Monday started off with heading out to Valino Island, an island located within the reserve, to assist with biomonitoring. My mentor taught me some of the shortened scientific names they use to record plant species. For example the plant commonly known as pickleweed, whose scientific name is Sarcocornia perennis, is recorded with the name SAR PER and the other plants are recorded using this method. By learning this I was able to help with identifying species in quadrat areas along with documenting how prevalent they were. While we were there, we began to flag areas and points where bird’s beak was located. It was exciting to find large patches of the plant growing along the more sandy side of the island and a little nerve wracking when trying to not step on them. The next day we came back to the island with GPS units ready to start mapping the species. This was my first day mapping bird’s beak and it felt sort of like the official start of my project. Beginnings usually make me enthusiastic and anxious at the same time and that day wasn’t an exception. I had gotten a bit more used to working with the GPS, but I needed some help from my mentor when identifying species growing near dense bird’s beak patches and collecting soil samples. By the end of my first mapping day though I felt more confident in those skills. Wednesday seemed to go by even faster, I helped collect water samples and YSI data from sites within the estuary. We went out for both low and high tides, then returned to the lab to use the samples for fecal coliform bacteria counts, inorganic nutrients,and chlorophyll filtering. The lab here has so much cool equipment, I stared at their filtration set up which can do six samples at once! Back at the lab at home I could only do one at a time. I feel like that day I got more familiar with where things are in the lab. One of the things I looked forward to all week though was mapping theDistant Water Fleet site. I was lucky enough to have some other students come out with me to help and it was only a short walk from OIMB. We went through flagging, mapping, and sample collecting. We talk about our projects a lot, but actually being able to show what I do was pretty fun. I’m looking forward to mapping and collecting even more next week. Using pink flags on Valino Island to locate bird’s beak for mapping. Bird’ beak growing with california sea lavender, Limonium californicum, the one with orange and green leaves. California sea lavender is used as an indicator that bird’s beak is near. A meter squared quadrat was used to identify species growing around bird’s beak. YSI data being recorded from sampling site.
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AuthorI am an incoming third year student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa studying Oceanography. I’m looking forward to learning all I can about the Oregon Coast from this internship! Archives
August 2019
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