"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." -Carl Sagan Our final weekend here in Charleston, OR. During prior weekends, us interns would plan adventures or outings to explore the area in some way. This weekend was different in that the final critiques of our poster drafts loomed on our minds and in some ways, was relieving to ease into the finality of this experience and have a more mellow weekend (other than revising posters that is). However, this satiated lethargy did not stop us from loading up in the OIMB van to go visit the hiking trails in South Slough one last time on Saturday afternoon. This time we did the entire hidden creek loop, with some small pit stops to snap pictures of some fungi for iNaturalist. Sunday was also largely a leisure time spent running through the forests behind campus and doing some last errands for our last week here. After receiving all the critiques for our posters, some of us got right to work on clarifying any confusing wording, syntax issues, or any last-minute formatting issues. Monday morning arrived and we focused our efforts on the absolute final revisions as our final deadline approached the next day. After re-reading my poster repeatedly, I finally felt ready to call it done. The result is something I feel incredibly proud of and could not wait to present the final product to a wider audience. Speaking of presenting to a wider audience, I spoke with my mentor Shon, Maya, and Richard about possibly submitting an abstract for my project to Oregon Sea Grant’s “State of the Coast” conference in November. It sounds like the perfect venue for the content of my research and felt that it would be challenging yet rewarding for my personal and professional development. More on that later. On Monday afternoon, I felt my eyes starting to glaze over with how much I had been staring at and working on my poster. I took a much-needed hike through the woods to the cave near the coast guard lookout tower and took one final hike along the ocean cliffs. Partially, I wanted to catch a breather but also wanted to expand my observations on iNaturalist. Our final evenings were spent watching movies (curated by Naia) at the boathouse. The energy has been feeling cozy as we approach the end of this internship and as we enter late summer. On Tuesday, Naia and I had to finish the remaining data entry from crab trapping from the week before. This was our final work done in the lab and felt celebratory after our last crab was input into the database. Prior to our data entry, Naia and I went to meet with Shon in his office to present the custom shirts that we created for the three of us to commemorate this summer experience. The “2023 Green Crab Killah Club” with our last names on the back. We wanted to get something made to show our appreciation for the great mentorship and the amazing summer that we had. I know that I learned what felt like a year’s worth of knowledge in a two-month timespan. I submitted my poster to be printed late Tuesday afternoon which felt simultaneously like a huge relief and the slightest bit nerve wracking. Ultimately, though, the relief was overpowering and with it, came a sense of accomplishment. Since I had finished my poster, I opted for a somewhat spontaneous trip with Ali, Shon, and Shreyaan to go do water quality sampling in South Slough. This entailed getting on the small ECOS boat and heading to different sampling sites in the estuary. My sole task was to collect water quality data using a YSI meter. Mostly though, I was just along for the ride and to enjoy a final bout of field work on the boat. On Wednesday afternoon, we had our final professional development session with Richard and Maya. This session’s topic was how to give good elevator talks as well as ethics in research. For this meeting, we all practiced giving a roughly two-minute talk regarding our research in anticipation of Friday’s poster session. This was challenging in that we did not have our posters there to reference as we spoke, so we had to improvise. I think it was ultimately a good thing in that it forced us to spontaneously speak on our research without any reference. That evening the interns gathered at Bastendorff Beach for a celebratory charcuterie board at sunset. Thursday was essentially a day off for most of us as our posters were done and printed and work at the labs were over. Many of us began packing our bags for the fast-approaching departure. I walked through the woods one final time. Friday morning was upon us and there was a flurry of anticipatory energy preceding our poster sessions that afternoon. Concurrently, I felt an immense sense of accomplishment and validation. Click here to editAll the interns set up our posters outside on wooden panels and situated them so that passersby could meander at their leisure. The poster session was both nerve wracking and excellent practice. I felt that my ability to speak eloquently about my project increased as people passed through. There were a few researchers who stopped by my poster who got a choppy version of my project as I stumbled over my words a little but overall, it was a good experience. It was so fulfilling to be able to speak on the research and the visual presentation thereof. After the poster session, we took a final picture in front of the OIMB sign and had a debriefing session with Richard and Maya. Then, we all gave a sigh of relief as that day was quite long and a sigh of relief because this internship was so fun and a lot of work. We all learned a lot and I can easily say that this experience is an invaluable one. . We made it. Thanks for reading and following this small snapshot of my time and experiences here at OIMB’s EMBOC REU program. I hope that you enjoyed reading and hoped that this was an informative and fun blog to follow. Thanks to Maya Watts, Richard Emlet, Shon Schooler, Naia Pulotu, NSF, OIMB, and all the other EMBOC REU interns! If you are reading this and are interested in hearing more about my REU experience or have further questions, feel free to reach out: [email protected]
