Geographic Area of Cruise: Northwest Atlantic Ocean
Date: August 2, 2025
Weather Data from Bridge: Latitude: N41o30’0’’ Longitude: W67o17’0’’ Sea Wave height: 8 feet waves Wind speed: 13 kt Wind Direction: 40o SW Visibility: overcast Air Temperature: 20.oC Barometric Pressure: 30.22 inHg Sky: gray to clear
Photos: NOAA Ship Pisces in port in Newport, Rhode Island; NOAA Ship Pisces’ call sign; Teacher at Sea Dorothy Holley and NOAA Ship Pisces.
Science at Sea
When someone I care about tells me they don’t feel so good, the first thing I want to do is put the back of my hand to their forehead. Do you have a temperature? If so, your body is probably fighting off something. A thermometer can give a more quantitative answer. With more precise data, I can best treat the underlying cause.
Photos: Bongo nets on deck, awaiting deployment; Ed Williams and Alyssa Rauscher deploying the bongo nets; Pulling the nets back on board. Photos by LT Karina Urquhart
NOAA scientists help us take the temperature of our oceans by monitoring plankton – the base of the marine food web. I’m not talking about sticking tiny thermometers into copepods or krill, I’m talking about measuring plankton abundance and composition over time. NOAA collects plankton data four times each year – summer, fall, winter, and spring. With over four decades of plankton data, NOAA scientists are able to help fisheries make informed decisions to maximize production as well as protect vulnerable species.
Our team uses Bongo nets to collect plankton on this NOAA Summer Ecosystem Monitoring cruise. We will make over 100 (I think there are about 160 planned stations but we probably won’t have time to get to all of them) stops from Cape Hatteras to the Gulf of Maine, collecting samples that will later be sorted and catalogued. (For a more detailed description of Bongos, see Teacher at Sea Tonya Prentice’s blog here)
You do the math: If we are out at sea for two weeks, and deploy the Bongo nets at 100 different stops, how many times does each group need to collect plankton from the Bongo nets each day? Check in the next bog post for the answer.
Mess hall or Cafeteria?
Interesting Things: I am surprised by the ways I have been prepared for life on a NOAA ship by classroom life in a public school. The chairs all come with tennis balls on the bottom. In my classroom, we put tennis balls on the chairs so that they don’t make loud noises or create as many scuffs on the floor. Why do you think we have tennis balls on the chairs on a NOAA ship?
NOAA Ship Pisces home port is Pascagoula, MS
Amanda Jacobsen, Science FIeld Party Chief, NOAA Ship Pisces
Career Spotlight
Amanda Jacobsen is our Science Field Party Chief. She works in the NOAA Fisheries lab in Rhode Island, and sails on NOAA cruises like this one. She grew up in Connecticut and attended a small, liberal arts school, Connecticut College. While there, Amanda took a broad spectrum of science courses including Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Environmental Science, and even Environmental Law. Her degree in Environmental Studies helps her understand the many impacts on Marine Ecosystems.
Amanda is now a full-time NOAA scientist and a part time graduate student, studying to earn a Master’s degree in Marine Biology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her thesis examines the energy of plankton in the food chain. (Alert: we will do bomb calorimetry labs next year with Amanda’s data!) Better understanding the bottom layer of the energy pyramid is important to harvesting all of the tropic levels above it. If you like eating fish or even fish sticks, you will benefit from Amanda’s work because plankton provides food for nearly every creature in the ocean either directly or indirectly!
One tool that Amanda can’t live without is the Katy Clip (shout out to NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow survey technician Katy McGinnis!). The Katy Clip helps us wash down the Bongo nets when collecting plankton.
Amanda is currently reading the Red Rising Series by Pierce Brown. She also recommends The Ocean’s Menagerie by Drew Harvell. Amanda enjoys doing just about anything as long as it is outside. I am glad she is helping take the temperature of our oceans so that we might enjoy fishing for many years to come!
A part of our Science team: Dorothy, Amanda, and Miles
Personal Log
The ship is going 24/7, so the scientist are, too! Our team is divided into two groups – one that works 3 am – 3 pm and the other works 3 pm- 3 am. Amanda, Miles and I are in the second group. We get to see the sunset every day, but I probably won’t make it to breakfast!
