MBFE - Day 29 - Last full day at OIMB

Well, it was inevitable...whenever you have a first day of a program, there's also a last day.  It wasn't just me, the students agreed that the program just seemed to be flowing along nicely, and WHAM! It's over!

The last day of MBFE at OIMB includes some important things.  The main one is that every research team gives an oral presentation of their research project, results, and conclusions.  It's fun to see what each group did and hear what they learned.  In most cases they learned that things don't always go as smoothly as they thought/hoped it would when they started.  We had one group all set to carry out a set of experiments, but the larval crabs they needed didn't appear as expected.  Another group had some research going in the lab when some of their specimens mysteriously disappeared.  Others found it difficult but fun to work in mud in the nearby national research estuary, and others had their own challenges to overcome.  That's science!

Before the presentations though, we had one of the best low tides of the entire trip this morning, a -1.7' tide at about 8am.  Some of the students took advantage of the low tide for one last visit to the shore.  Interestingly the morning dawned gray and misty, but by mid-morning the fog burned off and the clouds moved off.  It's almost as if the southern Oregon coast was enticing us to stay and stay and stay.

This is a shot looking south along Lighthouse Beach.

But of course we had to get ready to go, so we met around 11 am and cleaned the lab and packed the MBFE class gear.

After lunch was our final official MBFE event - the student research presentations.  Each student participated, and presented to the rest of the class.  As I hopped down the stairs of my cottage with projector and computer slung over my shoulder I looked up and saw something you just don't see every day...well, maybe unless you hang out at marine laboratories, even then this is a rarity...lab staff were using a forklift to move the skull of a humpback whale to its resting place just outside of the entrance to the Charleston Marine Life Center.

I had the class empty out of the lab so they could watch too.  It was pretty awesome!

When the students came back in and we were ready to start I gave them some introductory guidelines and reminders and then invited the first group to get ready to get started.  At this point the entire class came to the front...I was surrounded!  Not to worry though, they had gone together and found a memento of the trip for me.  I had no idea!

It's a pretty glass sculpture of a ray.  They got this for me since I mentioned once in class that my "spirit animal" is an eagle ray, like Mr. Ray from the PIXAR movie "Finding Nemo."  That was so thoughtful and kind of them do to this.  This will always have a place of honor in my office or home. Thanks everyone!

Once everyone settled down we were ready to get started.  Just so you know, this is what it looks like from the front of the room when the MBFE crew is ready to get started:

Front row L-R: Luke, Skyler, Isaac, Eileen, Jennifer, Shannon

Middle row L-R: Rachel S, Devon, Joseph, Arianne, Kelly, Jessica

Back row L-R: Courtney, Rachel M, Danielle

Anyway, we finally started the presentations.  Here's one group presenting the results of their project (Presenters L-R: Danielle, Courtney, Rachel M).

By about 4 pm we were done, yep, the OIMB portion of MBFE was over.  There are of course still exams to complete and papers to write and submit.  Those are due in early June.

After the last presentation we went back over to the Charleston Marine Life Center and Dr. Young who was already there offered to take this group photo - Front row L-R: Joseph, Isaac, Skyler, back row: Rachel M, "Dr. H", Courtney, Luke, Danielle, Devon, Eileen, Arianne, Jessica, Rachel S, Kelly, Jennifer, and Shannon.  Oh, yeah, and Orcinus orca in the background.

From there we decided to try for one more group shot, this one by the main entrance to OIMB - L-R: Courtney, Jessica, Rachel M, Arianne, Kelly (back), Danielle, Isaac (front), Eileen, Shannon, Rachel S, Joseph, Skyler, Devon (standing), Luke, Jennifer.

Anyway, ding, ding, ding - dinner time! m Ask your student about the significance of the ship's bell that hangs near the door of the Dining Hall.

Here are a few shots of things that students will always remember about their time in MBFE at OIMB.

We wait in line and the most excellent dining hall staff serves each student.

Some MBFE students enjoy dinner...sometimes they even let a guy of two sit here, but apparently NOT TODAY - Skyler and Isaac sulk in the background (just kidding).  Anyway, Jessica, Arianne, Courtney, Danielle, Rachel M, and Kelly enjoy our last dinner at OIMB - a Hawaiian themed meal that sent at least some MBFE students back for seconds!  The food at OIMB is good, too good, I know I put on some unneeded pounds.  Sigh.

After dinner we (and when I say "we" I mean the students) finished cleaning the lab and they helped load the class gear into my van.  Yep, MBFE is really ending.

