Kent Island day 9 and Building Stuff

One of the best parts of field work is, in my opinion, building the tools you need to gather data. For my fouling organism project, I will be using settlement plates based after the contraption sent to me by the UConn PhD student consisting of PVC pipes and PVC plates ziptied to the pipes. It's quite fun working on this, especially when you have to improvise since materials aren't usually obtainable until the weekly boat to Grand Manan leaves, and even Grand Manan often doesn't have the materials you need (They don't have the T-joints I need for the PVC diameter I am using!). Also, it's a great view from our workshop!

Science in action! The master settlement plate I am trying to copy my plates off of.

Nice view. Also, it is almost 9 o'clock in this picture - it isn't truly dark here until 10:30!

My humble attempts on the first two settlement plates

Kent Island Day 8

I've finally settled upon a new project which will be much simpler than my proposed idea yesterday of setting up settlement plates all around the island and Grand Manan on aquaculture cages. I'll be examining the effect of current on the biodiversity and growth rate of native and invasive fouling communities. To accomplish this, I'll be placing five plates in strategic places around Kent Island and grand Manan. Two plates will be placed between rock ledges which are parallel to the direction of tide between Hay and Kent Islands which funnel a large quantity of the incoming tide into a small space. This will have the effect of creating a high flow area. One plate will be placed in a large tepid pool on West beach and another in a deep pool off the southern end of the island to function as low current areas. Finally, a single plate will be placed in a almost completely enclosed harbor area in Seal Cove to function as a no-current control group. I will post pictures as I make the plates in the days to come.

Yesterday we did little work, being Sunday, so in addition to taking my first shower so far, we took a little adventure to Sheep Island, one of the other islands in the Three Island group that includes Kent and Hay islands. Unlike the other two islands, here there are no trees, only sun-baked rock and scraggly grasses and raspberry bushes. There is a solitary warden hut on the island that looks like it was just left a week ago, but apparently has been sitting empty since the College acquired the island around 10-15 years ago. Otherwise, the only sign of life is the enormous quantity of Herring Gulls nesting here. The highlight of the trip was the sudden discovery of a recently-dead juvenile Humpback Whale on the western side of the island. While obviously a sad sight, it was also the closest most of us had ever been to a whale living or dead, and so despite it's small size of 8 meters, was quite extraordinary.

 Below are some pictures which some people may find disturbing of the whale, in addition to general KI shots. Please use discretion.

Ben desperately searches for Guillemots while a Gull watches disapprovingly

Dead juvenile Humpback Whale. Didn't smell too bad until you got right up to it.

Kent Island Day 7

Ciona intestanlis ascidian overgrowing mussel aquaculture cage on PEI. Bullard et al. (2009).

This past week has been quite a reality check in terms of the scientific method for me. Even with a well-planned project and an entire coastline of 5 miles accessible to work, one's hubris is easily squashed by an unfortunate ignorance of larval settlement times. Realizing that my Bryozoan might not show up until July, if at all, I came to the realization yesterday that it was time to brainstorm a new project.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am deploying a settlement plate for a PhD student at UConn and gathering data for him on the diversity and percent cover of "fouling organisms". This side project was related to my initial project in that it examines the larval settlement and growth of invasive species including my Bryozoan (Membranipora) but also several species of Ascidians, better known as sea squirts. Ascidians have become infamous in harbor communities as nuisance species, overgrowing lobster pots, buoys, lines, docks, boats, and aquaculture cages. They greatly increase the weight and drag of these objects and cost millions each year since their introduction in the Maritimes in the 1990's. Further south in Salem, Mass, lobster pots that were once hauled in by hand now have to be winched in, and even now some are so covered that they are deemed too dangerous to haul in, since they may cause catastrophic winch failure.

The data collected from the settlement plates (essentially PVC squares hung in 1m of water) are collected via photographs of each plate every week. The images are then analyzed using photo software to determine percent cover of each species present. This, coupled with water temp readings, will determine settlement and development rate of native and invasive fouling organisms and will be analyzed with data from all over the eastern seaboard to look at temperature and spatial impacts on fouling organism growth. One question that is trying to be answered is the effect of climate change and warming waters on the settlement, growth, and dispersal of fouling organisms, particularly invasive species.

With this project in mind, I've decided I am  going to analyze settlement plate data from around Kent Island and Grand Manan and compare that to data obtained from Bowdoin's Coastal Studies Center, in southern Maine. At this point I am still deciding on a methodology and hypothesis, but it looks like I will be looking at the affect current has on the dispersal and settlement of fouling organisms with particular emphasis on invasives like the ascidians or even my Bryozoan if it shows up. So I will be making more plates and deploying them in the protected and pristine harbor formed by Kent, Hay, and Sheep Islands, two off the northern and southern ends which are exposed to currents formed by incoming and out-flowing tides of the Bay of Fundy, one or two in the protected but heavily trafficked Seal Harbor, and one at the Coastal Studies Center in Maine. In addition, I might be deploying plates off of the ubiquitous salmon aquaculture cages scattered throughout the Grand Manan archipelago as well as snorkeling around them to examine settlement on long-immersion structures. Aquaculture cages sit in the water for years, and unless removed for cleaning accumulate all sorts of fouling organisms. These fouled nets can limit water exchange between the interior and the ocean, and allow nutrients to accumulate to dangerous levels within the cage. Removal of these organisms causes up to 80% of maintenance costs, since mechanical removal is tedious and inefficient and chemicals too dangerous.

So I do have options now, albeit ones that are incredibly time intensive. But fingers are crossed that this project can go ahead as planned, since it is not dependent on the arrival of any one organism.

The days here are still bird-shell blue, and last night was an incredibly warm (for us at least, 60 degrees is warm) night. We took a petrel walk around midnight to listen for the gremlin calls of the little birds as they came back from fishing at sea to roost in their little burrows. They are extremely clumsy on land for such graceful aeronauts, and crash into trees on their decent down before finally arriving on the ground, where they proceed to stumble drunkingly about emitting giggling cackles. One strolled across our path in a very blasé manner, letting us see the robin-sized seabird a close range. It is amazing that these birds, which travel hundreds or thousands of kilometers out to sea to fish before returning to their nest, are so small. It is a wonder that they are not at the complete mercy of the winds.

Back to planning!

A Storm petrel in its Burrow. Photo cred Drew Fulton