NOAA Teacher at Sea Kiersten Newtoff Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces January 6 – January 29, 2025
Mission: Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS) Geographic Area of Cruise: North Atlantic Coast Date: January 10, 2025 Current Location: 37° 35.83 N, 73° 39.83 W (you can follow us at Windy in real time!) Weather from the Bridge: Waves are 3-5ft, 42°F, wind speed of 15.8kn, and we are traveling 9.9knph.
What is Zooplankton?
If you ask someone what their favorite marine animal is, I guarantee it’s either dolphins, whales, turtles, or sharks. And honestly, you can’t really blame them. The term charismatic megafauna exists for a reason. Fortunately, these animals have used their charisma to inspire us to protect them and their habitat. While they have been great stewards for conservation, they don’t tell the whole story of what’s happening in the ecosystem.
One example of zooplankton is small krill, as seen in this sample container.
While some of the research groups on the Pisces are focused on marine mammals and seabirds, The Bongonauts focus on zooplankton. Plankton just refers to any organism in the water that can’t swim against a current and ‘floats’ in the water column. You can then further split plankton into animal-like (zooplankton) or plant-like (phytoplankton). The marine food chain starts with phytoplankton, which get consumed by zooplankton, which might get directly eaten by a baleen whale, like humpbacks. Zooplankton may also get eaten by small fishes then larger fish that eventually are consumed by toothed whales. Identifying and quantifying the abundance of zooplankton helps us to understand the health of the food chain. There really aren’t any “Save the Zooplankton” movements happening because let’s be honest, it’s hard to get people to like microscopic organisms. But their downfall due to changes in ocean temperature, salinity, and currents will permeate to the top of the food chain of whales, dolphins, and other megafauna. If we wish to protect the ‘cute’ species, we need to protect their food too!
Let’s Get Ready to Bongo!
Here enters the bongo. If you’ve played Donkey Kong, then you already know what a bongo is. A bongo is a set of two drums that are connected in the middle. In the marine world, what we do is beat on this drum set on the side of the boat and collect all the zooplankton that jump out of the water into collection buckets.
………………………..
Just kidding! But that would be cool.
Although we don’t have the musical bongo, we do have a plankton bongo! It was so named because there are two frames connected in the middle supporting the two plankton nets, kind of like a bongo drum. The nets are made of a mesh with openings that are 1/3 mm. As the nets travel in the water, the water can move through the mesh but larger organisms like zooplankton can’t. Part of the bongo apparatus is the CTD, which uses a series of sensors to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth. These oceanographic variables can help to explain the zooplankton communities we see.
(Left) A bongo net is coming out of the water. The device you see on the rope is the CTD, (Right) The zooplankton team gets lots of support in deploying the bongo nets from the deck crew. Pictured (left to right): Amanda, Tanya, Tasha, and Kiersten.
Bongo time is during the evening and is deployed in the same general areas as the cetacean observations earlier in the day. This allows the scientists to make correlations between plankton communities and the cetaceans spotted earlier. We release the bongos in the evening as the speed needed for a successful deployment is around 3 knots, whereas the observation teams need to be at a minimum of 8 knots. Also, many zooplankton undergo a diel vertical migration (move upwards) in the evening, making it more likely to get a representative sample of zooplankton from the entire water column.
Bongos, a Haiku gliding through water collect plankton by bongo hopefully, cool things
Meet the Bongonauts
Amanda monitors the depth of the bongo so she can communicate with the boatswain when to start hauling it back to the boat.
On this cruise, Amanda and Lily make up the zooplankton team. Amanda is a Biological Science Technician and has been working with NOAA since 2018. During her undergraduate studies, she spent a semester abroad focused on marine science. As soon as she finished, she immediately began looking for marine jobs. Her first position was with NOAA focusing on commercial fisheries. A few years later in 2021, her contracting company had another position within NOAA that she switched to and started focusing on zooplankton. One of the coolest things she’s seen in a bongo net was a strawberry squid, but don’t worry, it was promptly returned to the seas. She enjoys working with other groups on the science team to see what they are finding, and every time the nets come up there is excitement over what they may contain.
