NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Division – Mission Blog

Creature Feature: Juvenile Graeffe's Sea Cucumber

2011-05-08T07:00:00.001-10:00

by Dave Burdick

The remarkable little critter pictured below is not what it appears to be…indeed, it “hopes” that potential predators are tricked into thinking it’s actually another creature they wouldn’t want to eat. What Government of Guam Biologist, Dave Burdick, is holding in the palm of his hand is a juvenile Graeffe’s sea cucumber, Pearsonothuria graeffei. This individual was found at a Rapid Ecological Assessment site off the coast of Rota, but this species is found throughout the Marianas, and is relatively common across much of the Indo-Pacific. Juveniles such as this one are rarely seen, but adults are occasionally encountered on reefs across its range.

A juvenile Graeffe's sea cucumber, Pearsonothuria graeffei, found at a Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) site off the coast of Rota. Photo by Dave Burdick.

As with most other sea cucumbers, known as balate in Chamorro, this elongated echinoderm uses tube feet to slowly move across the reef in search of food (mostly decaying organic matter), which it picks up using an array of oral tentacles rimming its mouth. This colorful youngster appears strikingly different from adults of this species – the yellow-spotted, black and white juveniles eventually trade their bright coloration for a more muted, brown and cream-mottled look (see photo below).

An adult Graeffe's sea cucumber, with its less conspicuous coloration, crawling across a reef on Guam. Photo by Dave Burdick www.guamreeflife.com.

But why would a young sea creature be more colorful than the larger, less vulnerable adults? Wouldn’t this attract attention to would-be predators? The strategy employed by this sea cucumber is known as Batesian mimicry, a defense against predators that involves a harmless species mimicking a toxic species that is brightly colored to denote the foul-tasting, or potentially deadly chemical compounds it possesses. In this case, the juvenile Graeffe’s sea cucumber is likely mimicking the toxic sea slug, Phyllida varicosa (see photo below).

A sea slug, Phyllidia varicosa, in the Batangas, The Philippines. This noxious nudibranch is presumed to be the species that juvenile Graeffe's sea cucumbers mimic to gain protection from predators. Photo by Dave Burdick.

Interestingly, adult Graeffe’s sea cucumbers actually do possess toxins that make them distasteful to potential predators, but the young individuals are not yet equipped with these chemical defenses and have to rely on mimicry to survive long enough to grow into their chemically-defended adult form.

The development of this marvelous adaptation occurs through natural selection, an elegantly simple mechanism of evolution first described by Charles Darwin in 1859 (and nearly simultaneously by the lesser -known Alfred Wallace), all unbeknownst to these beautiful and fascinating sea cucumbers inhabiting the reefs of the Mariana Islands. Who knew balate could be so cool?!

Leg II Photo Contest

2011-05-07T07:00:00.018-10:00

Congratulations to the winners of the 2011 MARAMP Leg II photo contest! We mixed it up this leg and picked the best photos by category; Fish, Invertebrate, People/Action, and Landscape. Following are the winning photos for each category.

Best Fish Photo
The scorpionfish, Sebastapistes sp., observed at Asuncion.
Photo by Marie Ferguson


Best Invertebrate Photo The persian carpet worm, Pseudobiceros bedfordi, observed at Asuncion. Photo by Paula Ayotte

Best People/Action Photo
NOAA diver Edmund Coccagna enjoying another day at the office at Agrihan.
Photo by Kevin Lino

Best Landscape Photo
The NOAA Ship Hi'ialakai off the coast of Sarigan.
Photo by Noah Pomeroy

HONORABLE MENTION - FISH

Photo by Kaylyn McCoy

Photo by Chris Sullivan

Photo by Noah Pomeroy

Photo by Marie Ferguson

Photo by Jake Asher

Photo by Kevin Lino

Photo by Jill Zamzow

HONORABLE MENTION - INVERTEBRATE

Photo by Paula Ayotte

Photo by Marie Ferguson

Photo by Kaylyn McCoy

HONORABLE MENTION - PEOPLE/ACTION

Photo by Kaylyn McCoy

Photo by Jake Asher

HONORABLE MENTION - LANDSCAPE

Photo by Jake Asher

Photo by Jake Asher

Photo by Noah Pomeroy

CNMI Residents Tour the Hi'ialakai

2011-05-06T11:42:00.000-10:00

by Dave Burdick.
NOAA photos by Annette DesRochers

With the Hi'ialakai in port after a 17-day expedition to the Mariana islands north of Saipan, the Ship and her crew welcomed nearly 200 government officials, students, teachers, and other residents interested in the Hi'ialakai and her mission to the breathtaking string of volcanic islands that comprise the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Guests were given a tour of the Hi'ialakai by the Ship's crew and were briefed by scientists from the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Coral Reef Ecosystem Division on the coral reef assessment and monitoring activities carried out from the ship. The warm, inviting sun over Saipan accompanied a parade of feet, both big and small, across the deck of the Hi'alakai. The invigorating day was filled with questions posed by inquisitive guests, intriguing anecdotes from the expedition to the northern islands, and even some laughs as the Ship's visitors listened intently as the crew of the Hi'ialakai and NOAA scientists eagerly shared their experiences of life on the ship and on the reef. Below are a few photos of the day's events...

