"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. |
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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