Lily examines the plankton spoils. Some are preserved in ethanol and others in formalin.
Lily is currently a sophomore at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. The professor in one of her classes shared with her the opportunity to sail with the Pisces to volunteer on the zooplankton team and she took it up! Her future career goal is to understand the environmental impacts of cruise ships in port. Further along the line, she would like to get a Master’s in Library Science and be a children’s librarian. She chose Mass Maritime for their marine science program; other schools with similar programs were out of state or prohibitively expensive, but she feels like she’s made the right choice. Of all the things she’s told me, Mass Maritime seems really cool and gives lots of hands-on experience to their students.
Advice for Students
Amanda and Lily shared some of their insights for students who may want to work for NOAA some day.
Look for jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn. If you are already working with a company, see if they have other positions that you might like.
If you’re interested in marine science, go to a school that specializes in it. Avoid institutions that have it as a small program or just a minor, as you likely won’t be getting nearly as much hands-on experience as a school dedicated to it.
Keep your opportunities open – you might think you like Marine Science now but that may change as you do field work.
Even if an opportunity comes up that is not related to marine science, do things to give you any sort of field experience.
Geographic Area of Cruise: Northwest Atlantic Ocean
Date: August 15, 2024
Weather Data fromthe Bridge Latitude: 42.26980º N Longitude: 66.08756º W Wind Speed: 11 mph due N Air Temperature: 15.4° Celsius (59.7° F) Sea Temperature: 18.2 Celsius (64.8° F)
Science and Technology Log
Behind the Scenes: Collecting Plankton Samples on Our Mission During this mission, we will be collecting plankton samples from over 120 stations in the Gulf of Maine and further south along the East Coast (see the figure below; Summer ECOMON Track Lines).
Summer EcoMon Track Lines
But why focus on plankton? Plankton are the foundation of all oceanic food webs, crucial for the survival of larger fish, marine mammals, and birds. Any changes in plankton biomass can have ripple effects throughout the entire ocean ecosystem, impacting a wide range of species.
By studying plankton, we gain insights into the health of our oceans. The data collected from these samples will be invaluable in estimating the populations of certain fish species and identifying key spawning areas. Moreover, we can observe how fish populations are shifting or altering their habitats in response to environmental changes and other stressors. (NOAA Fisheries)
Collecting plankton samples during this mission is a collaborative effort, requiring the expertise of the NOAA Corp, engineers, deckhands, survey technicians, and scientists. Together, we work to deploy, retrieve, and prepare the plankton samples for research.
We use two types of Bongo nets for sampling: Baby Bongos, set in a 20 cm frame, and Big Bongos, set in a 60 cm frame. Each net has a specific purpose: one is labeled “I” for Ichthyoplankton and the other “Z” for Zooplankton. These nets, made from 333 µm mesh, are equipped with flow meters to measure the volume of water filtered during each tow.
Once the Bongo nets are lowered into the water, the Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) sensors immediately start gathering conductivity, temperature, and depth data. The nets are then lowered to about 10 meters above the sea floor and gradually pulled back to the surface. Care is taken to ensure the nets don’t touch the ocean floor, avoiding the need for a recast. Today, for instance, we collected samples from around 230 meters deep!
When the Bongo nets are retrieved, we promptly rinse down the nets to flush the plankton into the codends at the bottom of the nets. The nets are then untied, and the plankton are flushed into a sieve pan.
Next, we carefully rinse the plankton from the sieve into a glass jar, preserving the sample by adding 5% Formalin. The jar is then topped off with seawater, labeled with the station/event, and inverted several times to ensure the sample is well-mixed. On average, we collect about 32 jars of plankton per day.
Finally, the plankton are ready to be shipped off to a lab to be sorted and counted.
Steps for collecting plankton:
1. Lowering the Bongo Nets into the water.2. Baby Bongo and Big Bongo coming out of the water.3. Record Flowmeter Reading.4. Spraying the Bongo Nets down to flush the plankton to the bottom.5. Plankton flushed into the Codend of the Bongo Net.6. Beautiful Gooey Plankton!7. Rinsing the plankton out of the sieve into the jar.8. Plankton preserved in 5% Formalin9. Ready to be shipped to the lab!