Chief Scientist for the 2011 Marianas expedition, Jacob Asher, briefs a delegation of local CNMI officials on the goals of NOAA CRED's Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program and an overview of the methods they use to achieve them.

A group of young visitors are given a tour of the Hi'ialakai's impressive bridge by Operations Officer, Lieutenant Tony Perry.

NOAA CRED Benthic Biologist, Edmund Coccagna, points out the location of towed-diver surveys around Saipan to a group of guests, while holding the impressive tow board and mounted camera in-hand.

Junior Officer, Ensign Brian Elliot, introduces a group of students to the dive chamber aboard the Hi'ialakai, which can be pressurized to treat injured divers in the event of a dive emergency

The Ship's guests are both informed and entertained by an animated demonstration of an ecological acoustic recorder (aka EAR), by NOAA CRED Oceanographer, Frank Mancini.

A group of local CNMI students examine the Coral Reef Ecosystems of the Mariana Islands, a report released in 2010 that presents the findings of the first three years of data collected by the NOAA CRED team.

A delegation of CNMI officials join the Ship's captain, Commander John Caskey, and NOAA CRED scientists for a group photo in front of the Hi'ialakai

Creature Feature: The Mosaic Boxer Crab Lybia tesselata

2011-04-24T18:16:00.001-10:00

by Kerry Grimshaw and Annette DesRochers

One of the participants on this cruise is Steve McKagan, a fisheries biologist and NOAA partner from the Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO) located in Saipan. While Steve's role on this mission is with the Fish REA team, he has also taken an interest in the ARMS project. He is working with local agencies in Saipan to start up a Biosecurity (i.e., marine invasive species) project and is considering using ARMS methods and materials to establish a baseline for the harbors of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. As such, he spent a day at Maug with the ARMS team to learn how ARMS are deployed in the field and how they are processed, which was a win-win situation for both sides as he captured some excellent photographs while observing the activities.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, following are some of Steve's photos capturing a bit of the ARMS recovery process followed by Kerry's writeup on one of the creatures that he found most intriguing. As an honorary ARMS team member—Data Managers serve dual roles on RAMP missions by helping to process the ARMS once they have been recovered—I too am enamored with these critters.

ARMS team member Russell Reardon recovering an ARMS unit at Maug. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

Transiting a recovered ARMS unit on the small boat back to the ship to be processed. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

Russell Reardon, hard at work in the ARMS "office". NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

ARMS team members Kerry Grimshaw and Russell Reardon begin processing an ARMS unit. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

As the ARMS are processed, crabs are separated out to be photo documented and for taxonomic identification. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

As Kerry explains, one of the characters we have seen often in the ARMS on this cruise has been the Mosaic Boxer Crab, Lybia tesselata. While many of the crabs that are collected are unique and dare I say beautiful, this little guy highlighted below tends to stand out from the others.

Mosaic Boxer Crab, Lybia tesselata. NOAA photo by Kerry Grimshaw.

These small crabs, commonly known as pom-pom crabs for the small anemones they hold in their pincers, have a mutualistic symbiotic relationship with anemones. The boxer crab’s pincers are small and are so well adapted to holding their anemones that they are rendered nearly useless for defense, yet they are able to take advantage of the anemones to serve this purpose. The stinging anemones act as a deterrent to predators by giving an extra punch to the crab's defense tactics; it advertises its weapons by waving its pincers with the anemones in the direction of any potential predator as if it’s shadowboxing.

The Boxer Crab versus the fish. Source: YouTube.

Possessing such a pair of specialized pincers can be beneficial and has proven useful as there are a number of different species of Lybia that carry anemones; however, there are disadvantages too. Having such small pincers with only a few grippers unfortunately means the crab's pincers aren’t strong enough to tear up food as other crabs do. To overcome this boxer crabs have adapted to using their second pair of legs for this purpose by tearing food into small pieces and then moving it towards its mouth. Another way that boxer crabs have been observed to feed is by using the anemones as “mops” which are swiped along the substrate to collect food particles on the tentacles of the anemone which can then be removed by the crab’s mouthparts.

The Mosaic Boxer Crab in action. Source: YouTube.

The boxer crabs can put their anemones down, but doing this would make them very vulnerable to predation. However they must do such a risky thing when molting their exoskeleton. The crabs will place each anemone in turn in a safe place and then as quickly as possible free itself of its old exoskeleton. Then it quickly grasps its anemones in its pincers before quickly retreating to a safe place where it can allow its new body to harden.

There's even a YouTube video showing a Boxer Crab molting. This one takes a little more patience, it's not quite 5 minutes long, though it's not really worthwhile to watch until about 3:30.

And yet another video showing the Boxer Crab that just molted recovering its pom poms!

The Makings of a Marine National Monument

2011-04-23T11:22:00.002-10:00

by Jake Asher and Annette DesRochers

Farallon de Pajaros (FDP), also known as Uracas, was our northernmost stop of this cruise. Once known by the pseudonym, “Lighthouse of the Western Pacific”, FDP’s last known eruption was back in 1967. Even after 44 years, the landscape above the shoreline remains largely barren.

The Hi’ialakai positioned in front of FDP to recover dive teams.
NOAA photo by Edmund Coccagna.

