!

Opalescent Nudibranch

The word nudibranch translates to naked-gill. This describes the tentacle-like structures, or cerata, found all over their bodies that are used for breathing, digestion and defense. Nudibranchs prey on many stinging organisms including the venomous Portuguese-Man-O-War. They can take the toxins from their prey and incorporate them into their cerata to use for their own defense.

The rest of the week was spent reading papers, CBRAT project meetings and attending an interesting seminar given by Dr. Burke Hales about the effects of ocean acidification on oyster larvae in Willapa Bay, WA.

The weekend came with unpredictable coastal weather. Saturday we managed to find a rain free window in the afternoon for some browsing at the weekly Newport farmer’s market and hiking at Beaver Creek state park. A benefit of the rainy weekend was all of the wildlife we found out on the trail.

Garter snake at Beaver Creek state park

We caught a garter snake lounging on a blackberry vine, a newt making his way through a pile of soggy leaves and a few quarter-sized frogs. The clouds may have obscured most of the viewpoints but we made up for that with many berry stops to sample the thimbleberry and not-quite-ripe blackberries lining the trail. We were clearly not the only ones enjoying the berries, every few yards we came tracks and scat from bear, deer and elk. Unfortunately, all of the mammals managed to hide from us, we didn’t end up spotting any bears. Maybe next time!

Whoops a little overdue for an update. Week three was spent mostly reading, I’m still working through the literature related to decapods and pH. I had my most intern-like task of all this week which involved reorganizing my mentor’s bookshelves. Now I’m just waiting for the coffee orders to start coming in. Ha-ha.

Through all of my reading the thing that stands out the most is how far science has come in the past century. During our first days at HMSC it was remarked that now is a great time to be a scientist. This brings to mind the quote or curse (depends on who you ask) “may you live in interesting times.” Human caused global climate change has altered and will continue to alter our world in ways that are difficult to predict and understand. Many of the advances in science, especially ocean and atmospheric science in this century stem from pressing necessity rather than simple curiosity.

Waiting at the HMSC bus stop

The studies I look at focus on pH and its effect on marine invertebrates. Studies done after the year 2000 all include standardized methods of bubbling CO2 through ambient seawater pumped in from an area near to where organisms were collected. Multiple components of pH are measured and all other conditions are monitored constantly. Organisms are exposed to pH conditions predicted for the year 2100 determined by complex ocean/atmosphere computer models. In other words, good accurate science is being conducted.

In contrast, a study from 1975 looking at pH tolerance of crayfish simply put some crayfish in a jar of acid, a jar of NaOH and measured how long it took for them to die. Turns out crayfish will die within 24 hours if put in a beaker of HCl (Newcombe, 1975). They say there is no such thing as a bad question but there is definitely such a thing as poor scientific design and I am sure at least the crayfish involved would wonder if the question of how long an organism can live in pure acid is something we really need to answer.

Friday I caught a bus out of Newport and headed home for a long relaxing 4th of July weekend. It was nice to have a break from the bunkhouse and see family and friends. 

How is it already the end of week 4…? Crazy. Time is starting to really fly by. Not a whole lot of new stuff has happened at work this week. The samples from our Tillamook field work are still being processed slowly but surely. A few fairly cool things did happen this week though.

First, I learned how to run particle size analysis (PSA) on sediment samples. While it may seem pretty useless to know what the sizes of your sediment grains are, this is actually very important information. By determining the particle sizes, you can infer lots of other info about the hydrology of the habitat. For instance, in marsh sediment samples PSA can help model how fast the marsh will drain as the tide goes out or how fast it will fill. I’m sure reading Jess’ blogs will give you more info about this since her research revolves around this kind of analysis. PSA also lets you infer what the microhabitat of the environment is like. The term “meiofauna” refers to organisms that spend their lives living in between sediment particles such as grains of sand on a beach. This is a very dynamic habitat and there is huge diversity in the taxa that call this environment home. The project I’m working on is mainly interested in how fecal indicator bacteria can colonize the top layer of sediment and potentially become resuspended by wave action and storm winds. For some reason I can’t caption the picture below but it’s a few of the representative meiofaunal taxa.

Second, Amy and I went on a road trip up Yaquina Bay Rd. to try and find some eelgrass sampling sites for my side project. All in all, we were pretty successful! We found three sites that were fairly accessible and easy to relocate so we can definitely resample them later in July. The mud was easier to deal with this time but I don’t think I’ll ever really enjoy standing on a surface that isn’t solid haha; my brother keeps making fun of me that I’m fine with freediving and skydiving but I hate walking on some soft mud. Something about solid ground giving way just isn’t natural haha. The mud was actually so bad in one site that Amy and I decided to butt-scooch down two fallen trees to get to the waterline. I’m sure anyone who saw us had a good laugh.

Third and finally, the results of the IDEXX tests targeting Fecal Coliform and Enterococci are continually returning high hits for eelgrass leaves! The loosely-attached biomass on eelgrass leaves is full of indicator bacteria and this result suggests that gentle agitation by rain, storm action, waves, and wake could release the bacteria into the water column. This is an important early result because it suggests that storm-based water sampling for indicator bacteria could be very inaccurate in Oregon and might be resulting in extended closures of shellfish harvesting areas.

On a non-work note I found out about an ultimate Frisbee league this week that happens every Monday and Thursday night in Newport. “League” might be a bit of an overstatement but it’s certainly a whole lot of fun! One of the researchers at the EPA and Jess’s boss, Jody Stecher, and his wife, Linda, are very into ultimate and always show up. Jess, another intern, Amy, and myself are actually going to their house tonight to make pasta. Not a bad way to round out week 4!

Image references:

http://www.marbef.org/wiki/Meiofauna_of_Sandy_Beaches

Invasive species are an especially hot topic among today’s scientific community. Non-native species have been shown to negatively impact the health of native ecosystems, especially in aquatic environments (e.g. Lionfish, Snakehead, Zebra Mussel, Nutria, and Asian Carp). It is important for coastal managers to detect invasive species soon after their arrival so that successful eradication and management plans can be implemented. Therefore, invasive species monitoring is conducted at most NERRs.

The South Slough NERR alone is home to over 50 non-native marine species. Of these species, few are as infamous as the European green crab. As I discussed in my last post, I recently started a project aimed to investigate the distribution and population of green crabs in South Slough. I collected samples continuously for 2 days at my first set of sites. While dungeness and hairy shore crabs were most abundant, I collected 15 green crabs at the mouth of the estuary. Specimens were measured, sexed, and weighed before being humanely disposed of. The data collected from this project will be used to manage the spread these little green aliens and potentially prevent future invasions along other coastlines.

Aquatic invaders at SSNERR #OSGscholars pic.twitter.com/mUavLAlwbd

— Collin Williams (@Capn_Collin) July 4, 2016