Personal Log
Life Aboard the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow: A 24/7 Operation
The NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow never sleeps, which means someone is always awake and hard at work. This is no cruise ship—everyone aboard the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow has a vital role to play. Most crew members work 12-hour shifts, ensuring the ship’s operations continue smoothly around the clock. In addition, all the department crew are responsible for safety drills, and are trained in firefighting and lifesaving equipment.
As part of the science crew, I work from 3 am to 3 pm, while my roommate takes over from 3 pm to 3 am. Our team of scientists are constantly collecting and uploading data to support our mission. Engineers, deckhands, and survey technicians work shifts from 12 am to 12 pm or 12 pm to 12 am.
Engineers keeping everything running efficiently and addressing any technical issues that may arise. They are responsible for the safe and proper operation of a ship’s machinery and equipment and other mechanical and electronic equipment onboard.
Survey technicians assist in the operations, monitoring, handling, and maintenance of various scientific gear. This includes annotating records and recording data; assist in the staging and set-up during preparations for, and at the completion of oceanographic or fishery research. They also perform oceanographic or fisheries observations, measurements, and calculations, assisting in the preparations, installation, deployment and recovery of oceanographic or fishery research equipment. (NOAA Survey Department)
The Deck Department operates the cranes and winches to deploy scientific equipment, and maintain the material condition of the ship. Electronics Technicians maintain the ship’s computer network and vital emergency communication and navigation equipment.
The NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps(NOAA Corps) operate and navigate the ship, and monitor oceanographic and atmospheric conditions, ensuring our safety and guiding us through each phase of the mission.
And let’s not forget some of my favorite crew members—the stewards, who keep us well-fed with amazing meals and plenty of delicious snacks.
Given the non-stop nature of our work, it’s important to remember that someone is always sleeping. This means being mindful of your noise level: avoid slamming doors, walk quietly down the halls, and always use your “inside voice” when moving about the ship. When living and working in such close quarters, professionalism, civility, and respect are essential to maintaining a happy and welcoming work environment.
Did You Know? There are currently 42 species of dolphins and seven species of porpoises. (Whale and Dolphin Conservation). Check out these videos captured this week of both Bottlenose and Common Dolphins riding alongside the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow! Can you spot the difference between Bottlenose and Common Dolphins?
Geographic Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska (Kodiak – Aleutian Islands)
Date: September 7, 2019
Weather Data from the Bridge
Latitude: 56 15.09 N Longitude: 157 55.74 W Sea wave height: 8 ft Wind Speed: 1.9 knots Wind Direction: 179 degrees Visibility: 10 nautical miles Air Temperature: 12.8 C Barometric Pressure: 1010.45 mBar Sky: Clear
Science and Technology Log:
One of the more technologically interesting pieces of equipment we are using is the Bongo net. One of the main aspects of this cruise is the zooplankton survey. As I have stated before, this survey is important to studying the prey for the juvenile pollock and is done at the same stations where we trawl for juvenile pollock so that scientists looking at the data can compare the ecology of the pollock with the ecology of their prey. The Bongo net is used to collect the zooplankton. This contraption is a series of two large and two smaller nets attached to metal rings. It gets its name because the frame resembles bongo drums.
20 cm bongo nets
Bongo we are currently using
The diagram on the left shows a 20 cm bongo net set-up. (Photo credit: NOAA – Alaska Fisheries Science Center). The picture on the right shows the Bongo we are currently using on the Oscar Dyson with two 60 cm nets and two 20 cm nets.
The Bongo has just been lowered into the water and following its descent.
The bongo net design we are using includes two large nets on 60 cm frames with 500 micrometer nets and two small nets on a 20 cm frames with 153 micrometer nets. The 500 micrometer nets catch larger zooplankton and the 153 micrometer nets catch smaller zooplankton. The diagram above has just two nets, but our Bongo has 4 total nets. At the top of the bongo net setup is a device called the Fastcat. This records information from the tow including the depth that bongo reaches and the temperature, salinity, and conductivity of the water.