In stark contrast, the Islands of Maug crater—there are three small islands all together with a submerged caldera in the center—are lush with vegetation compared to FDP. As a former Geographic Information Systems Specialist, Maug happens to be one of my favorite places in the Pacific to map because of its unique horseshoe-shaped topography with a subsurface pinnacle rising from the depths in the middle.

Maug bathymetry (seafloor) map.
Source: Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center.

One of the small boats, HI-1, returning to the Ship with the islands of Maug in the background. NOAA photo by Annette DesRochers.

FDP, Maug, and Asuncion (highlighted earlier this week), make up the “Islands Unit” of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. The other two Units of the Monument are the Marianas Trench itself and the Volcanic Unit which includes the numerous submerged volcanoes and hydrothermal vents along the Mariana Arc (click here to see a map). Supply Reef, also one of the places surveyed during this mission, is one of the undersea volcanoes that are protected by the Monument designation under the Volcanic Unit.

Abundant marine life can be found throughout the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. NOAA photo by Edmund Coccagna.

Declared in early 2009, the Monument seeks to protect the biologically diverse and abundant marine life found in the waters of these islands, seamounts, and hydrothermal vents. These unique habitats are home to one of the most diverse collections of corals found in the Western Pacific, and also support some of the largest biomass of reef fishes found in the region.

Large schools of bigeye jack (Caranx sexfasciatus) present at both FDP and Maug, providing divers with an eyeful. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

Maug, in addition to having a diverse and abundant benthic environment, is of particular scientific interest due to its underwater vents. Hydrothermal vents within the caldera seep hot (60^oC), acidic water into the environment around it and provide a unique platform for researchers to study the effects of highly acidic water in a coral reef environment. This is of particular interest as the pH of the world's ocean water appears to be lowering due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO₂. This ‘acidification’ of the water is reducing the availability of bicarbonate in the oceans, which is the main building block for calcifying animals, such as corals, to grow and survive.

REA fish diver Marie Ferguson takes advantage of the warmth emitted by the hydrothermal vents at Maug. NOAA photo by Jill Zamzow.

In close proximity to the vents are some of the most impressive Porites rus stands that divers on this cruise have ever seen. NOAA photo by Jeff Anderson.

Both the REA benthic and fish teams surveyed the areas near the vents, and the oceanography team used an auto-sampler to take water samples at a high frequency. The hourly samples will be analyzed for dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity and from these the aragonite saturation levels in the water can be determined. The saturation level of aragonite determines the amount of the ion that is available for corals to use as building blocks for their structure. Theoretically, the more acidic the water, the less aragonite ion is available in the water for corals to use for growth. Salinity, temperature and current flow was also measured using additional instruments in the area. These data will help us understand more about a natural coral reef environment under highly acidic conditions.

A remote access sampler (RAS) was deployed near a vent site inside the caldera at Maug for two days in order to collect hourly water samples over a 48 hour period. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

Maug just might be considered the “crown jewel” of the Monument. Listening to divers recount the highlights from their surveys at Maug certainly substantiates that notion. With astounding coral cover reaching up to 75% in some places, the benthos teems with life, keeping scientists on both the benthic REA and towed-diver teams occupied.

A diver photo-documenting the unique habitat and organisms found in the Monument. NOAA photo by Edmund Coccagna.

While the benthic environment at FDP is largely depauparate in places, likely the result of ‘recent’ geologic activity, it too has its gems. That being said, some of the most spectacular views during our short time at FDP happened to be topside.

Sunrise over Farallon de Pajaros. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

Moonrise over Farallon de Pajaros. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

A day of rest

2011-04-21T22:27:00.025-10:00

by Jake Asher

Supply Reef, an active submarine volcano, was mostly a rest day for all teams, except for one. The oceanography team set out at Supply Reef to recover a salinity and temperature recorder, along with an old wave and tide recorder anchor. While shark sightings have been uncommon at all our other stops aside from the occasional whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus) and small grey reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos), Supply had a few greys that were larger than what we had seen to date.

A grey reef shark, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos, at home amongst a school of Caesio teres. NOAA photo by Oliver Vetter.

Including some that were more “friendly” than others!

A grey reef shark, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos, getting up close and personal! NOAA photo by Oliver Vetter.

Needless to say, divers recovered their equipment, snapped photos, paid respects to the locals, and completed their operations safely.

A barred filefish (Cantherhines dumerilii). NOAA photo by Oliver Vetter.

Meanwhile, the rest of the scientific staff enjoyed a much needed day off after 10 straight days in a row of dive operations. Not to worry though, the oceanography team, while they were busy prepping for ops at Supply, still enjoyed a day off from dive operations on the previous day. The favorite activity aboard the ship on days off? Trying to make up for all those lost zzz's.

Next stop, Asuncion

2011-04-21T22:18:00.002-10:00

by Jake Asher and Annette DesRochers

Asuncion Island. NOAA photo by Annette DesRochers.

Asuncion was our first stop inside of the Marine National Monument. Spectacular as its appearance may be topside, with its iconic, conical shape, the underwater environs were equally, if not more, amazing.

