May 29th, 2021 – post by Casey Barnard (UO) and Fiona McBride (WWU)
Today we arrived at our next site Chincoteague around midnight on Saturday. Soon after arrival, ROV Jason was deployed. This site is around 1km in depth and takes around an hour for Jason to descend and another hour to ascend. The total amount of time Jason spent in the water was 12 hours. Pictured here are the boxes of goodies Jason brought back to the surface at 04:30 PM. If you look closely you can find a box filled with mussels and a box filled with larval traps! These “bio boxes” have Bungee cords that keep them closed during descent and ascent to make sure we don’t lose anything. The Jason divers are experts in using the robotic arms to make the smallest movements including stretching these cords over the boxes. In the evening a CTD was deployed for water samples at various depths.
In the meantime, the weather has not been in our favor since arriving here, with swells up to 12ft rocking the boat and lighting all around us. Those who could stand the rocking helped sort larvae, measure mussels, and filter water from the Baltimore Canyon site. We finished our processing around the turn of the day and most of us went to bed to wait out the storm and process Chincoteague’s samples the coming morning. It’s best to recover and conduct science when we’re at 100%.
Meet a Scientist On Board
Hi my name is Casey Barnard and I am a senior undergraduate from the University of Oregon helping out the folks in Craig Young’s lab. I will be graduating while onboard on June 14th with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Biology. This summer I will be the TA for the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology’s Invertebrate Zoology course. And then shortly after summer ends, I will be moving across the country for graduate school at the University of North Carolina Wilmington starting my master’s degree in Coastal and Ocean Management.
I have spent most of my time aboard looking into microscopes and helping out wherever is needed. This is my first cruise, and it was going pretty well until we hit these rougher waters around Chincoteague. My biggest accomplishment so far was when I sat at a microscope sorting larva for around 16 hours straight (with some food breaks). Everyone onboard the TGT including the scientists, the Sentry Crew, the Jason Crew, and the ship crew are all so friendly that even when the weather is bad moral stays high!
Animals not under the microscope
The ship’s passenger list is growing! We now have at least five stow-away birds sheltering onboard the Thompson. They most likely were on the ship before we left port, but now they’re along for the ride! Though we enjoy their company we don’t necessarily want them in our lab space. Pictured here is one of two instances (so far) in which Avery has caught birds belowdeck and brought them outside. We’ve started naming our friends and this is Gertrude the Wanderer.
Now we’ve got a busy day ahead of us, with the second dive of our Atlantic sites completed, and what feels like we’ve only just completed the Baltimore Canyon samples, it’s back to the microscopes! These long hours are crucial to finding the larvae hidden in the sediment and we have to sort through every last drop (literally!). Hoping for calmer seas tomorrow so we can concentrate harder on finding larvae instead of not being sick!
At 12:00am, Jason managed to finally get into the water and began a 12-hour dive at Baltimore Canyon. Since the vehicle is remotely operated, longer dives are possible, and science is done on 4-hour shifts. There’s a 12-4 shift done by Caitlin, Tessa, and Ian, a 4-8 shift by Sinja, Lauren, and Avery, and a 8-12 shift by Shawn, Dexter, and Mitch, both AM and PM shifts. This ensures science goals can be met around the clock efficiently with no one getting too tired or hungry. The pilots also exchange during shifts.
Seen in this picture above, Jason is lifted off the boat by a winch that lowers it into the water, and keeps a cable connected for control. This cable has buoys attached to it as Jason descends, to ensure the cable floats above Jason and does not tangle while Jason is moving. There is also a sensor attached on the cable that communicates with the control room when to reel in or let out the winch and allows the ship to move back and forth without tugging on Jason.
Liam Patrick (Left), Dexter Davis (Middle), and Mitch Hebner (Right) sieving the bio boxes.
Once Jason has completed the dive, the scientists get ready to bring in the recovered science equipment, collected mussels and carbonate rock. We have to act quickly before anything is lost due to the changing water and temperature from coming to the surface. We have teams for the various tasks that need to be done to ensure everything is done in a timely manner and before another dive is completed.