This whole process involves a lot of working together and communication among the scientists and crew. It usually involves three scientists, one survey tech, a winch operator, and the officer on the bridge. All members involved remain in radio contact to ensure that the operations run smoothly. Two scientists and the survey tech work on the “hero deck”. They oversee getting the nets overboard safely and back on the deck at the end of the evolution. The unit is picked up and lowered over the side of the ship by a large hydraulic wench attached to the side A-frame. Another scientist works in the data room at a computer monitoring the depth and angle of the Bongo as it is lowered into the water. As the Bongo net is lowered, the ship moves forward at approximately 2 knots (2.3 mph). This is done to keep the cable holding the Bongo at a 45-degree angle. A 45-degree angle of the wire that tows the Bongo is important to make sure that water flows directly into the mouth opening of the net. One of the scientists on the hero deck will constantly monitor the wire angle using a device called an inclinometer or clinometer and report it to the officer on the bridge. The bridge officer will then adjust the speed if necessary, to maintain the proper wire angle.
Here, I am monitoring the angle of the Bongo wire using the inclinometer.
The flat side of the inclinometer gets lined up with the wire and an arrow dangles down on the plate and marks the angle.
The depth the Bongo is sent down depends on how deep the water is in that area (you wouldn’t want an expensive piece of equipment dragging on the ocean floor). The Bongo is deployed to a depth of up to 200 meters or to a depth of no less than 10 meters from the bottom. When the Bongo is at the designated depth, the survey tech will radio the winch operator to bring the Bongo back up slowly. It is brought back up slowly at 20 meters per minute and the 45-degree angle needs to continue to be maintained all the way back up. When the Bongo reaches the surface and is lifted back into the air, the survey tech and two scientists grab it and guide it back onto the deck. This operation can be difficult when the conditions are windy, and the seas are rough.
Once the Bongo has been returned to the deck, the scientist that was in the data room will record the time of the net deployment, how long it took to go down and back up, how much wire was let out, and the total depth of the station. They will also come back out to read the flowmeters in order to see how much water has flowed through the net during the deployment. If anything goes wrong, this is also noted on the data sheet.
Next the nets are washed down with sea water, rinsing all material inside the net towards the codend. The codend is the little container at the end of the net where all the plankton and sometimes other organisms are collected. The codends can then be removed and taken into the Wet Lab to be processed with all the collected material placed in glass jars and preserved with formalin for future study.
Zooplankton sample from the Bongo
Specimen being preserved with formalin
Specimen sample from the Bongo.
Plankton specimen samples ready for shipment
These samples are then shipped to Seattle and then on to Poland where they are sorted, the zooplankton identified to species, and the catch is expressed at number per unit area. This gives a quantitative estimate of the density of the plankton in the water column and can provide good information on the overall health of the ocean as they indicate health of the bottom of the food chain. After all, a high density of pollock prey means there is a good feeding spot for juvenile walleye pollock, which in turn means more Filet-O-Fish sandwiches down the line.
Species caught during the last Shift:
Common NameScientific Name
Capelin M. villosus
Northern Smoothtongue L. schmidti
Walleye Pollock G. chalcogrammus
Eulachon or Candlefish T. pacificus
Arrowtooth Flounder A. stomas
Rockfish S. aurora
Smooth lumpsucker A. ventricosus
Prowfish Z. silenus
Sunrise Jellyfish C. melanaster
Lion’s Main Jellyfish C. capillata
Moon Jellyfish A. labiata
Bubble Jellyfish Aequorea sp.
Fried Egg Jellyfish P. camtschatica
Shrimp
Isopods
Personal Log:
As I have said, I am working with some interesting people with some very interesting stories. I am going to start sharing a little of their stories here.
LT Laura Dwyer is the Field Operations Officer on the Oscar Dyson.
How long have you been working with NOAA? What did you do before joining NOAA?
Laura has been a commissioned officer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps for almost seven years. Before joining NOAA, Laura attended James Madison University, earning her degree in International Business. She went to Bali, working as a dive instructor before moving on to Australia to do the same. While in Australia, she decided she wanted to study Marine Biology and came back to the states to study at George Mason University.
Where do you do most of your work?