ARMS team member Russell Reardon, normally busy recovering or deploying ARMS underwater, takes a few moments to enjoy the underwater scenery at Asuncion. The coral Pocillopora sp. can be seen in the foreground of this benthic habitat. NOAA photo by Russell Reardon.

A spectacular picture of the bubble coral, Plerogyra sinuosa. NOAA photo by Paula Ayotte.

Another beautiful species of coral, Euphyllia ancora. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

High relief basaltic and rock boulder reefs were framed with a living veneer of coral cover showing an amazing level of diversity in some places, while large predatory fish like the dogtooth tuna patrolled along its perimeter.

A large dogtooth tuna (Gymnosarda unicolor) cruises past divers. Note the scars and missing section of the pre-opercular plate. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

One of the most unique aspects of Asuncion’s underwater habitat compared to all the other places across the Pacific where CRED conducts research is that it contains one of the few, if not only, vertical REA survey sites.

The vertical benthic REA site at Asuncion. NOAA photo by Russell Reardon.

In addition to the variety of coral and fish species that have been observed, we have seen many other types of organisms as well.

Usually our towed divers are ‘flying’ over the reef recording broad-scale observations of the habitat below, but every now and then, they get to observe the reef up close and personal, where they can observe some of the more conspicuous creatures such as this banded coral shrimp, Stenopus hispidus. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

A pink whipray, Himantura fai, that is either expressing aggressive behavior towards the photographer or it wants to mate with him! NOAA photo by Kevin Lino.

Throughout the Marianas Archipelago, ARMS have only been deployed at some of the islands; Asuncion currently does not have any ARMS deployed. At islands where there are no ARMS units to recover and/or deploy, the ARMS team, when it's logistically feasible, will conduct non-coral marine invertebrate surveys instead. It's a real treat to observe some of these cryptic species in their home environment as opposed to in the lab while processing the ARMS.

An octopus spotted in the field, looking very conspicuous indeed. NOAA photo by Paula Ayotte.

And an octopus collected from an ARMS. NOAA photo by Kerry Grimshaw.

It's amazing that such a vast ocean contains such wonderfully small and beautiful creatures hidden in the tiniest of nooks and crannies.

This coral crab, Trapezia sp., spotted by one of the benthic divers during a marine invertebrate survey, is hiding out in his favorite coral, Stylophora sp. NOAA photo by Kerry Grimshaw.

A persian carpet worm, Pseudobiceros bedfordi. NOAA photo by Paula Ayotte.

Eight is enough

2011-04-20T18:03:00.005-10:00

by Steve McKagan

Working primarily with the Fish REA team, I'm used to having up to four people at most in the water at a given time during a survey. The reason is fairly simple, fish don’t like being disturbed. Today was a markedly different experience as I jumped aboard the biggest field boat on board the Hi’ialakai, HI-1, and went on a documentary dive with the benthic, oceanography, and ARMS teams.

ARMS team member Kerry Grimshaw securing lines to an ARMS unit to be recovered. Her team member is in the distance doing the same. During a typical recovery, three ARMS units in all are recovered from a site and are then brought back to the Hi`ialakai to be processed. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

It isn’t just the sheer number of people on an HI-1 dive that differs from a regular day out with the Fish REA team; it is also what they are doing. To successfully establish fish counts, divers hover quietly several feet above the bottom watching and noting the behavior of their subjects. In contrast, today the ARMS team was both deploying new settling plates and collecting baseline units which were stationed at this site two years ago, just after the Marine National Monument designation took place (http://www.fws.gov/marianastrenchmarinemonument/).

It's hammer time as ARMS team member (and Operations lead) Russell Reardon pounds stakes into the substrate that secure the ARMS units in place for ~2 years. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

The Fish REA team does its best to blend in with the surroundings bringing minimal gear; today a single oceanography diver brought more equipment to the bottom than could possibly be carried once filled, more than doubling his size and weight.

At depth, Chis Sullivan fills three twenty-liter bottles with seawater to later be used for metagenomic analysis to determine the microbial composition of the seawater. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

Yes it is true, Fish REA folks can sometimes be seen looking down into a hole trying to identify a camouflaged fish or eel, but when one dive buddy is looking down the other is most likely looking up and around. In contrast, I couldn’t get a single member of the benthic, oceanography or ARMS teams to look up for this photograph.

Six members of the Benthic, Oceanography, and ARMS teams busily working away on the reef conducting benthic surveys, collecting water samples, and deploying ARMS units. Can you spot them all?? NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

In the end I learned that you don’t absolutely need to have a lot of big fish around to have an enjoyable and educational dive, especially when algae experts are willing to show you what it would look like if a barracuda in the vicinity decided to charge the oceanography samples.

Benthic team member Ryan Okana demonstrates barracuda-like behavior as Chris Sullivan slowly surfaces with his water samples in hand. NOAA photo by Steve McKagan.

Thanks to everyone for another great day on Leg 2 of MARAMP.

Beyond Sarigan....

2011-04-19T05:14:00.002-10:00

by Annette DesRochers

As Edmund promised, our expedition through the Northern Mariana Islands has indeed been a mystical journey. Setting sail from Sarigan, we have stopped at and passed by many a volcanic peak along the way. From dawn till dusk, the views from topside have been nothing short of spectacular. While this is true for many of the places where our research takes us, it seems especially true in this part of the world.

