Thursday 14 August 2014

Leaving :(

Having been on Sherkin Island for almost 2 months I have now had to say goodbye to the beautiful place and my fellow Marine Station Bods. I have had a great time exploring the little island, trying out a new aspect of marine biology, and boggling (among many other things). I am sad to have left - although I am a little excited to not have to prepare meals for 8 again any time soon!

Final photos - courtesy of Robbie Murphy. Don't we all look very
well behaved and smiley?
Then came the jumping.. soooo much jumping..
I think this one was 'be a sea creature'? But it really could be anything..

I think I will definitely have to visit Sherkin again in the future! The Marine Station is celebrating 40 years of surveying next year and Matt is hosting many past bods for an anniversary gathering so perhaps I will be going to that. Living on Sherkin has been an experience that I certainly won't be forgetting for a long while! Goodbye!!!

Last night at the pub!

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Fun and dolphins!

The other day we went out on Charlie's boat (a different Charlie - I don't secretly own boats now) to see some of the little islands surrounding Sherkin and to see if we could find any wildlife. It was such a nice day and we had a lovely time - we ended up seeing many dolphins and rather a lot of seals too!

Fabulous sun-bathing seal
Me, Nonny and Ruth after the
boat trip - smiley happy
boat faces!












There is one dolphin that hangs out on its own near the marina on Sherkin and it decided to join our boat for a good few minutes on our way back to shore. Charlie's dog, which was onboard the boat with
us and having a great time, was the first to see the dolphin and proceeded to jump in after it (presumably with a view to catching it, but i'm not sure about the logic of this as the dolphin was quite large). We got the dog out of the water and watched the dolphin swim lazily around near the boat. 

Lazy dolphin



Danger danger!!

We have successfully identified a HAB (harmful algal bloom)! We found hundreds of Dinophysis acuta  in our plankton net haul! We then did precise counts from the different depths sampled and found that the levels of Dinophysis are well above the level that can be dangerous for shellfish!

So many Dinophysis acuta (the grenade ones)! Much danger!
Also look at that lovely big Coscinodiscus (the big round one) - isn't it
pretty!
We quickly found out if any oysters have been farmed locally over the last week (or if there are plans to harvest them soon) so that they can be checked for DSP and people don't eat them if they could make them ill. 


Monday 28 July 2014

More sarg-ing


So many secret beaches to graffiti!
Intertidal Sargassum dominating
a rockpool
So life on Sherkin is very warm at the moment - highs of around 29 (degrees C) recently - which is only a few degrees below the all time hottest temperature ever recorded in Ireland. The radio informed us that temperatures in parts of London reached 32 degrees! - Which I think is far too warm to be in London. I'm glad to be by the sea during this mini heat wave.

Sometimes the clambering
is a little more like rock
climbing.. I should've
brought my climbing
harness (and helmet)
A while back I did a post about the Sargassum survey that was happening - the one where we were snorkelling to survey sub-tidal Sargassum plants. Well there has also been an intertidal Sargassum survey taking place. The marine lab bods have been steadily working their way around the Island around the time of low tide and recording where they find Sargassum, how big the plants are, and other information about the rock pools that the invasive plant has been found in. Almost the entire circumference of the island has been surveyed! This hasn't been the easiest task though - as it involved clambering round the rocks surrounding the island (which are often incredibly sharp and slippery and awkward). Many injuries have been sustained from this clambering! Also, at some points round the island it is just impossible to get round on the rocks. At these points people have to climb up to the top of the cliffs and walk round to the next accessible bit of the shore - however at the hop of the cliffs there is no nice clear coastal path - in most places there is just an AWFUL LOT OF GORSE. super painful but also means that regular tick checks must be carried out.
Dragonfly

Glaudine keeping an eye on us?
I HATE TICKS. They are just the worst. And they magically appear! You will think you have removed all of them, but then you will check again a few minutes later and more tick will just appear - FROM NOWHERE. Also, horseflies, I hate these too.

But thats enough complaining about beasties. It has been really fun helping out with the Sargassum hunt, and it has meant that I have been outside in the sunshine - so thats an added bonus! And I am actually really looking forward to seeing the results of the survey and seeing how they compare to previous years.

Also, the other day we all went to see a one-man play that was being performed in the community centre. We were told great things about the play and we weren't disappointed! It was fab! It was very intense, but also very interesting and well-done. If you see it advertised anywhere and you get the chance to see it I would recommend it highly.



