The overcast weather was nothing new to PNW locals when we awoke this morning; the grey hues outside made us ever more reluctant to get out of bed. As we made our way through our morning routines – eating breakfast, getting dressed, learning the knot of the day – the sun began to wake up just as we did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zooplankton and Silhouettes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We headed out to the lab on campus to grab equipment to help in Kira\u2019s project data collection; then, we headed down to the Port of Friday Harbor and did some plankton tows! The fun wasn\u2019t over yet, though – we then headed back to the lab where Kira and Miranda instructed us on how to prepare our acquired plankton for a silhouette scan. The pictures came out great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n After we finished recording our plankton silhouettes, we shared a quick lunch before our first group headed out for a trawl on the research vessel Kittiwake! The moment we had all been waiting for was finally here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Islay, Ana, and Dustin’s phytoplankton silhouettes (Photo by: Islay, Ana, Dustin)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Foraging for Critters on the Kittiwake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Both groups had an amazing time on the Kittiwake as they searched through trawl hauls for invertebrates to bring back to the labs. It was like searching for treasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finds included multiple giant Apposticopus Californicus<\/a>, a wide variety of sea stars, giant sea urchins, scallops, and lots of jumpy prawns. One group was lucky enough to have found a small shark in their haul!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tim with the shark! (Photo by: Maddy)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Project Progress<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While one group on the boat enjoyed seeking organism treasure, the other group was enjoying some much-needed project development time. Some of us ran experiment trials, some analyzed data, and some watched videos of sea star feeding sessions. It\u2019s great to see the vast range of interesting questions and experimental designs we\u2019ve all come up with!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sea Star Culturing <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tonight for dinner we had the pleasure to meet with Dr. Jason Hodin<\/a>, a Wesleyan College graduate of biology and a Ph.D. of zoology from UW. He has worked with pycnopodia (a.k.a. Sunflower sea stars) over the past few years, focusing on the Sea Star Wasting Disease (SSWD)<\/a> which became a worldwide epidemic in the early 2010’s and killed many stars and continues to affect most Sea Star species even today. We\u2019ve already learned quite a bit about SSWD from Salish Sea Sciences Resident Scientist, Morgan Eisenlord, who was an early author on SSWD<\/a>, but Dr. Hodin took us through his project of culturing sunflower stars to help repopulate the Friday Harbor area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The purpose of his studies and experiments were to not only boost population numbers<\/a>, but also to understand more about the life stages of the sunflower star. He showed us pictures of the pycnopodias\u2019 stages of life \u2014 emphasizing the difference in appearance in the larval stage versus the adult\/juvenile stage. We loved the presentation and had many questions digging into his expertise and fascinating work with the sunflower stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The time is flying by so fast. We can\u2019t believe that this is already the third Thursday we have spent on San Juan Island. We can\u2019t wait to make even more memories in our remaining days with our new, lifelong family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello! This blog is brought to you by Naomi, Meg, and Ana. Clouds and Scaffolding The overcast weather was nothing new to PNW locals when we awoke this morning; the grey hues outside made us ever more reluctant to get out of bed. As we made our way through our morning routines – eating breakfast, getting dressed, learning the knot of the day – the sun began to wake up just as we did. Zooplankton and Silhouettes We headed out to the lab on campus to grab equipment to help in Kira\u2019s project data collection; then, we headed down to the Port of Friday Harbor and did some plankton tows! The … Continue reading ![](\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/aX7v1kixjiLkZAzaroiSKqs8GTqqnyUh3yQR6jZVhPq_PvVZ1eqPybgGGGIpdL5JM8JCcQv3a_2jNfTVTaZOkv-P0FrmM5qRNC-tB3kHQuAme0aAJ1NwdQMhQSwuTMyh2qdwOPlG\")
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