Sunset over the two stratovolcanoes of Pagan. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

Our first stop after Sarigan was the island of Pagan, one of the larger islands in the Northern Marianas. Not only is the shape of the island unique compared to the singular cone-shape of the other islands in the northern part of chain, but it is also one of the most geologically active. Just this past year, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service research camp left the island due to increased volcanic activity. The largest eruption in recent history was in 1981—the few remaining residents on the island had to be evacuated—though it has erupted several times since then with one relatively minor event in late 2006 just months before CRED’s 2007 research cruise to the region.

The view from the Hi’ialakai of Mount Pagan. NOAA photo by Annette DesRochers.

Despite the obvious beauty of the island, I for one have been partly disappointed since we arrived. Everyone that has been to this region talks about seeing Mount Pagan, the northern volcano on the island, steaming in the distance. As you see in the picture above, not a speck of smoke to be seen; nothing but blue skies and white fluffy clouds. I guess it could be worse.

Early morning launch near the northeast side of Pagan where large rock formations jut out from the sea. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

It's business as usual as the dive teams set out for a day of operations. That being said, I don’t think any of the divers, even those who are now on their fifth research cruise to the region, ever tire of the sites above or below the sea surface. One of the REA fish divers was sharing her photos with me from her surveys here at Pagan, and even she can’t get enough of some of the species they find here such as the variations of anemonefish in the pictures below.

Clark's anemonefish (Amphiprion clarkii). NOAA photo by Paula Ayotte.

Pink anemonefish (Amphiprion perideraion). NOAA photo by Paula Ayotte.

And the oceanography team, normally busy underwater deploying and recovering various oceanographic instruments, took time out to enjoy some of the spectacular corals that are found here.

A mushroom coral (Fungia sp.). NOAA photo by Oceanography team.

Previous RAMP surveys have noted a number of underwater stressors to the coral reef habitats here at Pagan, from a large increase in cyanobacteria cover (i.e., blue-green algae) seen island-wide in 2009, to persistent Acanthaster plancii (crown-of-thorns) populations. Thankfully, our recent surveys revealed that neither appear to be currently causing stress to the benthic environment here.

Peering through the rock formations, you can see a glimpse of the volcano in the background. NOAA photo by Paula Ayotte.

At the end of a long day, the divers’ route back to the ship takes them around the north side of the island past the amazing rock formations, but their work is not yet done. It takes several players to safely deliver the small boats back into their cradles on the Hi’ialakai. We're well into the second leg of this cruise, and yet, no matter how tired or routine it might seem, safety always comes first.

Chief Scientist Jake Asher snaps his camera just in time to show AB Carmen Greto throwing the lines to one of the divers on HI-2. NOAA photo by Jake Asher.

After three days of surveys here at Pagan Island, it's time to move on to our next destination. Next stop on our journey, Asuncion Island.

Measuring Fish while Flying

2011-04-16T00:22:00.001-10:00

by Jacob Asher and Danny Merritt

This year a pilot project has been implemented by CRED’s fish team using a stereo-video system on the fish-towboard to improve the team’s ability to precisely measure fish and benthic features, and to accurately define the size of the area surveyed. This project is being done in collaboration with the Harvey Lab at the University of Western Australia. Dr. Euan Harvey and his lab have been using stereo-video systems for both diver surveys and on baited camera systems [a method to attract fish or other animals into the field of view of a camera using bait] for a number of years, including the use of baited cameras (BRUVS) around Guam and the CNMI. The use of such a system on a towboard, however, is a novel technique.

Noah Pomeroy flying the stereo-video fish towboard at Pagan Island. NOAA photo by Jacob Asher.

Overall the implementation during this cruise, while it is still preliminary, has been successful despite a few challenges. During a towed-diver survey, the fish diver tries to ‘aim’ the towboard to ensure that fish pass by the field of view of both cameras. It has taken some time for the divers to become accustomed to the new cameras that are mounted on the towboards because they’re bulkier and harder to maneuver. Also, the post-processing of the video files at the end of the day has been a challenge because of the volume of data that is collected. On a typical day of operations, the tow team collects approximately 6 hours of high-definition video on 2 cameras. The result? Huge videos that must be downloaded, converted to a usable format, and organized so that the videos can be analyzed later on.

Measuring Fish with Cameras
Stereo-photogrammetry (or stereo-video) is a technique CRED uses for sizing and ranging objects, such as fish, seen in video or still images. The method uses two images taken at the same time of an object from 2 different perspectives. If the relative orientation of both images is known, it is then possible to measure the distance from the camera to the point seen in the images. This is the same process by which people are able to judge distances with our two eyes. By knowing the location of 2 points on an object, such as the head and tail of a fish, the distance between the points (e.g. fish length) can also be calculated.

Above is an example of stereo-photogrammetry software being used to measure fish captured from BotCam video. In this case, two pink snapper have been measured.

CRED has been using stereo-video systems for baited camera systems for a number of years. An example from BotCam video (a deep baited camera system) of stereo-photogrammetry software is shown above.

Heading north....