One pro of getting up at 5am for plankton sampling :)



Thursday 24 July 2014

More bloomin' information (see what I did there..)

After posting my last update I realised that I never really properly described why and when phytoplankton blooms occur. So i thought I would briefly try to outline these things.

Phytoplankton essentially need 2 things to survive and grow: nutrients & sunlight (as they are largely photosynthetic organisms). Without these things they cannot survive. When there is an abundance of both of these elements (due to natural or anthropogenic influences) phytoplankton can thrive and blooms can occur.

Naturally in many temperate regions there are 2 major bloom events - one in the Spring and one in the Autumn. During the winter the water column is well mixed due to storms, increased wind, and decreased stratification, so there are plenty of nutrients in the surface layers (where the phytoplankton reside). However, there is limited sunlight during the winter. This causes a build-up of nutrients in surface layers. When sunlight intensifies in the Spring, light is no longer limiting phytoplankton growth and large numbers of phytoplankton are able to grow due to the nutrients that accumulated in the water column over the winter. This is the major phytoplankton bloom of the year - the Spring bloom. Once the backlog of nutrients have largely been utilised by this bloom the nutrient levels return to a lower baseline level and phytoplankton levels also return to a lower level. Over the summer the water column becomes more stratified and nutrients in the surface waters get depleted and not replenished by deeper water nutrients. This leads to a smaller Autumn bloom when winter storms begin mixing the water column again - replenishing nutrients to the surface waters.

So that is a very very brief attempt at an explanation about when and why plankton blooms happen.


Zooplankton

Thus far on this blog I have only really talked about phytoplankton (the photosynthesising section of plankton). I thought I would take a moment to mention the non-photosynthesising fraction today.

Zooplankton can be animals that permanently remain in the plankton, or they can be the juveniles of animals and grow up and metamorphose out of the plankton phase. In other years the plankton team have also investigated the zooplankton in the waters here - but this year there aren't enough of us to manage both phytoplankton and zooplankton. However we are still collecting the samples for future years to look at.

Photographs of some zooplankton - juvenile stages of non-planktonic adult animals.
Some of these look nothing like the adult animals they grow into!
Photographs all taken at Sherkin Island Marine Station.


Unidentified worm larvae



Unidentified bryozoan larvae (the radio was
playing whilst I recorded this..)


In other news, the other day there was a rather large storm that passed over the island and we had to rush around unplugging everything possible as the lightning was very ferocious and impressive! I would kindof like to be here to see a winter storm now! There was also an amazing sunset and lovely rainbow that appeared just before ALL THE WATER FELL FROM THE CLOUDS.


  

Thursday 10 July 2014

Recent happenings on Sherkin

What’s been happening recently on Sherkin.. 

Well there was a wedding a few days ago! I think the whole island plus another couple of hundred people must’ve been at the pub for the celebrations (also we were all there)! The pub and the marquee outside looked beautiful decorated with candles and fairy lights – with the view of the sea and mainland Ireland across from the pub it was a really stunning place for a party. There was an excellent band and there was much drinking, dancing and merriment!

On Sunday we went rockpooling (for fun) at one of the nearby beaches and we bothered many sea beasties.

Aside from that it has been work as usual in the Marine Lab – Maria is back from her holiday back home in Spain and she has returned with yummy things and wine! (I’m sure the wine is also going to be yummy). Her return brings the Plankton Team back up to 3 people, which will make washing tubes a LOT faster, and pulling up plankton nets from 50m depth will be nicer with 3 people also.

Also another bod has arrived! Her name is Jess and she is a new addition to the Rocky Shore team (the 2nd best team here). Hopefully this will 
mean that the Rocky Shore people will be able to sleep a more normal amount each night now!

In other news, a villainous horrid meddling devil creature (a cat) broke into the plankton lab (probably jumped through a window) a few days before the wedding and proceeded to cruelly vandalise (walk over) our precious, delicately positioned, beautifully and painstakingly prepared sample tubes – ruining them all and leaving cat hair everywhere. It also menacingly tore some of our posters off the wall and threw some books on the ground. Finally this mean, dangerous animal decided to pay us the ultimate disrespect, and defecated next to our tube table. It also weed somewhere unidentifiable – leaving our lab smelling like cat wee no matter how many windows and doors we left open. We later identified the wee location when we took our kit box onto the boat and found that this made the boat smell like cat wee. So we have now washed ALL OF THE THINGS, and are on the lookout for the culprit feline..