Seen here is the slurp and sieving team. During the dive, our recovered science is put into “bio boxes” in the basket on Jason. This team siphons out all of the residual water and sediment from these boxes, as well as the “slurp” samples collected by Jason’s vacuum hose, and sieves it down to 250 microns to catch any larvae found at the site. Some scientists react differently when asked for a photo op! With the results of the sieve, this sediment will be sorted through under the microscope to locate the larvae of target species, notably the pink shelled mussels.
Meet a Scientist on Board
Hi! My name is Carmen Sanchez-Reddick, and I am an undergraduate marine biology student and member of the Young lab at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. Usually, you can find me counting oocytes in tunicate specimens for my undergraduate thesis, making breakfast for the residents of the Charleston Marine Life Center, or working on homework in the library. This is my first ever, but hopefully not last, research cruise, and it has been an incredible experience thus far. Watching Sentry and Jason deployments, laughing with new friends, and eating delicious food have become constants in my day-to-day routine and have kept me going during bouts of sea sickness. I’ve spent most of my time sorting larvae, and I hope to be able to distinguish larvae, egg casing, and dirt by the end of the cruise!
With the first Jason dive of the cruise, the scientists have their hands full! The delay in blog posts has been due to the hard-work of everyone on board. In addition to sorting through the sieved sediments, adult mussels are to be dissected, juveniles measured, sipunculan traps opened and counted, animals need to be organized and put into the cold room and given proper housing, carbonate rock needs to be assessed for sponges, among many other tasks. As we continue through this cruise we will explain all these tasks and what purpose they serve in answering our research questions, stay tuned!
Sentry, the autonomous submersible used to conduct plankton tows on this cruise. The two large black circles are funnels that lead into collection tubes.
May 27th, 2021
While staying busy sorting through Sentry samples for larval morphotypes, today we encountered unexpected delays in our science. Gearing up for our first Jason dive (Jason is our remote operated submersible on board) was cut short when problems arose with the winch that moves Jason from the ship into the water, and we can’t visit our site at Baltimore Canyon until the issue is found and resolved. Diving with Jason is essential for this project; retrieving scientific instruments from last year’s spring cruise, collecting new mussels and carbonate rocks, as well as deploying new scientific equipment all requires Jason and associated machinery to be functioning properly.
Data Collection Behind the Scenes
During this cruise we are attempting to collect many larvae and larval shells to answer the questions about cold seep larval dispersal. One way we are collecting these samples is through the use of these tubes traps! Seen here are Avery Calhoun, Lauren Rice, and Caitlin Plowman (graduate and PhD students from UO) filling the falcon tubes in each arm of the trap with a formalin preservative.
How this trap works is by slowly releasing this chemical into the water above the trap, and any larvae swimming past will die and sink into the trap, collecting them all at the bottom of the tube until the trap is collected. These rubber straps stretched over the tubes are to ensure the traps do not lose the solution on the journey down to the site in Jason, with a galvanic release that will dissolve under 24 hours in saltwater subsequently allowing the solution to escape. Another interesting feature is the yellow monkey’s fist knot that is attached to the trap. This will float above the trap and will allow Jason’s arms to easily grab and move the trap around!
Meet a Scientist On Board
Hey everyone! My name is Michael Gray, and I am a student under Dr. Roy He at North Carolina State University. With this cruise, I will be completely a double major with a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Marine Science with a concentration in Physics. In the fall I’ll be continuing at NCSU in pursuit of an M.S. in Physical Oceanography.
Usually, I tend to focus on tracking Nor’easter storms and trying to determine what makes them tick, but this cruise has taken that on its head and spun it around quite a few times! While I do perform some physically oriented tasks such as processing data from tilt meter (devices that use their orientation in the water to determine the speed and direction of a current) and casting CTDs (measures conductivity, temperature, and depth), I have been taken to the extremes of my comfort zone to sorting larvae?!
I definitely have no idea what I’m doing, but I’d say I’m blending in well enough (not at all). Today, however, was a pretty slow day. We deployed Sentry around 12:30pm and another delay in Jason being deployed meant a lot of sitting around and waiting for Sentry to return with more samples to sort.
Hopefully the problem with Jason can be fixed and it can be deployed at least once per site, otherwise a lot of the projects being conducted by Grad and PhD students aboard will fall vastly short of target samples. Until then, we’ll just be hitting a lot of late-night sorting montages!