2011-04-11T02:54:00.003-10:00

by Edmund Coccagna

We have left the populated southern islands of the CNMI behind and have entered the area of the Northern Mariana Islands. The region is somewhat of a mystical place where volcanoes rise sharply out of the sea, forming perfectly cylindrical cones. Some of the islands have been inhabited by lush vegetation, while others were left with nothing but bare ash and rock. Historically, these islands have been marked by violent volcanic eruptions caused by their geographic location on one of the earth’s major subduction zones along the Marianas Trench. Over time they have developed and in turn eroded into what we now see, which is quite the spectacle of where land meets the sea.

The safeboat tucks inside of a cliff side cave with a view of the ship in the background. NOAA photo by Jason Helyer.

Our first stop in the region was at the small island of Sarigan. The appearance of Sarigan is much like the others, with dramatic rock features created by the island’s violent past, both above and below the surface of the water. The terrestrial habitat of Sarigan is marked by vegetation on the western side and sheer basaltic rock on the eastern side with many tremendous formations. People have inhabited the island at different times in the past, but currently no one currently resides on the island, except for birds and insects. Below the surface, the majority of the reef habitat is formed of large boulders or basaltic rock with low to moderate levels of coral cover. Sarigan does host the greatest populations of large bodied reef fish that we have encountered on this trip yet. Divers on the fish teams reported sightings of three different types of sharks, including white tip reef sharks, grey reef sharks, and Tawny nurse sharks, large Napoleon wrasses, and large schools of jacks, barracudas and rainbow runners.

Area of Porties rus. NOAA photo by Jacob Asher.

Sarigan is one of only two islands that the US Geological Survey (USGS) actively monitors. The current status of the advisory is safe with no alerts, which was good news for the small boats working in the vicinity of the island. Although the date of the last eruption on Sarigan is unknown, a seamount seven miles to the south experienced an explosive eruption in late May of 2010, which caused the USGS to close access to the nearby islands in the chain, including Sarigan. The submarine volcano reportedly blasted ash 49,000 feet into the atmosphere! That is incredibly impressive considering the origin of the blast occurred well below the surface of the water.

The island of Sarigan, Northern Mariana Islands. NOAA photo by Annette DesRochers.

We only spend one day at Sarigan due to its small size and then head north to Pagan. Many other volcanoes rising from the water await and there are many more stories to come.

The Northern Marianas leg begins aboard the Hi’ialakai

2011-04-08T19:19:00.001-10:00

Blog and photos by Steve McKagan

As warm tropical waters of the Marianas roll along the bow of the Hi’ialakai the island of Saipan can be seen outlined by the dawning sun as one looks east. The rocking of the ship and the hum of the engines belie the bustle and activity that mark the start of the day’s operations. Operations which start early for the galley crew as they prepare the days breakfast and pack lunches, NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps who run the ship, deck crews who prepare, launch and pilot the small boats and for the researchers who will be performing field operations and diving to collect data for the next nineteen days. This leg of the cruise started in Saipan three days ago and stops by making landfall again in Saipan at the end of April. These field activities mark the culmination of months of planning and preparation.

Chief Boatswain Mark O'Connor readies one of the small boats to launch.

For the researchers this includes satisfying all the necessary diving, medical and technical requirements, studying and calibrating to be sure field activities run smoothly and a very busy night before prepping tanks and gear, packing data sheets, slates, GPS units, cameras and personal effects. Hat, glasses and sunscreen are a must, but you also need to include storm weather, because the weather and current can turn quickly in the tropics and it can even get cold in a 3mm wetsuit when the wind and rain come.

During regular cruise operations the team leads meet the night before to frame out the next day’s activities including which divers and small boats will be in operations and what locations they will try to cover around the current island. When the ocean conditions become rough, as occurred today (it even made the local paper!) the team leads scramble into action to find new locations, rearrange divers and maximize as much of the day as possible. Today, for example, we are heading into the somewhat protected shadow of Tinian to avoid the 11-foot swells coming out of the Northeast. We are also keeping a watchful eye on our emails and the news regarding the Friday midnight shutdown in Washington D.C., which will be 2pm our time on Saturday, to find out if we will have to recall our dive teams and head for port only three days into the current leg of the cruise.

Members of the benthic and fish survey teams also prepare to depart for the first day of operations at Tinian.

The weather and the looming potential shutdown have made this one of the more uncertain cruises in recent memory according to several of the scientists aboard who have been participating in contingency planning.

After speedy contingency planning to move operations from Saipan to Tinian, Jill Zamzow and the rest of the fish team launch into the somewhat calmer seas at Tinian.

It is currently 10:00 am and science teams are launching in the hopes that our representatives in DC can find a solution to the shutdown, the seas remain relatively calm here and the Hi’ialakai can continue north tomorrow with more certainty.

Leg 1 Photo Contest

2011-04-03T11:58:00.028-10:00

Congratulations to the winners of the 2011 MARAMP Leg 1 photo contest! The competition was fierce this year with 32 terrific entries. Here are the top three.