Most of the time, she can be found on the bridge navigating the ship.
What do you enjoy about your work?
Laura said the most fun thing about the job is driving a 209-foot ship.
Why is your work important?
She gets to safely navigate the ship safely while working with scientists to help them get their work done.
How do you help wider audiences understand and appreciate NOAA science?
Laura had the opportunity to be the second NOAA officer who completed a cross-agency assignment with the Navy. While there, she said she was able to show the Navy personnel that they were using NOAA products such as navigational charts and weather data. Most of them did not realize that these products were made by NOAA.
When did you know you wanted to pursue a career in science an ocean career?
Laura said that while she was in Australia, she was working with another diver who was going out counting fish species for his PhD. She said that experience made her realize her father was right all along and she should have studied science.
What tool do you use in your work that you could not live without?
Radar
What part of your job with NOAA did you least expect to be doing?
Driving ships. She also stated that she never expected to be part of a Navy Command and shooting small arms weapons.
What classes would you recommend for a student interested in a career in Marine Science?
A lot of your regular classes, but definitely any conservation classes.
What’s at the top of your recommended reading list for a student exploring ocean or science as a career option?
“Unnatural History of the Sea” – about overfishing throughout history
“The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemmingway
What do you think you would be doing if you were not working for NOAA?
Laura said she would probably be going back to school to work on her Masters in Marine Biology, particularly coral conservation, or going to Fiji to be a dive instructor.
Do you have any outside hobbies?
Diving, reading, working on puzzles, and just being outside exploring (I also understand that she is a pretty good water polo player.)
Did You Know?
For each minute of the day, 1 billion tons of rain falls on the Earth.
Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.
Question of the Day:
The fastest speed of a falling raindrop is __________.
Life aboard this research vessel is fast-paced and absorbing. I feel like I am a child in a toy shop, eager to learn and blog about so many of the happenings around me! I spend much of my time high above in the flying bridge (above the bridge) with a panoramic 360 degree view of the horizon, documenting seabirds and mammals with colleagues—more on this later. We suspend our surveying when the ship reaches a sampling station. We have about 150 random sampling stations out in the ocean, ranging from close to coast (depth about 15 m) to right at the edge of the continental shelf (up to 500 m so far). Cruising about 9 knots (about 10 mph), the ship zigzags along a predetermined track, stopping anywhere between 15-30 minutes at each sampling station.
A map of our sampling stations. The black circles indicate plankton sampling sites; Dots show oceanographic stations where conductivity and temperature measurements are taken along with water samples for carbonate chemistry and nutrient analyses
At
each station, an array of measurements are taken or specimens sampled.
In my previous blog, I described a state-of-the-art device called the Imaging FlowCytoBot (IFCB). But plankton are also sampled using more traditional methods. We deploy Bongo Nets for plankton sampling. Can you guess why they are called Bongos? See the photo below.
Bongo nets being pulled out after sampling. The chief bosun and student volunteers are on watch.
Note that there is a pair of bigger bongos and a pair of “baby” bongos. These nets are lowered by a j-frame (arm that can be extended off the side of the ship) and winch, at various depths into the water and towed for particular distances through the water. The time spent inside the water (5 minutes minimum) and the depth traversed (up to 200 meters) varies with station depth, but there is a Flowmeter at the mouth of each net that counts volume of water sampled. So all measurements are standardized by volume. The mesh size is 333 microns (1 micron = 1 millionth of a meter; 1 meter = 3.3 feet), meaning anything over 333 microns will be trapped. (To put that in perspective, most cells in your body are about 100 microns).
A flowmeter at the mouth of a bongo net–-note the spinning fins that activate the water volume counting device
When they are pulled out, research personnel swing into action. Most of them are undergraduate volunteers from various universities eager to get their hands wet (literally and figuratively) doing marine science. The bigger bongo nets are hosed to flush all organisms to the bottom. Then the bottom is opened and contents flushed into a sieve. These samples are then preserved in formalin for future examination in labs on the mainland.