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Welcome to week 8! We are getting precipitously close to the end of this internship, and by proxy, this blog. It’s amazing how experiences like these can simultaneously feel like they have lasted an eternity and sped by at the speed of light. It is noticeable that I have been here for almost two months because of how much I have learned and the kinds of experiences I have had. This internship has proven to be beneficial not only for academic and professional growth, but also in personal growth and in pushing my own capabilities to the test. Of course, these kinds of experiences tend to have the concurrent role of bringing up even more questions than you had before. This could be applied in a generalized way but also in terms of our project. I think I would have altered a few elements of my project if I could do it over again. If I had more time, I would expand upon it. All good information and gives lots to think about. Anyway. This weekend started off with our outreach sessions at the Charleston Marine Life Center (CMLC) on Saturday morning. Naia and I set up our table in the “crab room”, where a handful of live specimens live in tanks and where a display case features all the representative Oregon crab carapaces. My portion of the outreach session primarily involved the ecological havoc that green crabs are capable of and how to identify them comparatively to other common native crabs that are generally in the same areas. Naia put together a male/female identification and sorting game that was a big hit with the kids and families that stopped by our table. It was a fulfilling experience to be able to inform people about invasive green crabs and field their questions about identification and ecology. The CMLC was apparently not nearly as crowded as it usually is on Saturday mornings (likely due to the sunny weather we’ve been experiencing), but it was still a good experience and good practice. Later that day, I wanted to go on a long hike within South Slough, and while hiking, figured it would be a good idea to bring the YSI meter in my backpack so that I could do salinity sampling on the last sights that I hadn’t sampled yet. I only got around to Hinch Bridge and Big Cedar on that hike, but it did take awhile to hike to both, so it still felt successful. The following day, I hopped in the SUV with Naia, and we then drove to all the other annual sampling sites to measure salinity. The, I could finally complete my data analysis as my field sampling for my project had officially concluded. It appears that even though the measured salinity varied slightly from the average summer bottom salinity data I had been using from the hydrodynamic model, there was still a visible trend in the data that worked in my favor. Monday morning signified our final stretch of field work and green crab monitoring for this internship. Shon, Naia, and I loaded up 18 bait cannisters, grabbed 18 stakes, and 18 traps, and set them all at low tide at Metcalf Marsh, Hinch Bridge, and Big Cedar. Then, as per usual, the 24-hour waiting game begins. The rest of the day was spent formatting poster drafts, wrangling graphs on excel, and putting the finishing aesthetic touches on my two maps in ArcPro. The next day we loaded up 18 more bait canisters, traps and stakes for our next sample sites at Boat Basin, Joe Ney Slough, and Valino Island. First, however, we collected our traps from our three sites set the day before. There seemed to be a higher number caught at each of these South Slough sites in August versus September, which makes sense when compared with the data from previous years. Tuesday was the day before our poster critique, so us REU interns scrambled to gather last minute data, format our poster layouts, or compose some last-minute charts for our poster critique on Wednesday. Some of us REUs stayed up till the wee hours of the morning working on it, however, as an older student, I was asleep before lights out. The following day, we had a visiting invasive seaweed researcher from Japan, Taichi Uchio joined us for our regular morning sampling. It was interesting to hear about some of his research as a cultural anthropologist studying the impacts of invasive seaweeds and tsunami debris. He seemed to be primarily interested in the human component of our work. It was fun to have a new person along with us and he was very helpful in crab processing (a lot faster than Naia and I were our first-time processing). After we finished our crab processing, Naia and I went off to join the other REUs and to prepare for our poster critique. We each took turns projecting our poster onto a tv screen that was roughly the size that the posters will be when they are printed out. The critiques largely involved formatting issues, confusing messages, and overall design. It was an incredibly beneficial session, and everyone’s commentary was constructive. Unfortunately, our last seminar was cancelled that night but none of us wanted to return to working on our poster and to take the night off. The following day, Taichi joined me, Shon, and Naia on our field work again. We returned to Isthmus Slough and Coos History Museum to collect our traps. There were an absurd number of green crabs, which makes sense as these are our most abundant sites (from the data set and contemporarily). Then we set our final round of traps at Empire docks and Transpacific Lane before Taichi took off. After returning to the lab, Naia and I spent the better part of the afternoon processing crabs and addressing the critiques on our posters. On Friday, we loaded up the South Slough SUV for the last time to go gather what we had caught in our traps at Empire and Transpacific. This time, we brough fellow South Slough intern Taylor with us to photo document our research work. At empire we caught no green crabs (some good news) and only about 50 at Transpacific Lane. It feels like the end is real now that we have finished our last round of fieldwork. We hung up our waders for the last time and took our last bucket of green crabs to the OIMB freezer. Goodbye for now Carcinus maenas.