"I Just Wanna Go to Wake" -by Carmen Greto

1st Place

"Test of Time"
White Spotted Puffer (Arothron hispidus)
Kara Osada

2nd Place

Lisa Munger
Flying Fish

3rd Place

"Floundering Around"
Peacock flounder (Bothus mancus)
Jason Helyer

Honorable Mention

Brain Hauk

Kara Osada

Brian Hauk

Jason Helyer

Edmund Coccagna

Kerry Grimshaw

Microbes: The world of the unseen

2011-04-02T06:00:00.001-10:00

text and photo by Steven Quistad

While diving around Wake Atoll your eyes are immediately drawn to the spectacular architecture constructed by thousands of years of coral growth. The reef supports a vibrant fish community consisting of almost every color and shape combination imaginable. Upon examination with the naked eye you could easily conclude that was most of the story; coral, fish, algae, and a few invertebrates, that describes the major players on a coral reef. However, that is only part of the story, the most abundant organisms on a coral reef are not those that can be seen with a mask, but those that require a powerful microscope. Microbes (viruses, bacteria, protists and archaea) play a pivotal role in both healthy and diseased coral reef environments.

To put the shear number of microbes in perspective, imagine swimming down to the reef with a milk jug and scooping up a gallon of water. Within that milk jug you would have captured anywhere between 100,000,000-10,000,000,000 individual bacteria and a magnitude more of viruses! When you take into account the millions of gallons of seawater surrounding an atoll like Wake, you are talking about A LOT of microbes. These microbes are responsible for cycling nutrients, serve as food for larger organisms, and can sometimes act as pathogens to other members of the reef.

At Wake, we collected water samples to measure how nutrients are cycled, collected microbial DNA to indentify what microbes are present, and created microscope slides to count how many bacteria and viruses there are. On a relatively healthy reef such as Wake there tends to be a fewer number of microbes present, while on an unhealthy reef there are generally more microbes. When microbes become too abundant they can kill the coral by suffocation or disease, potentially leading to a collapse of the entire coral reef ecosystem. An overabundance of microbes can be result from various human impacts such as overfishing or agricultural nutrient runoff.

Microbes serve as dynamic members of the coral reef community. They are essential parts of a healthy reef community, but if they become too abundant they can ultimately lead to the reef's demise. Through the data we have collected at Wake, in combination with data from other cruises and future expeditions, we are beginning to establish a microbial baseline of what the microbial community of a healthy coral reef looks like. This baseline can be used to monitor the status of other reefs around the world and possibly to predict their future prosperity or collapse.

To count viruses and bacteria we stain them with a chemical called SYBR Gold, which binds to their DNA. We then expose the microbes to a specific wavelength of light, which causes them to glow. The tiny pinpricks are viruses while the larger glowing ovals are bacteria.

A Wreck at Wake

2011-04-01T06:00:00.002-10:00

text and photo by Cristi Richards

Corals recolonizing the wreck site

It is interesting to see the relative resiliency of coral reefs when there are only a few stressors present. It is often said that our coral reefs are experiencing a death of a thousand cuts. Warming sea surface temperatures, increased rates of coral disease, invasive species, pollution, marine debris, and over-fishing are just some of the stressors that can combine to cause a decline in overall reef health. At Wake Atoll we found a site that appears to be experiencing only a few of these stressors and is not exhibiting as much reef degradation as we might have expected.

This site is located next to the harbor mouth on the south side of the Atoll where a fuel barge ran aground and sank in 1967. Normally we would expect such an area to have large cyanobacteria blooms due to the increased iron and other trace nutrient inputs from the deteriorating wreck. However, we found a relatively low amounts of cyanobacteria and, although the corals showed some signs of stress, the signs were not as pronounced as we might have expected. Although we have not yet conducted the extensive analyses necessary to definitively answer the question “Why are Wake’s reefs in such good shape?”, the Atoll’s remote location and low human population density certainly help reduce the number of stressors. While we certainly don't want to be dumping large amounts of metal into the ocean, as you can see in the photograph above, after 43 years, corals are continuing to re-colonize the wreck area. Although we cannot duplicate Wake’s remote location for all coral reefs, Wake provides an indication that, if we can reduce the number of stressors affecting our reefs, their natural resiliency may be able to overcome at least some of them.

Big Fish at Wake

2011-03-31T18:55:00.001-10:00

by Paula Ayotte
photos by Kara Osada

As a fish survey diver for the past six years, I’ve counted and sized lots of big fish throughout the Pacific, from sharks to jacks, rays, eels, and barracuda. All of these species are seen at Wake, but what makes this atoll unique is that there are some other big players from families that we don’t normally see in larger sizes – parrotfish and wrasses. Though parrotfish and wrasses can get relatively big, we’re more accustomed to seeing these types of fish in sizes that you could fit inside a breadbox; anywhere from 2 cm juveniles to 60 cm adults. Here, though, the Bumphead parrotfish (BOMU we call them, the code for Bolbometopon muricatum) and the Humphead wrasses (CHUD, for Cheilinus undulatus) rule the reef, reaching sizes of 130 cm to 200 cm, respectively. Both of these fish are listed on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species and are rare in most parts of the world. We see them much more frequently at Wake than at the other islands or atolls we survey. During this trip we saw at least one or two CHUDs on almost every dive, and at a few sites saw BOMUs in schools of up to 20 individuals; pretty impressive!