And this is what it means when they say, "Leave it better than you found it."  OK, actually it looked pretty much this good when we arrived, but we left it in good shape.  It's always good to leave people clapping.

What's next?  I'm afraid you'll just have to wait until Spring 2017 for the next offering of MBFE.  Until then, stay happy, and don't turn your back on the sea.

The MBFE class really was top-notch.

Some students left already and the rest of us will leave tomorrow.  So long OIMB, and thanks for the great support and experiences!

MBFE - Days 26-28 - Sneak peak at the Charleston Marine Life Center

I think it's safe to say that the MBFE crew spent most of Saturday working on their research presentations and their laboratory and field notebooks.  They were due today (Monday 5/18) at 5pm.

We did take a break during the afternoon though and were treated to a sneak peak at OIMB's Charleston Marine Life Center (CMLC).  This is a combination aquarium and educational facility scheduled to open to the public in August 2015.  Dr. Craig Young, Director of OIMB invited us to take a look at how it's coming along.

L-R: Rachel S, Skyler, Shannon, Jennifer, Arianne, Dr. Craig Young, Kelly, and Jessica just inside the front door of the CMLC.

Two of the main exhibits at the CMLC are mounted skeletons from a real gray whale (upper) and a killer whale (lower).  Both died near the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology and have been in storage for years, now they have a place to be on display.  Impressive!

We had a chance to do many things that regular visitors will not be allowed to do - that's always fun.  for example, we got to handle the teeth from the killer whale skeleton.  The teeth in the mounted skeletons are models of the real teeth,  This was done for two reasons.  Dr. Young told us that first, killer whale teeth eventually crack, and second, that because killer whale teeth are ivory he did not want to run the risk of someone trying to climb up and remove teeth - dangerous to the skeleton and the potential thief. (L-R: Joseph, Rachel S, Orcinus orca, Dr. Young, Kelly and Skyler).

Look at the size of these teeth!

Rachel S., Rachel M, and Joseph take a closer look at those chompers. Luke and Courtney chat in the background and Devon and Jennifer look at a display in prep in the far right background.

Then Dr. Young help up a display cover so that students who wanted to could feel a real sea otter pelt - one of the most prized types of fur in the late 1800s.  Courtney gives it a try while Jennifer and Shannon look on.  I touched it, and that fur is dense and soft!  It's too bad that sea otters were nearly hunted to extinction.

Here Dr. Young introduces the MBFE to a display that when complete will cover dolphins and toothed whales (L-R: Rachel S, Dr. Young, Skyler, Kelly, Joseph), and Courtney and Luke look at a sperm whale skull to the right).

Shannon, Jennifer, and Isaac chat after looking at the sperm whale skull.

Dr. Young is a great host, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time at OIMB (Dr. Craig Young, left, Dr. Alan Holyoak - MBFE Director, right)

Time to go...

MBFE - Day 25 - Time is winding down!

Friday May 15, 2015

We are now three and a half weeks into the MBFE. This means that it's time to start wrapping things up...collecting those last few observations, analyzing data, and starting to write up results.

I spotted a couple of pairs of MBFE students in the lab this afternoon doing just that.

Rachel M (left) chats with Courtney (right) as Courtney collects observations in the progress of their team's project - comparing the rate of embryonic development of the sea slug Dialula sandiegensis under different culture regimes.  A photo of an adult D. sandiegensis is shown below.  

This team kept checking and hoping that their embryos would hatch before they ran out of time to collect data - good news!  They hatched!! 

Another team, Eileen (left) and Jennifer (right) already collected all of the data they need, but now they are working on doing statistics.  In their project they are studying the population genetics of shell color in the mussel Mytilus trosselus.  

This photo shows that most mussels are dark blue, but a few are reddish-brown.

I'm quite pleased with the work that the group has done on this trip.  They have worked well together to accomplish class field work as well as small group research projects.  Here is a photo of the class working on their research notebooks in our classroom/lab in the lab.  Notebooks need to be handed in for evaluation on Monday afternoon 5/18 - yep, it's time to get them squared away!  

Front row L-R: Skyler, Isaac, Shannon
Middle row L-R: Luke, Devon, Joseph, Arianne, Kelly, Jennifer
Back row L-R: Courtney, Rachel M, Danielle, Jessica

Rachel S and Eileen were working elsewhere at the time.

Stay tuned for more updates.

MBFE - Day 24 - By-The-Wind-Sailors continue to wash ashore in the millions

We had our last BIO 314 lecture on Tuesday 5/12 so students have shifted to full-time work on their research, writing, gathering photos for a class assignment, and getting their field/research notebooks ready for evaluation early next week.

