Angela - Marineland + Mistake

After finding a multitude of washed up garbage and plastic at Fernandina Beach (see previous post titled "Plastic Jackpot"), I figured I was in fact on to something and Florida's east coast does have more plastic content-possibly due to the North Atlantic Garbage Patch- than the west coast.

However, my next stop on the east coast, on October 6th, 2013, was disappointingly clean and beautiful. On the other beaches I noticed each being used as a giant ashtray; Marineland's beach had ONE cigarette butt!

During my visual survey I came across one plastic bottle, about 12 inches long, made of dense looking blue plastic, that had what looked like bivalves growing on it but hermit crabs seemed to live in them:

Back on Fernandina beach I had decided to change my procedure a little bit. The first time I went out for samples (see blog entry on "Realization: Maybe lab work would suit me best"), I took down the GPS coordinates of every sample I scooped, however, all of it ends up mixed up in the same jar and the instrument I am using has around a 20 foot error. 

Instead, I now take down the starting and ending GPS coordinates, and changed my sampling parameters to the following "whichever comes first" limits:

- 1 hour

- 1/2 mile

- Filled 2 quart jar

Ultimately I only took surface sediment samples from Marineland's beach, however, in hindsight, since that dense looking blue bottle was too big for my jar, not taking it home with me might come back to haunt me. Originally I had planned on tracking the number of plastic pieces found in each location, which is technically at this point 1 piece for Marineland' beach, however, if it turns out I have a handful (hundreds) of microbeads in my sample it would probably be easier to quantify my plastic findings by weight instead of number of pieces.

Deanna - Best lab ever

October 3, 2013 
The Tomoka River - Instrumentation and Data Collecting

We couldn't have asked for a better day! It was perfect. A nice breeze and mostly clear skies. I love when I get to go on a boat. This was a great research vessel. We all worked together like we've been doing this forever.

Dr. Woodall was there ready to go take us on our adventure.

Dr. Woodall looks a bit worried. But she was smiling at the end of the day!

Here be our boat...

DSC research vessel.

We traveled to our furthest point and

began our testing near the mouth of the river. 

 

Dr. Woodall went over each test and each instrument with us, and then turned us loose. 

Here I am using a hand pump to create a vacuum on our filtering apparatus. We were checking for Total Dissolved Phosphates in the water at each of our 5 Sample Sites. Once the water is filtered, the filtrate was then put into a HACH DR 1890 Colorimeter and this instrument measured the Total Dissolved Phosphate in the water.

Here Seaira is showing us how to use the EA-3010NL handheld Anemometer. The anemometer measured the wind speed and air temperature.

  

Angela demonstrating her ability to use the Turner Design Aquafluor hand held Turbidimeter. The turbidimeter measures the "cloudiness" in the water caused by suspended solids.

Another of the instruments we used to tell us how "cloudy" the water was, was a Secchi Disk. This instrument is a flat circle with alternating quadrants of black and white. The point is to lower it into the water until you can't differentiate the difference between the black and white. Then you note the length of the rope.

The HACH 950 Flowmeter was of special interest to me as we will be using it for our project. The Flowmeter measures the velocity of water. I really feel I need to be able to get in the water with the Flowmeter so I can play with it to understand it.  

Houston holding the rod with the Flowmeter on it.

The YSI 85 hand held meter gave us a lot of data. We lowered the meter in the water and we gathered data for the amount of oxygen in the water, water temperature, and water salinity.

Dr. Woodall demonstrating how to use YSI 85

 I think that the HACH HD113 pH Meter is the only other instrument I haven't mentioned. It consisted of a "wand" that was cabled to a hand held instrument. The "wand" was lowered into the water and gave us the pH in the river at each location.

All-in-all, it was a very interesting day. I love being outside and this was the best lab!!

This is the best classroom ever!!

Angela - Plastic Jackpot

Turns out hunting for plastic, once you start finding pieces, can be just as addicting as fossil/rock hunting or metal detecting. As part of my project regarding whether beaches on Florida's east coast contain more plastic pieces than its west coast, I headed out to beaches located in Fernandina and Marineland, both located on the east coast.

During a visual survey of Fernandina's beach I thought I found a plastic pellet goldmine:

But, after collecting dozens of these pellets I came across this plant and realized I got duped:

However, aside from the fake pellets, it turned out that Fernandina beach was indeed a plastic pieces jackpot and I found a multitude of small pieces the size of an ant to pieces the size of a quarter, plus several torn up balloon pieces, bottle caps and other large pieces of indistinguishable mangled plastic that had biogenous - material originating from living organisms - substances growing on them.