We hope that this issue will be found soon and we will be able to start collecting data from our site, 400 meters deep! With the brunt of our sampling coming from our sites, everyone is antsy to get in the water, but also so we can move to our next site.
At the end of our first sailing day, we were rewarded with the beautiful view of the sun setting in the Atlantic, and this morning we reached our first sampling site: Baltimore Canyon. This is one of our more shallow sites with a depth of approximately 400 m. Our AUV Sentry was deployed right after breakfast and conducted a dive of about 6 hours. Part of the dive was used to do some technical tests and then Sentry started collecting our first samples. In the big black tubes on Sentry, water is filtered to collect small larvae swimming in the water column. We collected samples right above the seafloor and in 200 m depth. While retrieving the samples from Sentry in the afternoon we got unexpected visitors. A sunfish and a pod of dolphins swam by the ship. What a nice celebration of our first sampling!
Now we are all busy in the lab sorting through the samples to pick out any larvae of benthic invertebrates that we can find. They are all sorted into taxonomic groups, imaged using a microscope and then preserved for further analyses.
Meet a Scientist on Board
My name is Sinja Rist and I am a Postdoc at the Technical University of Denmark. Five weeks ago I came to the US to work at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology until the end of this year, so I made it just in time to be a part of this research cruise. Generally, I work on the effects of multiple stressors on meroplankton but on this cruise I will help wherever it is needed and thereby get to know many species that I have never worked with before.
While we were sorting our Sentry samples, we were given a quick overview of the Jason ROV, observing all the different cameras, how samples are going to be collected and stored, and even got to view the control center. In the control center, events are logged into a system, and we note the time and location of each important sight or activity done during the Jason dive. Three scientists will be in the control room in 4-hour shifts; the science lead, the event logger, and the video logger. The science lead translates what scientific tasks are to be done to the pilot, the event logger updates the logging system, and the video logger controls highlight videos as well as oversees multiple systems are working properly.
Today we also learned about different shifts we will be taking on throughout the cruise to ensure we can process all our data and be awake for the Jason dives. We will have three shifts; the “Daywalkers”, the “Humans”, and the “Nightcrawlers”. Daywalkers sleep from 4pm to midnight, the Humans sleep from 12-8am, and Nightcrawlers from 8am-4pm.
Tomorrow morning, Jason will launch at 6:15am so we all have to get up early! A big day of science is ahead of us!
Over the past two days the entire science team unpacked our gear from pallets and boxes and getting the lab spaces set up for efficient sample processing. Our 16-person team will be spread out in two labs and various work stations, including equipment preparation, larval sorting, animal dissections, and a fume hood for chemical work. We ended yesterday on a happy note as most of the science team gathered in the ship lounge to watch The Life Aquatic, a classic movie to watch while out at sea.
This morning, members of the science team, Sentry, and Jason operations met in the main lab for a discussion of safety measures while aboard the R/V Thompson. The captain of the ship, Eric, relayed the various emergency signals and instructed everyone to don their immersion suits. As per tradition, everyone who had not tried an immersion suit before had their photos taken. Shortly after the initial safety briefing, the crew cast off the lines and we started steaming towards the Atlantic and our first sampling site. Our team gathered on the 02 deck (two floors above the water line) above the bow to watch land fade away as the R/V Thompson left port.
Meet a Scientist On Board!
Hi, I’m Lauren Rice, a member of the science team aboard the R/V Thompson and a PhD candidate at the Young Lab from the University of Oregon. My research involves examining how certain interactions between animals at methane seeps impact the overall reproductive success of organisms. To do this, I will be collecting authigenic carbonate rock (rock made by microbes in the seafloor) and will be recovering the experimental settlement arrays I deployed last year.
As we get accustomed to the rocking of the boat, attempting to evade sea sickness, many of us are playing card games, like King’s Corner, enjoying fresh air at the front of the ship, and working on homework assignments.
Here are some tips for overcoming sea sickness:
Drink lots of water – dehydration is your enemy.
3 points of contact will help you ground yourself.
Ginger chews can help settle your queasiness.
Fresh air! Get to the middle of the front of the ship to limit your rocking.
Take Dramamine or other seasickness medication of course!