LOOK AT THE DESTRUCTION!!
 We may all become expert Bogglers by the end of the Summer as Boggle is a major evening activity - some people are better at using predefined words, whilst others are better at finding as-of-yet-undefined words..

"My precious.."

For Caz.


Thursday 3 July 2014

Hidden danger..

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that one of the reasons for examining and identifying plankton is to monitor for Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) - much larger than usual aggregations of harmful algae species. I will attempt to describe what is meant by 'HABs' a little further:

When algae blooms, the larger numbers of phytoplankton are broken down by bacteria in the water. These bacteria utilise oxygen to do this and this can result in dramatic depletion of dissolved oxygen in the water column which can cause problems for other animals that require this oxygen. Sometimes large algal blooms can lead to huge fish die-off as the bacteria steal all the oxygen to break down the algae.

HAB species can also cause several health conditions among a number of animals - notably humans, fish and shellfish. The conditions can be divided into a number of classes:

Amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP)
This is caused by domoic acid accumulating in shellfish - this can then be transferred via fish to humans and can cause gastrointestinal and neurological disorders including (as the name suggests) loss of memory.
One of the species of plankton that can cause ASP when it blooms is the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia.


These are photos of some of the diatom species we commonly find in our samples and have to
 identify - sounds easy? Its not. Often they don't look quite as perfect as in these pictures and can be at
 strange angles as we are looking at them in a 3D environment. Many of the plankton that resemble
lines all look very VERY similar so it takes a little practise to distinguish between some of the species..
also, they are often quite small..
 Pseudo-nitzschia is labelled with a red star because it is a HAB species
Diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP)
This causes gastrointestinal disturbances in humans including some throwing up, abdominal cramps, and (as the name suggests) some other unpleasantries.. people usually recover from this within a few days though. Some species of plankton that can cause DSP when they bloom are Dinophysis and Prorocentrum.

Neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP)
This causes gastrointestinal and neurological disturbances and can also cause some asthmatic symptoms in humans but these usually subside after a few days. This can be caused by Gymnodinium.

Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP)
This is the super bad one! PSP can be life-threatening and has neurological effects. There is no known antidote. Apparently there is a 15% mortality for people who catch PSP! This nasty one can be caused by several species - but mostly by Pyrodinium and some species of Alexandrium.


These are photos of some of the dinoflagellate  species we commonly find in our samples here. As with the diatoms the ones labelled with red stars are known HAB species! The dinoflagellates are less common in our samples and are
far more exciting in my opinion. My favourites are the grenade (Dinophysis) and the sorting hat (Neoceratium) - yes
I have favourite plankton now.. 
Sometimes you can see public notices at beaches warning people of Harmful Algal Blooms and advising people to avoid swimming in these areas or to avoid fishing in these areas. You should pay attention to these! They are important!!


Here is an example of what a Dinophysis bloom can look like under the
 microscope - ALL THE GRENADES!!

'HAB' can also stand for
'Happy Algal Bloom'*
Here is a little zooplankton
picture - possibly a little baby
jellyfish


 














On a separate note - the rocky shore team found another sea slug today! I LOVE NUDIBRANCHS!




*this is not particularly true - sorry

Thursday 26 June 2014

Seaweed invaders


Glaudine is still hanging around

On top of the normal data collection that we do here at the Marine Station, other projects are also done to examine specific aspects of the marine biology of Sherkin. For the last couple of days we have been collecting data for the ‘Sargassum Project’. Sargassum is an invasive seaweed species that originated in Asia and has been increasingly found in Europe (including Sherkin).

Sargassum spp invasion can be a problem as it can grow very quickly over large ranges of the shoreline (whereas lots of native seaweed species have a niche area that they mainly inhabit). This versatility enables Sargassum to affect lots of areas and unfortunately it can displace some local species and form large mats when it grows very tall – these large mats can cause all kinds of problems, for example: 
  • Large mats at the surface can block sunlight to other seaweed species growing below them preventing them from being able to photosynthesize as much and therefor reducing their fitness
  • By preventing growth of lower seaweed species that form habitats for other animals and plants Sargassum mats can reduce habitats for these epiphytic organisms
  • Sargassum mats can become so thick that they can damage boats and make the water impossible to swim in – this can increase costs associated with ship repair and can make areas less appealing to tourists
Invasive species can be transported from their original locations many ways, including:
  • Being deliberately transported for use in ponds
  • Being accidentally transported in ballast water of ships

Anyway, so Sargassum can be problematic.