As we get closer to the end of this internship, we are becoming busier and busier, however, us REU’s are still able to find time to get some R&R in on the weekends. This weekend we returned to some of our favorite antique stores to purchase some last-minute trinkets for our humble collections. This also entailed some ordinary thrifting and more explorations of both Coos Bay and of North Bend (they are so close that for my purposes, they are identical). Some of the other interns were wanting to thrift so as to acquire clothes or materials to begin working on their costumes for the “invertebrate ball” hosted by OIMB the following week. While I had a passing interest in costume acquisition, as predicted, my primary interest lay in sifting through disheveled piles of old items to find things I might call treasure. The rapidly approaching end of our internship also signals to working on the weekends more often. On Sunday, a few of the other REU’s loaded up in the South Slough SUV and we drove to all 12 of my sample sites in Coos River and Catching Slough. At these sites, I used the YSI salinity meter to sample salinity at mid/high tide so as to approximate salinity and be able to reference sampled salinity versus the average bottom salinity as shown in the hydrodynamic model. The salinity readings were not perfectly aligned with hydrodynamic model but close enough to indicate that they are “within range”. Estuaries have complex tidal and seasonal salinity fluctuations, and I am well aware that my interpretation of the salinity gradient is a large undertaking that cannot be as accurately accessed as I would like. To supplement my project, I developed a very simple tank experiment in the saltwater tanks where in one of the large rectangular tanks (not filled), I will provide 5-6 different aluminum turkey baking trays filled with water of different salinities and create a salinity preference experiment for the crabs. I will leave them out there for a day or two and force them to decide the salinity pool that they want to be in after being out of any water for 10-12 hours. More on that later. Monday began with a meeting with Shon where we discussed the types of graphs, maps and visual components to present my data on my final poster. The rest of the day was spent on both developing these maps, experimenting with some graphs, and beginning on the outline for my poster. Luckly, at the very beginning of this internship, Shon provided Naia and I a manila folder filled with print outs of posters that past interns had done so that we could get some ideas and a frame of reference for what the layout of ours might look like. The thought of poster creation is becoming less daunting as I begin drafting it and break the “surface tension” as we have been calling that feeling of hesitation one can get at the beginning of a project. On Tuesday morning, I grabbed six aluminum turkey baking trays, the YSI salinity meter, and headed over to OIMB to reserve one of the flat, rectangular sea water tanks. For my experiment, I needed the tank to be completely empty except for the six trays, each filled with saline water in a gradient. I attempted to recreate salinity gradients on the hydrodynamic model as much as possible (i.e., 5ppt, 10 ppt, 15 ppt, etc.). Then once that was set up, I went over to “borrow” some of the green crabs that Naia had been using for her trap experiment. I chose three green males of relatively comparable sizes to start. I then placed one crab in the tank and played the waiting game to see which tray (if any) the crab would choose, therefore suggesting a salinity preference. Considering the time green crabs can be out of the water, I was not sure how long this experiment might take ultimately. The first night, I realized upon arriving that morning that my first crab had escaped and could not be found. Learning that they could scale the walls of the flatter, rectangular tank, I switched tanks for this experiment to one that featured tall plexiglass walls. However, in observing the crabs in that 24-hour period, I realized that they might not know that there are slightly elevated trays of water in the trays because they usually sit in the corner without much movement. I decided on Wednesday that if by the end of the day, they had not moved or learned how to climb into the trays, I would pull the plug on this experiment and rely on the countless lab studies on green crab salinity preference.