As we leave Massachusetts, our 22-hour travel time will take us to our first location; Baltimore Canyon. Next stop: Science!
Left to right: Laura Murray, Tessa Beaver, Dexter Davis, Liam Patrick, Dr. Shawn Arellano, Fiona McBride, Mitch Hebner.
After quarantining for two weeks, the lab has finally been reunited as we board the Thomas G. Thompson for a month at sea. Antsy to explore our new ship we navigated a maze of ladders climbing up and down the ship, explored side doorways and turned corners to locate our berthing quarters, the laundry room, and the various labs on board. To some of us this ship seems familiar, as the sister ship to last spring’s cruise on the R/V Atlantis, but to others this is the first time on a large research vessel. Whether deep sea novices or seasoned scientists, we are excited to get back on the water and feel privileged to be conducting research in a time of missed opportunities.
While we’ve all been in a biology or chemistry lab, science at sea is very different! The most important thing to prepare our lab after designating lab spaces is to ensure everything is tied down and secure. Weather at sea can be unpredictable and a rocking boat is the nemesis of expensive science equipment. The first lesson on this expedition was learning bowline knots to tie down our microscopes, and then we used duct tape to ensure nothing goes flying when we are underway. If we didn’t properly secure something, we will know soon enough!
On top of physically setting up the lab, we must also prepare for conducting the actual science. With so many different groups between the science party, the Sentry team, and the Jason team, communication is key to ensuring everything goes according to plan, and that there is adequate time for all goals to be met. Teams were also allocated to the our students for the various tasks we’ll have throughout our cruise, such as: the bucket brigade, animal maintenance, and sample sorting, to name a few. We aim for each student to participate in a myriad of tasks and a wide range of experiences.
Interview with the Scientists
What are our scientists most excited for a month at sea on board the R/V Thompson?
“I’m excited to see all the new and interesting organisms at sea!” – Fiona McBride (WWU)
“I’m excited to work with Jason and see live footage of the dives!” – Laura Murray (WWU)
“I’m excited to see how our sites have changed over a year and to be back on the ocean!” – Lauren Rice (UO)
“Collecting data for my thesis project, working with Jason and Sentry, on a nice boat!” – Tessa Beaver (WWU)
“Working with Jason, CTDs, and Sentry, there’s a lot to do and I’m excited to see how it all works out!” – Dr. Shawn Arellano (WWU)
“Excited to be spending time with Jason!” – Ian Grace (NCSU)
“Data for my dissertation and the FOOD!” – Avery Calhoun (UO)
“I’m excited to learn new things and see how ROVs work in action!” – Liam Patrick (WWU)
“Snails and larvae!” – Mitch Hebner (WWU)
“DATA!” – Caitlin Plowman (UO)
We are planning to leave around tomorrow at 10am EST and will wave goodbye to the shore as we spend nearly a month surrounded by nothing but the ocean and the incredible organisms that live within. Let the science begin!
From left to right: Top row: Dr. Shawn Arellano (WWU), Dr. Craig Young (UO), Michael Gray (NCSU), Tessa Beaver (WWU), Laura Murray (WWU) Middle row: Liam Patrick (CSUMB), Fiona McBride (WWU), Carmen Sanchez-Reddick (UO), Casey Barnard (UO), Caitlin Plowman (UO), Lauren Rice (UO), Avery Calhoun (UO), Mitchell Hebner (WWU). Bottom row: Sinja Rist (UO), Dexter Davis (WWU), Ian Grace (NCSU), Leo Zaklikowski (UO).
Continuing our Seep Animal Larval Transport (SALT) research, the Larval Lab is currently quarantining in Woods Hole, Massachusetts along with students from the labs of Dr. Craig Young (University of Oregon) and Drs. Eggleston and He (North Carolina State University), and even one scientist from Germany!
While we are restricted to our cottages at Devil’s Lane, Marine Biological Laboratory’s housing, that doesn’t mean we aren’t staying busy! Pictured above is one of multiple lectures hosted by Dr. Craig Young, this one focusing on the history of deep-sea larval biology, paired with Dr. Young highlighting his fascinating collection of historical microscopes. We will have additional lectures about larval morphology, preparing us for larval identification while at sea!