Stay tuned for a blog on the "disappointing" cleanliness of Marineland's beach.

Rebecca - Catching Sand Fleas

Where the waves wash up.

              This Saturday I am planning on doing a practice run for my project. I got a sand flea rake from Jeff (Thanks!) and have been doing some more research. I found some great resources online and learned a lot about sand fleas. Sand fleas live in the swash zone. The swash zone is the part of the beach where waves crash and wash back into the ocean. Sand fleas live here because they depend on the action of the waves to bring them plankton and other organic debris that they feed on.

Colony of sand fleas.

 In the summer, they tend to form colonies so they can mate, making it easier to catch them. The colonies are easy to spot as you can see in the picture to the left. The sand looks rough and I know I've see this at the beach before but didn't know what caused it. I should still be able to catch a decent amount of sand fleas but I was planning on going to Cape Canaveral National Seashore which is now closed. Hopefully the government gets its act together and I can do my 'real' collection next weekend. Otherwise I will have to wait until the end of this month.

I will also be collecting sediment samples from areas I find sand fleas in. The reason for this is to determine if the sediment size has any affect on the sand fleas. Since sand fleas spend most of their lives buried in the sand, I'm trying to determine if the size of sand grain keeps the sand fleas from gathering in certain areas. The natural sand along this part of the coast tends to have lots of broken test, or seashells, in it and can have a brown/red color to it. My question is, with the popularity of beach nourishment, where the sand tends to be finer and hard packed, will this type of sand deter sand fleas from gathering?
                 
                                 I'm really excited to go out this weekend and get some practice with the sand flea rake. I hope the water is still warm enough that I can catch lots of sand fleas.

Grace Sediment Sieving and lionfish-SCUBA

The sediment sieving lab was a lot of fun, however I had a lot more trouble with the graphs than I expected. I though there would be a  reflection of more vegetation meaning larger grain sizes, but my graphs did not show that at all. In the graphs I created, little to no correlation existed between the grain size ratio and percent vegetation coverage.

I am still trying to focus my project on lion fish, but sadly I will probably not be getting my SCUBA diving certification quite yet. This week I have found that procrastination is a terrible idea, so learn from my mistake and do things WAY ahead of time.

Michelle LaComb: Sediment Sieving and Hydrophone

Last week when I collected my sediment samples, I attempted to dry them in my oven. Unfortunately, they still were too wet to sieve in class so I plopped them onto a piece of foil and stuck them in the oven in the classroom where they remained until Tuesday.

On Tuesday I came in and retrieved my sediment from the oven and performed my sieve test. While in the oven, my sediment had gotten hard and clumped together so I first used a mortar and pestle to break it up a bit.  

After my sediment was broken up, I measured out 200mL from my control and weighed it. I then put it in the sieve and shook it for about one minute. After the shaking process was done I weighed both the smaller grains and the larger grains and then repeated the entire process with my other sediment sample. I found that both of my samples contained a fairly even mixture of large and small grain sizes. 

After being sieved.

Breaking up the sediment.

Weighing the sediment.

While I was in the classroom on Tuesday I also sat down with Dr. Woodall and she showed me how to record sounds on my computer using the hydrophone. With this new found knowledge I went down to a pond on Wednesday and attempted to practice recording sounds to get the hang of using the hydrophone in water. I didn't get much done however because my research partner kept trying to feast upon every human and animal that happened to wander by. Looks like I'll have to fly solo next time if I plan on accomplishing anything!  

My cute, but very unhelpful, research assistant checking out the water!

Brittnie-Learning to use a caliper

      Since I have to take really small measurements of pieces of coral, I will have to use a caliper, which takes extremely precise measurements. There are three types of Vernier calipers: dial, digital, and the manual caliper, which I will be using for my project. 

      When using a caliper, you first need to make sure the item you’re measuring is clean, so you’re not measuring the dirt or grime buildup on the item. You want to make sure that the knob at the top is loosened, turning it counter clockwise. 
      
     

     
      Next, place the jaws around the item, and tighten the knob at the top, turning clockwise. On the caliper, there is a Vernier scale along with a main scale of centimeters and inches. You measure the amount of millimeters to the left of the number 0 on the Vernier scale, then find the line on the Vernier scale that aligns with a number on the centimeters scale. For example, if the tenth line on the Vernier scale was aligned with a number on the centimeters on the main scale, it would be 1 millimeter, but if the fifth line was aligned with a number on the centimeters on the main scale, it would be 0.5 millimeters. Finally you add the amount of millimeters to the left of the zero and the amount you got from the line aligning with a number. You can also use a caliper to measure depth, using the depth rod, and the inner measurement of something with the inner jaws. As you can see by the picture, the sixth line on the Vernier scale is aligned with a number, making the measurement 6 mm + 0.6 mm = 6.6 mm.