Monday morning, I packed up the South Slough SUV with 18 traps, 18 stakes, and 18 cannisters of tuna bait and headed to my 6 Coos River sites. My phone didn’t have reception, so I had to recollect the sites that I had chosen from memory (which somehow, I remembered) and find the pull-offs along the road. One is a boat ramp, two are along bridges, but the other three are just along the road so these were the most challenging to access. After slipping on mud only once, I set all 18 traps and drove back to Charleston. Then the waiting game began. The next day, Naia and I grabbed a handful of buckets, gloves, waders, and the data sheet and hit the road early in the morning to catch low tide again. My first 4 sites on the Coos River arm featured no green crabs at all, which is ultimately a good thing. This means that no green crabs were caught between the 0-5, 5-10, 10-15, or 15-20 ppt range (according to the hydrodynamic model ranges). 3 young green crabs were caught within the 20-25 range and 13 were caught at my site in the 25-30 range. Most of the crabs were male, in the green molt phase, and not exceeding 75-millimeter carapace width nor 108 grams. One significant factor is that I lost one of my three traps at my last site, so there likely were more but the current at high tide probably carried them away. This is generally the trend that I hypothesized although I did expect to find more at 20-25 ppt and maybe a few in the 15-20 ppt range. The next day, I packed up the South Slough SUV again with 18 Fukui traps, even more stakes (so I could make sure they were extra secure), 18 cannisters of tuna bait and my GPS coordinates, and headed to Catching Slough. These sites were mostly harder to access than my Coos River sites. There was a steeper grade to access the trap setting areas and the mud at these sites were more conducive to sinking (not to mention smelled way worse than Coos River for whatever reason). As I set all my traps, I noticed that there were small Dungeness and shore crab carcasses at each site which gave me some hope that I might also catch green crabs further into the upper arm of Catching Slough. After I set my traps, I then drove the South Slough SUV back to Charleston. For our professional development session this week, we all met at the CMLC (Charleston Marine Life Center) to discuss presenting our research to a broader audience (i.e., not just colleagues or peers). This was helpful as we will all be presenting our research and setting up information booths at the CMLC the weekend after this weekend to the general public. It was a helpful reminder on reduction of jargon, accessibility, interactivity, and, ultimately, making one’s research a fascinating endeavor for non-scientists. Naia and I will be hosting a joint booth as our projects both entail green crabs. I really want to focus on identification strategies, ecology, and ultimately, why it matters to monitor green crab abundance with various sites within the estuary. Being a highly adaptable invasive, it is a community issue as well as an ecological one. Wednesday evening, us REU’S attended a seminar from Dr. Shawn Arellano on hydrothermal vents. More specifically, Dr. Arellano’s research was on the abundance of several types of deep see snails that live in hydrothermal vent communities. These communities fluctuate in that every so often a vent will stop emitting chemicals and therefore will cease sustenance for the organisms that depend on that chemical energy. The most fascinating part was their discovery that their northern sites (in a basin near Tonga) were recently smothered by volcanic ash from a large volcanic eruption at Hunga Tonga. Deep sea biology is fascinating, but I think it would be hard for me since the field work involves a lot of submersibles and time spent on a research vessel, which sounds difficult.