While we learn about the science we will be conducting, our “quaranteam”, our team of quarantining scientists, is also meeting each other. In our free time we are sharing scientific papers, discussing research questions and potential projects, continuing classes, and becoming familiar with native fauna like ticks, turkeys, and snapping turtles in our backyards.
In order to ensure safe science at sea, we are following thorough safety protocols amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. After two weeks of isolation, daily temperatures checks, and two COVID tests, we will be able to mobilize on board the R/V Thompson (Cruise TN-391) on Sunday, May 23rd. On board the ship we will continue to practice safety guidelines, to protect each other and ourselves.
Thank you to the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) team for providing housing, food, and working with us through these two weeks, and thank you to the University of Washington for communicating with us about COVID protocols for the R/V Thompson. We are all so excited to be at sea and are thankful to have the opportunity to continue deep-sea research given the pandemic.
To read more about our project visit our project’s website click here and stay tuned for more updates about what we are doing at sea!
The Larval Lab is currently seeking 1 WWU undergraduate to join us for a full-time, paid, 10-week Research Experience of Undergraduates (REU) during Fall 2021. Join us at sea as we explore life at cold seep environments in the Gulf of Mexico and Western Atlantic Margin. Gain valuable experience both in the lab and at sea while investigating community structure, connectivity, species interactions and more in this extreme environment. Whether you are early into your college career and exploring career paths or are a senior looking to go out with a bang, this is a great opportunity to pick up hands-on sea-board experience with many more perks attached! Early career undergraduate students are encouraged to apply!
Half-time REU Option:
Students may also apply for a half-time two-quarter REU (Summer/Fall 2021 or Fall 2021/Winter 2022) where students may take up to 6 credits of regular courses and work 20 hours/week on the REU. Students are still expected to take the summer Science Communication in Visual Media course (course tuition covered) or equivalent.
Project Summary
Ever since hydrothermal vents and methane seeps were first discovered in the deep ocean more than 40 years ago, scientists have wondered how these isolated communities, fully dependent on underwater “islands” of toxic chemicals, are first colonized by organisms, and how the populations of these specialized animals are exchanged and maintained. These fundamental processes depend on the transport of babies (larvae) by the ocean currents, yet because the larvae are microscopic and diluted in the vastness of the ocean, it is very difficult to determine where and how they drift. This project uses an autonomous underwater vehicle to collect larvae from precise regions of the water column. Larval traps on the bottom and chemical analyses of larval shells will also be used to determine the depths where larvae swim. These findings will provide realistic estimates for mathematical models that show how biology interacts with ocean currents to predict which methane seeps will be colonized by larvae originating at different depths. A detailed knowledge of larval dispersal is needed for conservation and management of the deep sea. Without such information, we cannot know the best placement of marine protected areas, nor can we facilitate the reestablishment of communities impacted by deep-sea mining, drilling, or other human activities. This project will provide hands-on at-sea training for college students to learn the rapidly vanishing skills needed for studies of larvae and embryos in their natural habitats. Learning opportunities will also be available to individuals of all ages through new, interactive exhibits on deep-sea biology and larval ecology produced for small museums and aquaria on the coasts of Oregon, Washington and North Carolina.
Reliable estimates of connectivity among metapopulations are increasingly important in marine conservation biology, ecology and phylogeography, yet biological parameters for biophysical models in the deep sea remain largely unavailable. The movements of deep-sea vent and seep larvae among islands of habitat suitable for chemosynthesis have been inferred from current patterns using numerical modeling, but virtually all such models have used untested assumptions about biological parameters that should have large impacts on the predictions. This project seeks to fill in the missing biological parameters while developing better models for predicting the dispersal patterns of methane seep animals living in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Western Atlantic Margin. Despite the existence of similar seeps at similar depths on two sides of the Florida peninsula, the Western Atlantic seeps support only a subset of the species found in the Gulf of Mexico. It is hypothesized that the ability of larvae to disperse through the relatively shallow waters of the Florida Straits depends on an interaction between the adult spawning depth and the dispersal depth of the larvae. Dispersal depth, in turn, will be influenced by larval flotation rates, swimming behaviors, feeding requirements, and ontogenetic migration patterns during the planktonic period. The recently developed SyPRID sampler deployed on AUV Sentry will be used to collect larvae from precise depth strata in the water column, including layers very near the ocean floor. Larval traps deployed on the bottom at three depths in each region will be used in conjunction with the plankton collections to determine what proportion of larvae are demersal. Comparisons of stable oxygen isotopes between larval and juvenile mollusk shells will provide information on the temperatures (and therefore depths) that larvae develop, and geochemical analyses of larval and juvenile shells will determine whether larval cohorts mix among depth strata. Ocean circulation and particle transport modeling incorporating realistic biological parameters will be used to predict the movements of larvae around the Florida Peninsula for various spawning depths and seasons.