Ryan Dail - Project Update

For those of you who don't know, my project is on how NOAA ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ) gains information by extracting ear bones from different species of fish. So far I have come in contact with a fishery biologist that works for NOAA. She explained to me what research is done in the field and where the information goes once it is collected. She is allowing me to go and observe her collect the data on the various species of fish she receives. She even mentioned showing me how to extract the otolith (calcified structures in the inner ear that fish use for balance and orientation ). So I may end up being able to get my hands dirty. I was supposed to meet with her Tuesday, but since she is a Federal employee the government shutdown has stopped her work. Hopefully this shutdown lets up soon so I can get on with my project!





Fish Otolith





Shannon- Project Location!

           I am very excited to say we found an awesome location to place the artificial mangrove root system! I am collaborating with Houston on this project now. Rather than purchasing a pre made root system, Houston is going to build one! I am anxious to see what he comes up with. We met Dr. Woodall at the Marine Discovery Center (MDC) on Monday to speak with Chad and Annie. They gave us some great tips and ideas on how to better our project and learning experience.
   Chad and Annie are such an awesome resource to be able to reach out to. During the first half  of our meeting we discussed what exactly we were trying to test and what our goal was. One of our biggest challenges is how we are going to monitor the activity on the root systems , both natural and artificial. We discussed using a GoPro camera with a live video feed line (which we are still working on). Then Annie gave me the idea to snorkel a few meters away. There are a few complications that could arise with snorkeling such as, the water being so shallow, and the turbidity being high. I am willing to try though, it sounds like a lot of fun to me! I can definitely say I left feeling much more comfortable and confident about the project.
          For the second part of our meeting we took a look at a couple possible locations. In the first discussion we spoke about which side of the inlet would be better? We ultimately decided because of the amount of natural mangroves on the site next to to the MDC parking lot. There was an accesss to the river from the bank for kayaks and off to the left of the site there was a small open area near natural Black Mangroves. This area  is flooded during the high tide and exposed during the low tide. This an ideal location to test our device. I had 2 more pictures I wanted to upload on here as well but I am having trouble getting them to upload. 

Annie and Chad pointing out the variety of area we had to choose from.

Seaira- Aquatic Plant Life

This week I was considering what plants I want to take presses of and which aspects of the plants I would like to know more about. I was studying sea grass species this week, and during this study it brought my research in a slightly different direction. Recently it has been brought to my attention that there are an abnormally high amount of algae blooms in the Indian River Lagoon, which is in turn having an effect of the wildlife, including the sea grass beds. How could algae affect an aquatic grass species? Well what I found out was very interesting especially considering the recent developments in the Indian River Lagoon. Algae blooms are caused by storm water runoff carrying excess nitrogen and phosphorus, which can be from animal waste, or fertilizers. It turns out that sea grass is actually an evolved species of terrestrial grasses. Sea grass is considered to be more of a plant than a macro-algae. Algae can utilize sunlight very effectively for photosynthesis, however the sea grass only has chloroplast structures with in its leaves. Sea grass  is also directly effected by water clarity, therefore as turbidity increases less sunlight reaches the plants for photosynthesis. This in turn also depletes the water of dissolved oxygen, which is needed for the organisms, who inhabit the sea grass beds, to survive. The sea grass is home to about 40,000 species of fish, and 50 million invertebrates. This vital ecosystem, is also effected by sediment loading; normal suspended sediments will eventually sink and help anchor the sea grass roots, but in excess it can block sunlight from the grasses.Through this research I became really excited because I have the ability to test for phosphorus, oxygen, and salinity. I thought maybe that I could gather data from different locations of sea grass beds, and compare the oxygen and phosphorus levels to the waters turbidity. I would also like to see if there were areas in the Indian River Lagoon where concentrations were higher, and observe how the grasses are affected, as well as possibly finding a source of contamination. I still would like to make a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) map of my data. I would like to pin point specific locations of sea grass beds, and include their nutrient data as a visual representation of the varying concentrations. I also will incorporate a scatter plot graph to compare nutrient content to water clarity. I am excited for the results of this research, I hope that in some way it can help with the influx of algae blooms we are experiencing now. I can truly say I am ecstatic about sea grass, I never realized what a fascinating and important ecosystem came along with it.