Jessica, an undergraduate volunteer, spraying the bigger bongo nets to flush plankton to the bottom
David (another undergraduate volunteer) sprays the smaller bongos
I lend a helping hand spraying the nets
Jessica opens the bottom of the net and empties contents into a sieve
Much of the contents are Salps: jelly-like planktonic tunicates
Closer look at Salps with a larval hake fish (probably a Red Hake) near the center. More on hakes below.
The abundant salps are a vital component of the ecosystem. Source: archives.nereusprogram.org
We even caught this beautiful planktonic crustacean (amphipod or isopod). It’s related to our rolly-pollies.
We also get some tiny arrow worms in our plankton samples. These torpedo-shaped worms belong to a phylum of predatory marine worms called Chaetognatha (“bristle jaws”). Photo courtesy Zatelmar
Plankton from the bigger bongos are preserved in 5% formalin for future analyses in mainland labs.
What happens to the contents of the pair of smaller bongos? Our Chief Scientist Harvey Walsh freezes the sample from one of them into small ziplock bags for a Florida lab which will conduct Stable Isotope Analyses. The other one’s contents are preserved in ethanol for genetic testing (Ethanol is far easier on DNA than formalin) to determine such aspects as taxonomy and phylogenetic (evolutionary) relationships and use in larval fish age and growth studies.
Chief Scientist Harvey Walsh bags a sample for freezing
All specimens are carefully labeled and catalogued
So
what are Stable Isotope Analyses? If you are a beginning college student, you
may be unaware of this sophisticated and widely-used technique. (My ecology students should be well aware of
this!). Basically, the ratio of isotopes
of a chemical element in a given sample is used to yield insights into aspects
such as food preferences of the organism or to reconstruct its past
environmental conditions. It can also be
used to determine where the plankton originated and thus get insights into
ocean circulation. The analyses are done
with a device called mass spectrometer.
Career Corner
I
spoke with our Chief Scientist Harvey
Walsh about his career, research, and his advice for students.
Q. Harvey, tell us how a man from land-locked Minnesota ended up as a top marine biologist.
A. When I graduated from college I looked for a job with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, but they were very competitive. So I applied for several NOAA positions from North Carolina down to the gulf coast. I got a job offer in NC. This was after my B.S. in Aquatic Biology from St. Cloud State University.
Q. You did an M.S. while working with NOAA?
A. Yes, I went back to school part-time and got my Masters. I then went to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute [WHOI]
Q.
From WHOI you came back to NOAA?
A.
Yes.
Q.
Has ocean acidity changed since NOAA started EcoMon?
A.
It is hard to say because of seasonal variability. We need more long-term data.
Q.
Is ocean acidity world-wide increasing?
A.
That’s what I see in the scientific literature.
Q.
How about temperature?
A. Yes, the Northeast has seen an increase in water temperatures, especially in the Gulf of Maine, where it has increased about 0.9°C in about 4 decades.
Q.
Has EcoMon helped document declines in sharks or whales?
A.
Again, we need long-term data for that.
Q. Can you name one recommendation from EcoMon that has benefited sea life?
A.
We get larval fish data. Recently we
started calculating Atlantic Mackerel Egg Index in collaboration with Division
of Fisheries and Ocean Canada and the data indicated that there is a decline in
the adult population. This aided in the
determination to lower catch limits for that species.
Q.
Has the politics of climate change influenced your work?
A. No. I have not had anyone try to change my research or findings in any way. We have within NOAA good scientific integrity rules. We feel we have the ability to publish sound science research without any interference.
Q.
You are highly published. One of your
papers on larval fish otoliths was with my former student Michael Berumen. How are larval otoliths helpful in research?
A. One of the projects we have is trying to use larval hakes to examine stock structure (fish stock is a group of fish of the same species that live in the same geographic area and mix enough to breed with each other when mature) and estimate spawning stock biomass (the amount of mature fish). We have interns in the lab who remove otoliths and get daily growth increments. That allows us to estimate age of the larva and spawning seasonality.
Q.
Can you tell based on this where they hatched?
A.
That’s where we are headed. Once we get
information on when they were born and where they were collected, we hope to
use oceanographic conditions to see if we can back-calculate where they may
have come from and thus plot spawning locations to aid in stock structure
analysis.
Q.
