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Tristin here! My flight out of California departs at 6:30am and my alarm set for 3:30am; but let’s be honest, I’ve been up since 2:00am. A year and a half ago I was working as a research technician, and was a prospective graduate student for Dr. Matthew Edwards at San Diego State University. He was looking for a group of students and scientific SCUBA divers to assist him on a three-week research cruise to the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, to look at the effects of the widespread loss of kelp forests on biodiversity, primary production, and nutrient cycling (for more info on our cruise and objectives, click here). Since then, my lab and I have spent the last year working long hours at SDSU’s marine lab (CMIL website) getting ready for this trip (fueled by coffee and burritos, obviously). And now, thirteen pairs of wool socks later, my bags are packed, my dive gear is trimmed, serviced, and ready for the trip. Packing for an expedition like this is as exhilarating as it is exhausting; we have to condense as much of our equipment (including drysuits and undergarments) as possible while adhering the airline’s strict 50lb bag limit. (Note: this did not work very well, as a lab we ended up checking 13 bags filled with science and diving gear. Restlessly lying in bed and reminiscing about my first year of graduate school wasn’t helping, so I powered two cups of coffee and jumped in the shower. By this time, it’s 3:00am and Colin (my ride and partner) has unfortunately been awakened by my ruckus and commotion. So, he sips on his first cup of coffee, I chug my third, and we’re off! From Santa Cruz, we make our way over to San Jose International Airport, say our goodbyes, and now it’s real; I’m headed to the most remote and western most part of the United States. The rest of my lab mates are flying from San Diego and Los Angeles, but we are meeting up in Portland. Snapchats through security irritate TSA, but my lab mates and I are adamant about documenting the moments leading up to our reunion. I get my boarding pass (San Jose to Portland to Anchorage to Adak), check in, at and 6:30am on the dot, we’re in the air. I land in Portland (which is by-far the best airport to have a 2-hr layover in), and immediately check in with mom and let her know I landed. Just as I pulled out a book to kill the time, I noticed a man carrying 40lbs of lead dive weight…It’s my labmate Scotty! In tow were (almost) the rest of the San Diego contingent, Dr. Matt Edwards, Dr. Ju-hyoung Kim (from Korea), Scotty Gabara, Genoa Sullaway, and Sadie Small, united at last! The only one we are missing at this point is Pike who is coming from Los Angeles, but he’s pretty travel savvy, so we aren’t too worried about him meeting up with us in Alaska. This stop is a quick one, we’re off to Anchorage! Flying over Canada then Alaska was a dream. Thousands of miles of pristine lakes, valleys, and mountains are as far as I can see. The lakes are milky blue from snowmelt, and deep ravines run from mountain tops to the ocean. We land in Anchorage at around 2:00pm and are famished, so we forage for food with Brenda Konar’s Lab (University of Fairbanks Alaska, the other half of the scientific crew). Although we’ve only had conference calls and skype meetings with them over the last year, seeing them in person seemed so familiar. We finish eating and head to the terminal…then in the distance we witness a spectacular show of Pike running through the airport to make his flight. We greet him with hugs and leftovers, and then make our way to the terminal. We load up, and then minutes later we were in the air on our way to Adak Island, and our first moments in the remote Aleutian Archipelago. The three-hour and three-minute flight from Anchorage to Adak revealed a gradient of cloud coverage. The Edwards lab is additionally interested in abiotic factors (such as cloud cover) affecting the net primary production (photosynthesis) of a given area. Thoughts like this run through my head for the remainder of the flight, until we begin our descent and are below the clouds. Then, like an explosion of color, came the green hills, black lakes, white snow, and red, blue, yellow homes. At the height of WWII, the United States used Adak as a military base to house an estimated 60,000 troops. Now, there are about 300 people left on the island, leaving many of the homes, warehouses, and docks abandoned. Although there is a small population on the island, we are greeted at the airport by Alaska Fish and Wildlife biologists and two pick-up trucks. We load 13 scientists, their personal belongings, dive gear, and scientific equipment into the trucks and head over to the R/V Oceanus. We arrive at our new home, the R/V Oceanus, and rapidly unload gear from the trucks and begin the safety briefing. Safety is a big deal on a mission like ours considering we are traveling in one of the most remote places in the world. Captain Jeff and Marine Technician Brandon give us a run-down of the boat, and it’s emergency procedures, and then… We are off to Tanaga Island, AK…2,862 miles from where I began my trip this morning. Cheers, Tristin Why: This is the big one, so it gets listed first. Why are we going to the Aleutians? The widespread loss of sea otters throughout the Aleutian Archipelago has resulted in a dramatic increase in sea urchin abundance and a corresponding loss of kelp forests. (THIS article is a great overview of ecological theory related to this topic and takes a deeper look into how sea otters ‘balance’ ecosystems, see the end of the article “Sea Otters and their Cascading Effects”). Our over-arching goal is to examine how the widespread loss of kelp forests effects primary production, biodiversity and nutrient cycling across a range of habitats in the Aleutian Archipelago. Who: Thirteen scientists will be participating in the shipboard research effort, including: Dr. Matthew Edwards and his lab from San Diego State University (Scott Gabara, Genoa Sullaway, Sadie Small, Tristin McHugh, and Pike Spector), Dr. Brenda Konar and her lab from University Alaska Fairbanks, (Ben Weitzman, Jacob Metzger, Sarah Traiger, and Alex Ravelo), and Dr. Ju-Hyoung Kim from Chonnam National University in South Korea. What: On the cruise, scientists will be doing an array of activities with the common goal of assessing how the wide-spread loss of kelp along the archipelago influences the net ecosystem production and benthic biodiversity.