Richard: Articial Reef Research Team visit and sediment test

   It was very enjoyable to meet with the Artificial Research Team of Volusia County. Being a newcomer to the meeting I wanted to get a feel for their procedure before taking pictures. The group was receptive to my interest in artificial reefs and they had high hopes that more students from Daytona State would become interested. I met a gentleman who is 82 years old and scuba dived until he was 80. Now he is  in charge of updating their website. What an encouragement it was to meet him. I shared the website address on a previous posting, if you haven't checked it out, take a look at it. The county will reimburse qualified divers to retrieve data from the reefs and then post it for tourism and local anglers. This also provides valuble information to commercial fisherman. I did take a picture of a  waterproof double view case.

Double-View Waterproof camera case

  One of the research team members is a lifeguard and he uses it to record his rescues. He is in the process of adapting it to record his dives. What I really enjoyed was the openness of these  researchers sharing their experiences and help. I also enjoyed the sediment lab. It appears to be basic but it was very interesting. It turned out to be an opportunity to contact my nephew who graduated from Cornell University Environmental Program and get some information and encouragement. Unfortunately he is not working in an environmental related field but as an engineer for a consultanting firm in NYC. He shared with me a partical sediment report that he was recently given and now he is in charge of calculating what is nescessary for the buildings      fondation.
     I am also looking forward to the results of the  (B.O.B.) that were   deployed. Always something great to experience. The famous explorer Scott said on his quest to the South Pole, it is good to be surrounded by positive people, but inevitalbility we will encounter difficulties.

Houston- Artificial Black Mangrove

After teaming up with Mrs.Woodall and Shannon over at MDC (Marine Discovery Center) in New Symrna to talk to Chad in finding a place to test our projects, I am now teaming up with Shannon on her project to see if an artificial mangrove root system would attract the same marine life as the real black mangrove root system.  Shannon originally wanted to work with a red mangrove root system.  Due to the area we are going to be working in, we are going to be working with artificial version of black mangroves.  The black mangrove inhabbits the area much more than the red mangrove.
                                                                                                   I am currently in the stage of building a structure to replicate the pnemataphores(breathe in air for the plant in hypersaline water during low tide) of the black mangrove root system.

Black mangrove root system(pneumataphores)

                                                                                     

Red mangrove root system

Picutres of the possible test area.

Kyak ramp at MDC

                                                                                                 

 

Area left of kyak ramp( low tide)

 All these pictures were taken during low tide at 1pm.  During high tide this are is more than submerged which we noticed with our visit with Chad and Annie, a new member there.  Annie and Chad were more than helpful.  Glad to get their support and helpful ideas and questions.

Possible Test spot( open area)

Area to left of Test Spot.  To the far right there is a large open area of pnemataphores
to test against the artificial black mangrove pneumataphores.

Sediment Sampling by Jeffrey

Last week we collected sediment samples to see if there was a correlation between grain size and vegetation coverage. Because sediment is material that has been eroded by the forces of nature, I collected my sample at the beach. My intent was to avoid collecting soil.

Sample collection area

I also collected my control sample three meters east of this location.

Control collection area

I collected two cups of sediment from each site and put it in labeled bags. I recorded location, time of day, temperature, humidity, wind direction, and speed. I then transported it to the lab for further analysis. Back at the Lab...

Lab Equipment 

I measured, weighed, sieved, and re-weighed my samples. I recorded the data and errors; We then shared our findings with each other.

We agreed to use the 150um sieve; most of us ended up with a much larger percent of larger grain sized particles. I tried the 425um sieve to see how the results might change; it completely changed to a larger percent of smaller grain sized particles.

In the end I think that using a 220um to 275um sieve might give us a better separation between grain sizes; that will give us better data to compare.

Deanna-Sample Sieving

Sample Sieving!!

I always enjoy actual lab time. Trying to be so accurate and precise, so you can have good data, is exciting to me!

Sieves, scale, and beakers

Before lab, I made sure that my samples (which were from the sand dunes and near the dunes on the beach), were very dry. We used a 150 um (micrometers) sieve that was about 8 inches diameter with a lid and a pan.

Grace showing us how it is done. Shake, shake, shake...

I measured out 200 mL of my control sample and poured it into a plastic weighing pan, and weighed the sample. I, of course, recorded the data for a future graph.

After getting the mass, I poured the control sample into the sieve, replaced the lid and shook it back and forth for 1 minute.

I took the sieve apart and weighed the contents of the material that remained on the screen (>150 um) and the fine particulates that were in the pan (≤150 um).

I repeated this process with the vegetation sample and recorded the weights.

I have to say, my error was nominal and I feel like my lab was a success! 

But what is all this data going to tell us? Is there a relationship between sediment size and the presence of vegetation? What other kind of info might we discover?

Now if we could only get our data together as a class, we could make a good graph to tell us the answers to the questions we seek...