The Marine Station has been monitoring the progressive abundance of Sargassum on the island for a number of years and it is really interesting to see how it has been gradually increasingly found in more and more sites around the island.

For the past couple of days we have been suiting up (in wetsuits) and snorkelling in Horseshoe Harbour sampling transects and reporting back the numbers and heights of any Sargassum individuals we see there.

Surveying in Horseshoe Harbour (one person in a little blow-up
 raft with two snorkelers either side of the boat)
The last Sargassum report from Sherkin was done a few years ago and it is INSANE to see how much more Sargassum is in the bay this year than in previous years – in 2011 they reported 7 Sargassum plants in the bay, this year we got into the water (a little chilly) and the moment we put our faces in we could see that the problem had definitely progressed – now we are finding that in many areas of the Bay we are reporting 100+ individuals completely covering the bottom and ranging from a few cms to many metres tall! (Tomorrow I will attempt to get a few pictures of Sargassum to show you what this invasive Asian alien species look like) - *I have collected some pictures!!*

The invasive seaweed - Sargassum!


So that is what I have been doing currently – viewing the problem of an invasive species firsthand. It is really interesting after spending 3 years learning bits about invasive species’ and the problems they can cause – I wish we had done a little field trip at University to observe an invasive species at work, I think that would have really hammered home the fact that invasive species are a very real problem that deserves more attention.

On a different note..

I found a nudibranch today!!!!! 


For those of you who don't know, nudibranchs are more commonly known as 'sea slugs' and are a marine mollusc. They are also SUPER EXCITING and are often stunning colours and crazy shapes. We named her Daenerys (because we've been watching too much Game of Thrones) and brought her back to the lab to examine/stare at/take a billion pictures of..

Daenerys looking stunning
Daenerys looking fabulous



















She can even crawl/slide along the underside of the water
surface!!!! Because she is awesome.

After taking a gazillion pictures of her we identified her and we believe her to be Facelina auriculata whose key characteristics are:
  • Propodial tentacles, long oral tentacles and annulate rhinophores present
  • Foot narrow, cerata short, in distinct bunches, long narrow tail
  • Cerata with red digestive gland and iridescent blue surface colour

We also found this rather large fellow who is a 'Devil-eyed crab'.
Although perhaps less delicate than Daenerys he is still
VERY fabulous









Tuesday 24 June 2014

Happy June 23rd!!

According to Maria, in Spain they celebrate the 23rd of June in a big way – with big fires and nice food and lots of drinking – to welcome the Summer. So that’s what we did yesterday, we collected lots of wood from around the place and had a big bonfire at the beach. The otter boys joined us for a couple of hours (there are 3 Dutch boys also staying on the island studying the otters) which was nice, although they didn’t bring any wood or food, and they made fun of our burnt sausages and homemade nettle beer.. (*A combination of: the length of the walk to the pub, the irrational cost of alcohol here, and our growing hatred for nettles, inspired us to experiment with home brewing*)



Incidentally the nettle beer was really rather nice (especially after adding honey) - and successfully alcoholic! So the otter boys were definitely missing out.

Spanish tradition is that at midnight people burn a list of bad things that have happened in the previous year and a list of hopes for the next year, so that’s what we did, and it was actually quite fun, I might have to adopt this tradition!

After burning our lists we finished off the nettle beer and well-done sausages and played a very silly chicken game that was great! – bwuk bwuk BAKAAAAW!


Then we went for a quick (quite cold) swim. It was the first time I’ve ever swum in bioluminescent water! (some plankton emit flashes of light when the water near them is agitated). It was SOOO PRETTY. Moving through the water made it sparkle and glitter like little water fireflies. But that’s enough of me trying to be descriptive I think. Basically it was awesome. I want to go back at night and skim stones to see if you can see the bioluminescence from the beach!

All in all it was a great night! (Although this morning I was feeling a little worse for wear..)


There is a large beach party planned for a bit later in the year and I’m now super excited for that!

On a separate note - I seem to have become severely allergic to the outdoors. Which is rubbish. How is it possible that this ailment has developed?? It is completely ridiculous to be allergic to being outside!!
My hayfever is refusing to be tamed by tablets and I am now sneezing 100+ times each day which is very very annoying - I imagine the other people that work in my lab are probably getting very sick of my sneezes by now.. oh well, only the rest of the WHOLE SUMMER to go..

This seal has been hanging around the Marine Station a lot lately.
Maria has named him Glaudine.