Where: The Aleutian Island chain spans 1,800 kilometers and has upwards of 300 islands of varying size (Figure 2). This summer we are visiting the Eastern Islands and will return to the archipelago in the summer of 2017 to survey the Western Islands. We are departing from Adak Island and will survey at total of 10 islands over the course of two years. In 2016, we will work at five of these islands (Adak, Atka, Chuginadak, Umnak, and Unalaska). The cruise will officially end in Dutch Harbor, and from there we will stay on the ship as it motors back to Seward where we will unload our gear and store it for next year’s expedition! When: Starting now!! (June 16th) The cruise will last for 21 days and end in Seward, AK in early July. How: This trip is funded by the National Science Foundation, and logistically supported by Oregon State University’s R/V Oceanus captain and crew. Follow along for updates and pictures as the cruise progresses! The Edwards lab, in collaboration with the Dinsdale lab, recently headed to the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Sciences on Catalina Island for a week of intensive research and SCUBA diving. The goals of this trip were to 1) test and become proficient at deploying benthic chambers (in preparation for Alaska!), 2) use the chambers to assess the amount of photosynthesis occurring in communities invaded with Sargassum horneri, and 3) investigate the microbial communities associated with S. horneri and compare it to communities commonly found on the native giant kelp (Dinsdale Lab). During the trip we deployed benthic production chambers (Figure 1) which we like to describe as underwater greenhouses. These chambers are equipped with oxygen and light sensors that allow us to track photosynthesis of algae communities over the course of the incubation. Take a look at a video (below) that shows how we set the chambers up underwater! The underwater incubations usually last for 4 hours. If the incubation last longer than 4 hours, the chamber creates an unnatural environment because the water becomes oxygen rich (photosynthesis is happening!) and there is not enough carbon present for photosynthesis to occur. We stop the incubations before this occurs and flush the chamber to start a new incubations, Using a series of short incubations we can model the amount of photosynthesis occurring in a community over longer time periods! These chambers will be used along the California coast and in the Aleutian Islands and can help us answer many research questions such as: - How has the large scale loss of kelp forests in the Aleutian Islands altered the net photosynthesis occurring in the region? (Dr. Matt Edwards and Dr. Brenda Konar) - What is the net primary production occurring in seagrass (Zostera marina) beds? (Melissa Ward) -How has the invasion of Sargassum horneri in southern California influenced the primary production of these habitats? (Genoa Sullaway) -What is the difference in kelp forest net photosynthesis between Northern and Southern California? (Pike Spector) Thank you to Melissa Ward for the video. Thank you to the staff at the USC Wrigley Institute for the assistance during our stay. Additionally, thank you to the National Science Foundation for the funding that has allowed us to construct and use these chambers in Catalina and in the Aleutian Islands! Investigating the invasive algae, Sargassum horneri, in Southern CaliforniaPicture a healthy garden. You may think of carefully tended flowers and a variety of plants that produce delicious vegetables. A gardener puts a lot of effort into this healthy garden to keep out certain weeds. These weeds can harm the other plants by sucking up water and nutrients, or by taking up space so that other plants don't have room to grow. Weeds also exist in the sea. A species of recent concern is an invasive seaweed called Sargassum horneri (=S. filicinum) that has arrived in Southern California. This alga likely traveled from its native habitat in Japan to the U.S. West Coast via cargo ship ballast waters. Interestingly, the alga was first found on a dock in the international shipping port of Long Beach Harbor in 2003. Since then it quickly spread to the CA Channel Islands and to Baja, Mexico! Why has it spread so quickly?As humans travel around the world, they spread invasive species to new habitats. However, only some of these species end up persisting in the new habitat and threatening native communities. Like invaders in a garden, S. horneri has many “weedy” characteristics that help it colonize and dominate new habitats. For example, it grows more quickly than native algae species; in just one year, this annual species can grow from being microscopic in size to 10 feet tall. To top it