By Naomi, Ashley, and Jesse

**Broadcasting from Team Bottlenose Dolphins…

To start off the day, we dove right into discussing last night’s coral epigenetics lecture. During the lecture, Dr. Sarah lemur mostly discussed coral bleaching and how corals can be acclimated to mild heat stress early on in order to withstand greater heat stress later in their lives.  Our discussion of methylation and morphology evolved into a discussion of Earth’s history in which we tried to understand the many intricacies that lie within this planet. For example, we covered many different aspects of speciation and the function that evolution plays when regarding this state. By the end of the talk, we had come up with more questions including the thought “We know where the ocean’s water comes from, but where did the salt come from?” 

Our guest speaker of the day was Pema Kitaeff. Pema has been working on a
Sunflower Sea Stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) restoration project and she introduced us to her many sea stars along with their prey – mussels and urchins. Clooney, one of the sea stars, was handed a mussel which was gone from our sight within a minute. Pema informed us that underneath the sea star, Clooney’s tube feet were applying pressure to the mussel’s shell in order to create a crack. Once the crack was formed, Clooney would insert his stomach into the mussel shell in order to devour the animal inside! In another tank, many of the sea stars were positioned awkwardly on the wall. Using her extensive knowledge and expertise in the field, Pema was able to deduce that the water flow within the tank was too low and was inducing the stars’ stress. But after turning up the water flow, the sea stars repositioned back to normal. The purpose of the restoration project is to spawn more Sunflower Sea Stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) in order to learn how we can better raise juvenile sea stars. The end goal is to release the sea stars back out into the wild to help repopulate the natural population.

After examining the sea stars, we moved on to developing a new project for the Salish Seas Sciences: podcasts! Naomi and Anders researched what platforms to use, we decided on Anchor; Ashley and Colette brainstormed ideas on what to talk about in the podcast, and Jesse and Julia found example podcasts about marine science for inspiration. After discussing in individual breakout rooms, we rejoined to combine our research and to plan out the podcast. Once this was settled, we headed for lunch.

We returned energized with full stomachs, prepared for Kay’s presentation on the behaviors of 3 different species of butterflyfish. With this information in mind, we headed out to our own ecosystems to observe how organisms behaved in their own environments. Some of us discovered the particular behaviors of insects such as bees and ants, while others examined larger creatures like squirrels and lizards. We then discussed and observed each other’s collected data. To finish off our day we shared our joys and challenges. Today definitely was an exciting day of exploration, and we are looking forward to tomorrow’s visit with phycologist Dr. Katie Dobkowski!

By Naomi, Ashley, and Jesse

**Broadcasting from Team Bottlenose Dolphins…

Our second day started off with our very first daily knot – the Bowline Knot. A few of us had trouble in the beginning but were pros by the end of the day and were even able to master the Dragon Knot! Today we experienced our first data collection assignment and collected data based on the number of objects we had in each room, otherwise known as a habitat, of our house. Later in the day, after Derek’s Prezi on Shipwreck Ecology, he showed us how to enter the data we recorded, which is similar to his transect data, into an nMDS chart. After returning from the data hunt, we were virtually transported to Dr. James Murray’s nudibranch lab. Instead of a lecture, Dr. Murray demonstrated how he conducts neuroscience experiments with the Tritonia Diomedea; later, he exhibited the anatomy of this orange sea slug and showed us how they searched for their prey, the sea pen.  Fresh off our lunch break, we were ready to finish viewing the photos taken by the Bottlenose Dolphins from yesterday’s scavenger hunt. The discussion led to a full-on debate on whether a collection of photos should be accepted for points based on science or spirit. The results would decide the fate of the Bottlenose dolphins. While we waited with bated breath to see who would be the scavenger hunt champion, we prepared to view a special screening of A Decade after Deepwater with Liz Smith! We watched the episode and reconvened to discuss our joys and challenges of the day and to find out who the winner of the scavenger hunt was. Spoiler alert, we won! In the end, we were really starting to get the hang of being a part of a hands-on virtual program.