The By-The-Wind-Sailor Velella velella appeared in one of the early MBFE 2015 updates, but students and I remain shocked at the vast number of these little animals that keep washing ashore along beaches near us.

Velella is related to animals like sea anemones, jellyfish, and coral.  They have an upright sail that allows them to tack away from the direction of the wind and normally avoid shore.  As they drift they dangle tentacles into the water and capture small plankton that they use for food.

On Bastendorf Beach, only a mile or so south of the marine lab, you can see even more of these lovely little animals along the entire length of the beach.   

In some places they are stacked several deep on the sand.  Sadly, ones that wash ashore die.

Velella are, thankfully, not dangerous to bare feet.  It's impossible to avoid these if you want to walk the beach near the water, and they are disturbingly squishy.

The appearance of hoards of these animals appearing on west coast shorelines is not at all unusual, so there is no cause for alarm, though this is amazing.

We are on track and doing great.

Stay tuned for more updates.

MBFE - Day 23 - Seal pups!

It's springtime, and in the ocean like on land, it's time for many animals to have their babies.

We are located just up the coast from a place called Simpson Reef & Shell Island.  This place is an important location for seals, sea lions, and even elephant seals to come ashore and give birth.  The elephant seals do this in the winter months and are all gone now, but there are LOTS of harbor seals with pups down there these days.

The students were interested and excited to see the marine mammals.  After all, this isn't the sort of thing you see in eastern Idaho.

This photo, taken looking north along the coast, shows Simpson Reef with waves breaking to the far left, and Shell Island, the inverted cone shaped peak in the middle of the photo.

If you have binoculars or a spotting scope you can see the seals and sea lions on the sandy beach on the leeward side of Shell Island.  This patch of sand stays above the tide line at all times.

The darker animals that are more upright are sea lions and the lighter, browner ones are mostly harbor seals.  There are also some Stellar sea lions around...they are much bigger than the smaller California sea lions.

As you hike along the shore it is not uncommon to see harbor seal mothers with pups, some very young.

Here's a harbor seal mother and pup around the point from Sunset Beach.  This is a very young pup. It's so young that it has to hitchhike on its mother's back while they swim.  

The following photos show some mother-pup groups hauled out on the rocks between Sunset Bay and Simpson Reef.

And when the sky is clear Oregon gives up fantastic sunsets.

Stay tuned for more updates.

MBFE - Day 22 - Baby Squid!

Things continue to go well with the MBFE.  The students have jelled well as a group and as far as I can tell there haven't been any significant conflicts or issues.  Maybe I just got lucky with the mix of participants.  Then again, there is something soothing, healing, and a little like coming home when we visit the sea.  Being able to sit and watch the waves roll in and see the tides rise and fall tends to calm us and our souls.

OK, the big happening today was that someone  took time to look at a mass of squid eggs that we've had in culture in the lab since April 25th, and they saw baby squid swimming around!

Where did the egg masses come from?

During our down time, on Saturday afternoon April 25th I went to Lighthouse Beach just to poke around.  At the south end of that beach is a rock wall and some rock pools.  I noticed something very odd on those rocks.  There were oblong, translucent, gelatinous masses all over the place.

I thought at first that they might be squid egg masses, but there were so many of them that this would have been extremely strange.

I picked up a clump of them that had been attached to some sea grass but somehow washed up on shore.  Yep, they were squid eggs all right!  I didn't have anything with me to put them in so I just slipped them into my jacket pocket and walked on.

I walked on and looked down at a large tide pool and saw that it was FULL of egg masses!  They were not only here but also all over floating in the water and all over the rocks.  This represents MASSIVE reproductive failure by these squid.  I talked to faculty at OIMB where we are based and they'd never seen anything like it either.

The egg mass I collected was soon put into a beaker in the lab and everyone took a look at them. Squid embryos take weeks to hatch, so there was no guarantee that we'd see anything.  After a week or so of checking we all forgot about them...well, I did change the water once in a while and plopped an aeration stone in it.

Two and half weeks later someone took a look and there were baby squid jetting around in the beaker!

Did you know that you can take quite nice photomicrographs with a cell phone camera?  Just line the lens up with an eye piece and snap away.  Here's what those babies look like:

There were, I have to say it, squeals of delight from some students, and everyone anxiously took a good long look.  

It was super-cool!  If you looked at one long enough you could see its chromatophores (the brownish spots) dilating and contracting, you could see the hearts beating inside the mantle, and the mantle muscles contracting as it tried to jet around.