Location
Summer 2021 students will be housed at SPMC while taking the remote summer course, Science Communications using Visual Media. Travel to and from port, housing and meals during the cruise will be provided. Any additional travel, meals (such as during stay at SPMC) and frills will be at the student’s expense.
Student Expectations
In collaboration with Dr. Arellano, the REU intern will develop an individual research project related to the goals of the described research topic. They can proceed with their normal academic programs while participating in the internship and the rest of the project. This internship is designed in coordination with WWU’s research participation courses (see below) to integrate undergraduates in every aspect of research, from proposal development to communication of results. Besides participation in the cruise and conducting the independent research project, we will encourage student interns to enroll for credit through their majors in Environmental Science or Biology (e.g., ESCI 498A Senior Thesis, ESCI 498B Internship, and/or ESCI 498C Senior Project; OR Biol 395 Biology Research Participation, Biol 494 Biology Research, Biol 495 Research Communication).
Enrollment in one of the above ESCI or Biology research courses will be encouraged in the quarter prior to the cruise activities. During this time REU interns will work one-on-one with Arellano as they develop a short research proposal for work they would like to carry out shipboard during the cruise. Students may also enroll in research credits to complete processing of data from the cruise, depending on their research and academic needs.
The student will conduct this research during the quarter in which the research cruise coincides and may carry out the research project shipboard or back in the lab after the cruise. Besides working on research, the intern will be assigned a role on the cruise, such as sample logging or dive video editing. Student will be encouraged to enroll in a shipboard Deep-sea Ecology Course, co-taught by Dr. Arellano and will include lectures from the scientist participating in the cruise in their areas of specialization, introduction to ship navigation skills, and introduction to the deep-sea assets by the crews of the ROV Alvin.
Students will enroll in a new Summer course, Communicating Science through Visual Media (Comm 297) or equivalent. Tuition for this course will be covered by the REU. With the tools picked up in this course, students will be expected to create a film about the project that will be incorporated into a touchscreen museum display at WWU’s SEA Discovery Center, as well as University of Oregon Charleston Marine Life Center, and NC State’s Science House.
Students will gain valuable scientific skills working on this project, including molecular and quantitative skills. Besides required presentations at the conference, students will be encouraged to present their research on campus to further enhance their communication skills (for example, during WWU’s Scholars Week).
Additional funds are available to provide undergrads the opportunity to present their independent research at a national conference. This benefits the students in both engaging and networking with the scientific community as well as experience presenting scientific research to the public.
Eligibility
Open to WWU Biology, ESCI, MACS, or other related science majors undergrad students.
Preference for students that have at least one year remaining as an undergrad at WWU. First and second year students are encouraged to apply.
Students supported with NSF funds must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States.
The Arellano lab is committed to supporting students with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and needs.
How to Apply
Application package includes CV, unofficial transcripts and statements.
Statements should be 2 pages, 12-point font, 1.0-spaced. Statement should reflect the following points:
Statement of Interest: describe the areas of marine science that most interest you and your personal goals for the internship and beyond. (1 page max, 12pt font, single spaced)
What qualities and characteristics will you bring to the program because of your work/activities/other life experiences? (1/2-page max, 12pt font, single spaced)
Write about an experience of overcoming adversity or an obstacle in your life. (1/2-page max, 12pt font, single spaced)
Application packages should be submitted via email to Shawn Arellano: arellas@wwu.edu
Important Dates
Application due date May 31, 2021
Awardees notified June 7, 2021
Summer Course: June 22, 2021- July 30, 2021
REU term: Fall 2021 or half time option
Cruise dates: approximately November 2- 21, 2021
For more information about the project click here and here.