off, S. horneri may be able to self-fertilize, so a single rogue alga can start a whole population! These traits have contributed to the rapid invasion of S. horneri. Current Invasive Species Research at CMILSadie, a Master's student in the Edwards Lab and the CMIL student manager, studies the invasibility of S. horneri by examining its responses to different environmental conditions. Specifically, she looks at how different temperatures, salinities, nutrient concentrations, and light levels affect growth and photosynthesis of S. horneri. Sadie conducts laboratory experiments to see if these responses differ among algae from different locations, or during different parts of their life cycle. This environmental tolerance information can be used by management agencies to understand and predict the spread of this species. Genoa, a Master's student in the Edwards Lab, studies how S. horneri affects native algae species. These native algae species are important because they provide habitat for many invertebrate and fish species and contribute to coastal primary production. She examines how this invasion, and the related change in native algae, may alter the amount of photosynthesis, or primary production that occurs in these near shore algae-dominated habitats. Genoa and Sadie are discovering that when S. horneri invades a new ecosystem, it takes advantage of open space on the seafloor and starts growing quickly. This disturbs the natural relationships between native algae, fish, and invertebrates. Over the course of an invasion, it appears that native algae species die off and the environment becomes dominated by S. horneri.
This research will help us understand the important factors that influence species invasions in near shore habitats, as well as the magnitude of their effects on ecosystem services.
Below is a short video of kelp at Santa Catalina Island. Giant kelp provides structure and food for many organisms creating a diverse kelp forest community. Another successful WSN (Western Society of Naturalists) has come and gone after this weekends’ annual meeting in Sacramento, and San Diego State was well represented, with 2 faculty members, over 20 graduate students, and 3 undergraduates. The Edwards lab BEERPIGS made up a large portion of these attendees, and all 8 grad student members gave a presentation or poster, spanning research from Moray eel trophic ecology to eelgrass carbon usage. The meeting, themed this year towards linking science and policy, kicked off Thursday with a successful graduate student workshop that focused on how students can integrate their science with policy and management. We met with scientists and policy makers from the across the West coast to discuss how we can more effectively translate our science into action and increase the value of our work. The diverse research interests in our lab group range from invasive species management, community biodiversity, coastal carbon cycling, to evaluating MPAs, and each of us took a bit from this workshop that we could apply to our own work. Our talks and posters began Friday and lasted through Sunday- each of which could be a whole blog post on their own! But to avoid writing a novel, here the highlights: Priya Shukla gave a fantastic talk on her (recently completed!) master’s thesis research entitled “Impact of elevated pCO2 and temperature on multiple life stages of the giant kelp”. Melissa Blando summarized her findings on the broodstock conditions of abalone and their implications in the aquaculture industry. Monica Tydlaska spoke about visitor perception of Marine Protected Areas in San Diego. Scott Gabara gave a very attended talk on the dietary niche breadth of California Moray eels across their ontogeny. The rest of the lab members- Sadie Small, Genoa Sullaway, Melissa Ward, Tristin McHugh, and Pike Spector, all gave posters presentations on their research. In between presenting our own research, we all got the opportunity to get updated on recent research by attending other talks, and networking during breaks. Some of this “networking” continued into the night, particularly on Saturday after the president’s speech and traditional auction shenanigans ensued. After catching the last few talks on Sunday and hearing an influential plenary talk from Dr. Steven Gaines [entitled "Moving from Defining Problems to Driving Environmental Solutions"], bags were packed and the BEERPIGS headed back to San Diego. All in all, it was an extremely successful WSN, and we are all already planning for next year’s centennial meeting in Monterrey! Author: Melissa Ward Scott Gabara
Pretty excited to get our lab website up to date with current students, publications, and some neat photos of kelp forest ecology, check it out! |