On Thursday morning, Naia and I loaded up the South Slough SUV with buckets and headed towards my 6 sites on Catching Slough. These sites were less accessible than my Coos River sites so it felt like adding insult to injury when we found nothing except a few sculpins at our first 4 sites. There was one solitary green crab at a site called Stock Slough (according to the hydrodynamic model, within the 20-25 pp range) and only 2 green crabs at the catching mouth opening. Honestly, I was surprised at these results as I expected to find a lot more at the catching slough mouth. However, we did catch many juvenile and several adult Dungeness at that site so perhaps it is more Dungeness heavy and green crabs are out competed. With the exception of salinity sampling this weekend, this concludes my field work for my project. The data seems to have a trend but perhaps not as clear as I would have liked. More on that later. Naia and I quickly processed the crabs and entered the data into the computer. The rest of the day involved working on my maps on ArcPro, data wrangling on excel, and contemplating a simple lab experiment involving green crab salinity preferences to supplement my research. This Sunday, I plan on borrowing one of the South Slough vehicles and visit my sampling sites one last time so that I can use a YSI salinity meter and obtain my final set of field data for my research project! Now data synthesis and poster design begins. We have officially reached the halfway point of REU internship here at OIMB. It is both astounding and slightly anxiety-inducing that we are nearing the end and the subsequent unveiling of our research posters! With our proposals submitted and critiqued, we thought long and hard over the weekend on what might need altering or further clarification. This first round of critiques was helpful, humbling, and in some ways, quite challenging. This was a true test of separating the ego from the work itself and to remind ourselves that we are new at this and just getting our toes wet when it comes to scientific research. We continued to reflect on these sentiments as we literally got our feet wet aboard OIMB’s new research vessel “Megalopa” and went on three trawling runs off the coast at 150 ft, 200 ft, and 300 ft. At each site we found plenty of organisms that I have only seen pictures of. Some of the highlights for me were the sea cucumbers, one baby squat lobster, decorator crabs, and countless tiny chitons attached to rocks. There were also some cool coral specimens that I don’t know the names of. We were out there for about half the day, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. As our work week began, we took the valuable critiques left by our mentors and program coordinators and got to work preparing a PowerPoint presentation to be given to our cohort on Wednesday afternoon. Many of the other interns are knee-deep in simultaneous data collection, however, my data collection does not start until next week over a long day period of setting traps, returning, collecting data, and repeat. As we are halfway through the program, this means that it will be crunch time in terms of data synthesis and poster creation. Shon showed us the slough’s protocol when it comes to data entry, so we carved out some time in our busy week to work collaboratively on the input. We finished entering all our July collection data in a two-hour window. Naia and I had to take a walk to the corner store afterward to get a breather. The following day, we all went to our respective labs and concurrently prepared our project presentations that were to take place at professional development that afternoon. The atmosphere was very supportive as we gathered in the classroom to alter some last-minute slides or think about key phrases that would help us remember the core content of our presentation. We discussed whether it’s a presentation, paper, or anything that can induce anticipation, the most effective thing to do is break the surface tension and dive right in, subverting the initial petrification that can arise. That all being said, each REU intern’s presentation was thoughtful, informative, and well-presented. Each of us knew the general idea of each other’s research project but it was enlightening to see a formal presentation (jargon and all) being conveyed to a specific audience. My presentation went fairly well once past the first ten seconds of being aware of the spotlight on me so to speak. Later that evening, the REU interns attend Josh Lord’s seminar on hierarchies amongst the primary species of shrimp on the East Coast. This was a fascinating presentation on dominance behavior in shrimps as observed from tank experiments. There was a documented “mobbing” behavior where shrimp, when in a tank with a blue crab, will mob the crab steadily as individuals or groups. This could be a way of testing the crab’s response, distraction, or an abnormal event. The researcher seemed just as bamboozled, and it is still unclear. After the seminar, all the REU interns packed in two cars and Naia and I showed them around the South Slough trails as it approached sunset. Over the course of my time here, I had the pleasure of showing the other interns the joys of thimble berries (Rubus parviflorus), Salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis), Salal (Gaultheria shallon), and of course, the invasive Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus). In addition to the local grazing, we took them down to Big Cedar trail which coincidentally is where one of our annual green crab sampling sites is located within the estuary. The last few days of our workweek signified a sigh of relief as our presentations were behind us, however, our actual projects and data collection begins (if it hadn’t already). My own data collection begins bright and early the following week, so a lot of my time was spent preparing for that (tagging the securing rods, securing a vehicle, printing custom data sheets, etc.). When not prepping for data collection, I copied the data that Naia and I input into the database and began experimenting with graphs and data analysis. Both aspects are challenging for me and as I have not taken statistics yet, included a little bit of YouTube consultation. It was a little bit of trial and error (and will likely require some assistance) but I did learn a bit in the process. Following my afternoon of spreadsheets, linear regression, and analysis, Shreyaan, Naia and I hopped in my car to head to a South Slough intern potluck to say farewell to a few of the South Slough non-REU interns at Sunset Bay. Thinking we were going to be early, we arrived to most of the South Slough employees and interns already there. We casually mingled and snacked until it was made known that there was to be an intern award ceremony. After an email miscommunication, Naia and I received our certificates of appreciation with award “nicknames”. Naia was anointed as the “Crab Wrangler Zebra Shark”, and I was dubbed “Ol’ Salty Red Rock Crab”. The former part of the nickname was given to us by our mentors and the latter were ones that we chose ourselves to best represent our personalities. I chose red rock crab because they are a bit shy yet resilient and persistent. All in all, it was a very nice intern appreciation potluck, and it reaffirmed how great of an experience this has been.