Now that's not something you see every day!  Welcome to MBFE - you never know what you'll see next.

MBFE Day 21 - Research continues and class is winding down

Sorry about the delay in posting, but I'll do my best to catch up...

OK, so this is Day 21 - 3 full weeks into the BYU-Idaho Marine Biology Field Experience.

Students spent the morning on research and some groups have even started some of the writing tasks they need to do for their research manuscripts.  Yep, there are all kinds of things going on.  One group spends its time in the marine measuring sediment sizes, taking depth readings and trying to catch elusive little fish while another group continues to monitor development of sea slugs and another group investigates possible impacts of acidification on developing chitons.

Here are a couple of photos of hermit crabs.  Two research teams are working on questions with these fun little animals.  Believe it or not these are two different species.  Take a close look and see if you can tell the difference.  Oh, they are using the same kind of shell as home, but they are different species all right.

In other news, this was our second to last BIO 314 - Marine Biology - lecture.  It's a fun one though, tropical communities.  How can we be done so soon?  Well, if we have class for 2-3 hours per day and we have class 19 days that's the equivalent of 38+ regular lectures on campus, so yep, it's about time to wind down.  Once we're done with those, students will be able to work on their research and writing full-time.

Stay tuned for more updates!

MBFE - Days 19 - 20 - Tall Ships in Coos Bay

It's the weekend.  We didn't hold class today (Sat) because low tide was before lunch and some of the teams may have needed to head out to work low tide.  So it was a down day for the MBFE.

Some of the students headed over to the Coos Bay Boardwalk where two tall ships are currently docked.  These ships, Lady of Washington and The Hawaiian Chieftain, tour far and wide.  They are both tall ships and are worth seeing if you have the chance.

The upper photo shows "The Hawaiian Chieftain" and the lower one "Lady of Washington."

Movie buffs may recognize the Lady of Washington.  This was the ship that represented the HMS Interceptor in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean".  It has also appeared in or been the inspiration for ships in television and on the big screen.

Students continue to work hard and make progress on their projects.  It's fulfilling to see what they are doing.  You'd be proud.

Don't look for a posting tomorrow, "Mothers Day", but postings will appear again early next week.

Happy Mothers Day!

MBFE - Day 18 - Whales!!!

This day started out pretty like pretty much any other...breakfast at 7am, followed by student research teams going over their plans for the morning.  One team, Arianne, Kelly and Jessica, asked if I could go with them to Middle Cove, Cape Arago, so they could collect more hermit crabs for their project. No problem.

There was dense fog...so I didn't know what I'd be able to see aside from what's on the rocks...which is actually the cool stuff...so off we went.  After all, fog doesn't stop the intrepid hermit crab hunters Kelly, Jessica, and Arianne!

By the time we reached Cape Arago the fog had burned off and we had a beautiful day!

It takes some doing to get down to Middle Cove.  There is a steep unimproved trail, but down we went! (L-R: Arianne, Kelly, Jessica)

The team worked well and consistently in the field (L-R: Jesscia, stooped over, Arianne, Kelly)

While they worked I poked around this area...I'd never been down here before.  It's a pretty nice spot, mostly a boulder field with LOTS of mid to high intertidal zone species. I'd worked my way out to toward the water when I looked over to the south and thought I caught a glimpse of the vapor from whale spouts.  Sure enough!  That's when our morning adventure really began.  We worked our way around the south side of Middle Cove, negotiated several large boulders and surge channels and made our way out onto the point between Middle Cove and South Cove.  The whales were there!

We saw them spouting and pretty soon it became obvious that they were feeding.  These are gray whales and they migrate along the west coast of North America from their birthing grounds in Mexico in the south to their feeding grounds in Alaska.  We've been watching for them all trip and we finally spotted some.

As the photo below shows, there were two whales.  And as you can see in the photo below, they were quite close inshore...perhaps no more than 200 or 300 years away.

Sometimes they would extend a flipper above the water.  They were actually in pretty shallow water so it's possible that the flipped was above water when the whale rolled on its side to feed by taking a mouth full of sediment from the bottom of the seafloor.

All four of us had a chance to watch them for some time.  We texted the rest of the MBFE group and some of them came out, but sadly by the time they arrived the whales were gone. Interestingly, the fog started rolling back in when the whales disappeared. Maybe the whales will show up again on another day.  I sure hope so!  

We'll keep looking and you keep checking in.  

The MBFE adventure continues...