One of the findings of past warming episodes is shrinking of foraminiferans and
other small shelled organisms. Is NOAA
monitoring size of plankton?
A. We are. That’s one of the projects we have just started: estimating size of Calanusfinmarchicus, or Cal fin [see photo below]. This is a copepod crustacean and an important food for the endangered Right Whales. We have a 40-yr time series and have seen evidence of declining size of late-stage and adult Cal fin. We are trying to see if this has resulted in a decline in their energetic value. They are a lipid-rich zooplankton. If their size is related to their lipid storage they may be less nutritious for their predators.
Q.
One of your papers indicated that about a third of fish and plankton species
assessed in the northeast are vulnerable to climate change. Is that trend continuing?
A. Yes, as we monitor we continue to see shifts
in fisheries, plankton, seabirds, and mammals.
Q. What is your advice to early college
undergraduates interested in marine science?
A.
Be flexible. When I first started I
thought I’d stay in Minnesota and work on adult fish stocks. I ended up working
on larval fish and zooplankton. Not
focusing on one skill set and being able to adapt and look at various aspects
will help you in the long run.
At the end of the interview, Harvey gave me this card and encouraged students to contact him for volunteer opportunities with NOAA.
Information Card from NOAA’s Oceans and Climate Branch
Harvey also kindly shared this slide explaining the locations of Calfin, Baleen Whales, and even you, in the food web. The highly endangered North Atlantic Right Whale feeds on plankton like calfins by filtering them through a sieve (baleen) in their mouths (slide: courtesy Harvey Walsh)
Personal Log
One of the best aspects of this voyage is the daily spectacular views of sunrises and sunsets. I spend a lot of time high up on the fly bridge assisting in sea bird, sea mammal, and sea turtle surveys. It’s also a treat to look around 360 degrees and see nothing but the horizon, nothing man-made except this big old ship gently bobbing up and down in the center, leaving a wide frothy wake behind. Yet, in the vastness of the ocean, we are but a mere speck. It really is humbling to experience this vista.
The ship crew are very serious about safety. We have periodic Fire and Emergency, Abandon Ship, and Man Overboard drills. A billet posted on my door advises where to report in each of these scenarios. We have “muster” points, meaning, where to meet, for each. I was trained to get into my Anti Exposure Suit in less than two minutes. That was easier said than done!
Here I am in my Anti Exposure Suit. I felt like an astronaut in it
The food continues to be sumptuous and delicious, cooked by two expert stewards Margaret and Bronley. Never did I dream I will enjoy eggplant curry and coconut jasmine rice on a NOAA Ship far out into the sea.
Dinner menu posted in the mess
Margaret and Bronley are the two great cooks on board. Margaret makes her own Garam Masala, putting her unique fingerprint into her curry dishes (and delighting my Indian-American tongue)!
I even get my daily work out in the ship’s small but well-appointed gym
Did You Know?
Hakes (see photo above) are lean whitefish belonging to the Cod family. They are known as Gadoids (Order Gadiformes) and are grouped with cods, haddocks, whiting, and pollocks. They are much sought-after for their delicate texture and mild flavor. We get some hake larvae in our plankton tows. Hake larvae are used by scientists for all kinds of studies. For example, their otoliths (tiny ear bones) can enable identification of species and even help determine where they were hatched (by Stable Isotope Analysis—see above). This information, combined with data on ocean currents and circulation, can help determine hotspots for hake reproduction to enable conservation and sustainable fisheries.
Interesting animals seen
lately
Fish:
Hammerhead Shark
Whale Shark
Tuna
sp.
Mammals:
Pilot
Whales
Minke
Whales
Common
Dolphins
Bottle-nosed Dolphins
Spotted Dolphins (riding the bow!)
SeaBirds:
Great
Shearwater
Manx
Shearwater
Cory’s Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Audubon’s
Shearwater
Wilson’s
Storm-petrel
Band-rumped Storm-petrel
Leach’s Storm-petrel
Black-capped Petrel
Red-necked
Phalarope
Northern
Gannet
In addition, several land birds on their south-bound autumn migration rested briefly on the ship. I was not expecting to see Prairie Warblers, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Brown-headed Cowbirds on a pelagic (=ocean) cruise!