Welcome to week four! This experience already feels like it is flying by at a rapid pace as we are nearly halfway through completion of our internship. Already, I have felt inspired, humbled, energized, curious, and affirmed in my educational and career trajectory. This weekend, our small crew of REU’s decided to explore the downtown district of Coos Bay with the suspicion that this town might be a “secret gem” regarding good thrifting and antiquing. Our suspicions were confirmed, and we all arrived back to OIMB campus with our respective hordes of treasures. On Sunday, I took advantage of the low morning tide and, with strong coffee in hand, hopped in my car and drove out to survey potential green crab sample sites for the data collection segment of my research project. On the passenger side of my car was a printed out copy of the hydrodynamic model map so that I could find a sample site that corresponds to each salinity range within the gradient (0-5, 5-10, 10-15 and so on). After several hours of surveying, I found all of my sites. Some are a little tricky to get to and others are close to private property so I anticipate there might be some inquiry into my comings and goings during the week of my sampling. There is one solitary issue: in the Coos River arm of the estuary, I could not find an access point for the 0-5 ppt range. I will perhaps try again next weekend and see if I can find a spot. This week features a daily dose of morning field work. On Monday, Naia, Shon and I loaded up the South Slough SUV and headed out to Metcalf Marsh, Big Cedar, and Hinch Bridge to conduct our first round of the annual sampling sites. We set 18 traps total at these three sites and returned the following day to collect and record what we caught and then set traps at three other sites. When we returned, there was a decent number of green crabs at Metcalf Marsh, around 5 or 6 at Big Cedar, and only one specimen found at Hinch Bridge. The latter was interesting for me to observe as the salinity of Hinch Bridge is comparable to sites within the lower range of my salinity gradient for my project. Additionally, Metcalf Marsh contained an anomalous quantity of Sculpin per trap. I find sculpin to be slightly irritating to deal with as they are often slippery and feature a spike-like protrusion near its gills that stick to the net of the Fukui trap or to gloves when handling them. After our crab collection, we drove to three additional sites to set traps: Valino Island, Joe Ney Slough, and Charleston Boat Ramp (right near OIMB campus). Then, we drove back to the South Slough lab so that Naia and I could do the usual measuring of carapace width (mm), limb loss, molt phase, sex, and weight (grams). Our afternoon was filled with a somewhat spontaneous kayak workshop and certification. This training allows researchers, students or interns to be able to become certified in technique, protocol, and safely and allows for research to be conducted via kayak in the slough. I have some experience kayaking so it was a nice refresher into some specific techniques, but I did not opt for the kayak rescue portion of the training since I did not technically need it (and was already very cold from the wind!). The following day we checked our three trapped sites from the previous day and set new traps at two new locations: Coos History Museum and Isthmus Slough. We then repeated the previous day’s measurement and data recording process. We found a greater number of female crabs at Joe Ney and Valino Island. Following data collection, we attended our weekly professional development session, which was centered around science talks, presentations, and, for our purposes, poster creation. It was incredibly beneficial to be able to see some templates as well as examples from past REU’s to get some ideas and start to mentally draft my poster. The next day we repeated our collection and trap setting dance. Coos History Museum and Isthmus slough had almost all green crabs at each trap, so it took Naia and I most of the day to process and measure them. Additionally, Sabra from South Slough wanted our assistance in a necropsy on a roadkill porcupine on Seven Devil’s Road. It was an interesting (and aromatic) experience. On Friday we collected our last 12 traps set at both Empire Docks and Transpacific Lane. And that concludes our first full week of data collection. Excited for next week!
Hello and welcome to the third week of our REU internship here at OIMB! After missing Monday for one of my best friend’s weddings back in Portland, we started this week off with a sense of familiarity, routine, and further questions regarding our respective research projects. Three weeks is enough time to feel fully acclimated, recognize familiar faces, and generally know what our weeks look like regardless of the fact that every week is also slightly different. One of the special events happening this week was a presentation on the reintroduction of sea otters to the Southern Oregon coast back in 1970-1971 put on by the Elahka Alliance, an organization that works with tribes and the general public about the campaign to attempt a second translocation of sea otters to the Port Orford and Coos Bay areas. This presentation was fascinating. It is not generally known why the sea otters reintroduced to this area did not manage to survive. There were a lot of various factors that contributed to the failure of reintroduction including rare summer storms, a potentially disparate sex ratio, and the lack of tagging or other types of tracking. For my purposes, this presentation made me ask the question: would sea otter reintroduction offer a form of biotic resistance to green crab invasion? The following day involved more research for my green crab project. This week’s focus involves working on a research proposal to be submitted, reviewed, and then revised for final submission during week 4. Additionally, after meeting with my mentor, I reflected on another element of my project that I could explore involving testing for predation on a salinity gradient. This would entail constructing a sort of trap with a roof made from a large plastic lid so that birds would not interfere, 4 stakes to prevent the tides from carrying away the structure, and finally, a stake with a string and zip-tie attached to a living crab. This would allow for the potential observance of predation along the same salinity gradient I am using for testing green crab abundance. Then I could see if predation is a factor in green crabs penetrating into further arms of the estuary. This component of the project would be interesting but, as of now, I am undecided on this component. We attended a lecture by Dr. Lillian Aoki and her work on eelgrass resilience and conservation. I found this presentation to be informative and reaffirmed my interest in macro, ecosystem approach to research and conservation. It was helpful to see marine researchers and our mentors in the audience asking highly specific questions to the presenting researcher. My work on my research project is coming along quite well. I have a wealth of research papers to draw from and have secured dates to borrow vehicles for sampling during the first week of August. I have nearly finished developing the methodology for my research and am currently working on developing my proposal and beginning to visualize the most effective way to express my data. This week is highly research oriented and next week is our first full week of green crab sampling for our annual ten sampling sites within Coos Bay estuary. This weekend I plan on driving to my proposed sampling sites to investigate access points for trapping, GPS coordinate collection along the salinity gradient in the two arms and taking some pictures for reference.
On Thursday afternoon, I drove myself, Shreeyan, and Naia to the South Slough visitor center where my mentor Dr. Shon Schooler gave a talk on career pathways. It’s incredibly helpful to hear scientists speak on how they got to where they are with their career or research, and the advice they have to offer for the stage that we are at with our education and career path. I find Shon’s advice to “follow your passions” to be a good reminder as I move forward with my education and begin to think about specifics regarding grad school and career paths. This week has been very research-oriented but next week, we begin a full week of field data collection. Let the field work begin! This week marks our first foray into the exciting world of research field work and data collection within the estuary. I have been increasingly excited to begin this segment of the internship as I am the type to want to be knee-deep in mud and the practical application of the research we conduct in the lab or the extensive research that has already been conducted by others. Science is methodical, analytical, and cerebral, but there is also plenty of time for the tactile as well as the awe and wonder it can inspire. That being said, the first real weekend at the OIMB campus was spent tide pooling, kayaking at Hall Lake north of Coos Bay in the Oregon Dunes, going on runs up through the coastal forests of Southern Oregon that lie just behind the dormitories, and some exciting bivalve fossil hunting at the cliffs near the Coast Guard look-out beach. This portion of Southern Oregon features some incredible biological and ecosystem diversity. The work week started off with more research into green crab abundance and salinity within Coos Bay estuarine habitats. My research project is becoming more developed as I bolster my research question and construct my hypothesis. What is the abundance of C. Maenas in relation to the salinity gradient of arms of the estuary where further invasion could occur? Where is their optimal range within Coos Bay as it corresponds with threats of predation or competition? How far into the estuarine inputs do the abundance of green crabs drop off or disappear entirely? According to much of the literature, green crabs generally have a salinity preference of around 22-31 ppt (parts per thousand), although in laboratory settings, they have been shown to tolerate much lower ranges. It is well established that green crabs are intensely euryhaline. I believe that green crabs have the potential to invade slightly less saline arms of the estuary due to their salinity tolerance and desire to escape predation or competition. I believe that their salinity cut off in the field is likely to be above 17 ppt although, there could be potential for as low as 11 ppt. However, before engaging in any lab work with green crabs, this week I volunteered my Tuesday morning to assist in eelgrass data collection on Valino Island. This entailed the seven of us (researcher Ali Helms, 4 REUS, one intern and a graduate student doing eelgrass restoration work) piled onto the boat and headed out to the estuary at low tide. There we set of transects that have been used in this part of the estuary in data collection since 2004. We then set up a quadrat at certain intervals on the transect, documenting % algae cover, % eelgrass cover, max height of eelgrass, number of eelgrass stalks and finally, number of reproductive stalks. Eelgrass habitats are critical for many species, food webs, and erosion protection so I was excited to volunteer my time. Afterwards, we completed leadership training and then we went to a seminar where two researchers spoke about their experience on a research vessel. Their talk was less science based and more experience based and, while an interesting presentation, thoroughly convinced me that being on a research vessel for an extended period might not be for me. The following two days involved our first round of crab trapping of our internship. We left around 8 am with our Fukui traps, tags, bait balls filled with tuna viscera, and our waders to head north for about an hour. We then set 6 traps about 10 meters apart from each other in the mudflats at three different sites near Reedsport and Florence. The plan being to return to these sites the following day after 24 hours had passed to then see what we had caught. We count all species collected and then release those that are not green crabs. Then, we take the green crabs back to the lab to determine the sex ratio, carapace width (mm), whether they are missing limbs, and color and weight (grams). This concluded our introduction to crab trapping in Fukui traps.
Hi, Devin here and this is an update on my first week at OIMB! I packed up my car at my house in Portland, Oregon and hit the road on an unseasonably hot day in the Pacific Northwest. I was immediately relieved at the cool, coastal fog of Coos Bay and was immediately reminded of the coastal fog of my hometown of Santa Cruz, which sustains some of the southernmost groves of old growth costal redwoods. Coos bay and the surrounding area is incredibly gorgeous. On my first walk around the OIMB campus, I was happy to see salal and salmonberry flowering and being pollinated. There is also a resident porcupine that wanders the Fish and wildlife building eating the buds of weeds in the lawn. The ocean air is pervasive and the surrounding forest, as typical of Western Oregon in June, is verdant and full of life. As an OIMB REU intern this summer, I will be working under Dr. Shon Schooler, the lead scientist at the South Slough Reserve researching the invasive European green crab (Carcinus maenas). This species has been well-established on the East coast since the early to mid-19th century and wreaked havoc on east coast shellfish fisheries. The green crab spread to the west coast in the late eighties and was first reported in the Coos Bay area in the late nineties. I am wanting my research to focus on the abundance of green crabs in formerly sampled areas in various points around Coos Bay in relation to varying salinity levels. Green crabs are euryhaline, meaning they have a tolerance to a wide range of salinities. I am curious as to whether they have expanded into other sites in Coos Bay in order to avoid competition. I am excited to learn more! During our first week, my lab partner Naia and I were shown around the lab and introduced to the South Slough database where 20+ years of green crab data has been collected. The tides are not low enough begin our orientation to crab trapping, so in the meantime we are preparing for our research project and synthesizing data, studying the literature and asking questions to guide our research. Here is an assortment of pictures from the first week: The issue of green crab invasion, or of invasive species generally, is of great interest to me as an environmental science major. I care deeply about the relative balance of environmental and biological systems. I am excited to further my knowledge and understanding of the effects of an invasive population on native species, habitats, and the human impacts as well.
I am excited to continue researching for my project and eager to get out into the field as well as continue the internship experience with fellow REU’S. This experience is already extremely inspiring. |
AuthorHello! My name is Devin Forest-Hines, and I am student at both Portland State University and Portland Community College where I am pursuing a BS in environmental science. I am working with Dr. Shon Schooler and his research on the invasive Green Crab (Carcinus maenas) at the South Slough Reserve. I have lived in the Portland area for a decade working in organic agriculture, but I am originally from Santa Cruz, California so marine systems are close to my heart. ArchivesCategories |
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