Big Bumpheads

In contrast, the grey reef sharks (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) we saw here at Wake seem to be on the smaller size, anywhere from 40 cm to 100 cm. There were some larger individuals (up to 150 cm), but they seemed a bit more aloof and stayed in the distance, while the smaller guys were much more curious and would swim in quite close, maybe for a better look. And though they may have been smaller, it’s still pretty exciting when you’ve got more than a dozen suddenly appearing and surrounding you. It’s definitely something we don’t experience around more densely populated areas such as Oahu or Guam.

A school of a dozen grey reef sharks hovers over the reef.

It is such a privilege to have the opportunity to travel to these remote places and participate in work that will hopefully help to maintain healthy populations of these amazing creatures.

The Reefs at Wake

2011-03-28T01:17:00.000-10:00

by Ben Richards
photos by Kara Osada, Ben Richards, and Edmund Coccagna

Humphead Wrasse

We have completed our operations at Wake Atoll and are now en route to Saipan, six days hence. Our first day of operations were met with 25 knot winds and sporadic squalls and a dismal weather forecast for these conditions to continue throughout our survey period. However, the long 12-day transit combined with Wake's reputation as a thriving coral reef environment fueled a high level of excitement to jump in the water and conduct research, easily overwhelming the bumpy, wet, and cold diving conditions.

Bumphead Parrotfish

After the first day the weather began to improve and continued to do so over our five days at the atoll. Before long we were back to warm waters, blazing sun, and light winds. Being in the middle of the tropical Pacific, the waters around Wake are incredibly clear and it is not unusual to have underwater visibility of over 100 feet. Coral cover in many areas exceeded 50 percent and we encountered big fish like Humphead wrasse and Bumphead parrotfish on many of our surveys.

The Reef at Wake

With the improved weather, each of the survey teams completed their assigned tasks with a bit of time to spare, and, courtesy of the base commander, we were treated to the brief tour of the island on the afternoon of our last day. It was nice to see that, overall, both above and below the water, the atoll seems to have been little affected by the recent tsunami.

A Threadfin butterflyfish and Giant
Clam on the Reef at Wake

As we transit to Saipan over the next few days, each of the research teams will be posting a brief overview of their time at Wake with more details about their experiences and findings. So, keep checking in ...

Ready for Wake

2011-03-23T07:19:00.000-10:00

by Paula Ayotte

Scientist Brian Hauk masters
walking on a ship in rolling seas.

After two successful rescues (three, really, if you count the EAR retrieval), we're finally back on track to Wake Atoll and are ready to get back in the water. We've learned that even with the three days we spent evacuating and transferring personnel, we won't lose any time at Wake and will be able to do five survey days as originally planned and we're all eager to get to work. Twelve days of sea transit on the ship is far more than most of us are accustomed to, and we realize we've been somewhat spoiled during the first week of our trip when we had sunny days and flat, calm seas. Now we're experiencing overcast skies and 8 - 10' swells; everyone is making sure anything loose is tied down and equipment is secured; just staying upright can be a challenge! Luckily, we took care of most of our prep work during those first tranquil days.

Current turbulent sea state. Compare to the
benign seas during EAR retrieval.

This will be my second trip to this remote atoll, and I'm looking forward to seeing the large schools of bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) that are common around Wake, though rare in other parts of the world. As a member of the fish team, it's my job to count and size these amazing creatures, which can reach sizes up to 130cm (about 4 1/2 feet; I'm only slightly taller!).

The largest species of parrotfish,

Bolbometopon muricatum

Along with being on the fish team at CRED, I'm also the scientific liaison for the Pacific Remote Island Areas (PRIA), of which Wake is a part of, along with Johnston Atoll, Howland and Baker Islands, Kingman Reef, Jarvis Island, and Palmyra Island, which we visited last year (see Blog Archive 2010, January - April). The PRIA are all National Wildlife Refuges and were named in 2009 as Marine National Monuments, affording them even greater protections. As some of the most remote and pristine coral reefs in the world, these areas serve as important baselines for ecological monitoring. We can compare these relatively untouched areas to places that have human populations to try to get an idea in the of how to better manage the reefs that have suffered from human impacts. Though Wake is under the jurisdiction of U.S. Air Force, the waters from 0 to 12 nautical miles are protected as units of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Not only do the waters around Wake support abundant fish populations (at least 323 species), the small amount of land provides important seabird and migratory shorebird habitat. We all feel greatly privileged to have the opportunity to study this far-flung, isolated island in the middle of the Pacific.

Wake Island

2011-03-21T09:12:00.000-10:00

by Lauren Fuqua
photos by United States Air Force and Ben Richards

An aerial view of Wake atoll

Wake Atoll (19°N, 166°E) is the northernmost atoll in the Marshal Islands and is currently part of the U.S. Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Manument (PRIMNM). Wake is oblong in shape (8.5 x 4 km) with three major islands and an internal lagoon, and is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the U.S. The U.S. Air Force maintains jurisdiction of Wake and the Missile Defense agency is its principle occupant. Public access to Wake is restricted.

The Battle of Wake Island began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor and ended on 23 December 1941, with the surrender of the American forces to the Empire of Japan. Of 55 Marine aviation personnel stationed at Wake, 23 were killed and 11 were wounded. During the second assult by the Japanese, on Dec. 23rd, the Wake garrison surrendered to the Japanese. The Japanese captured all men remaining on the island, the majority of whom were civilian contractors employed with Morrison-Knudsen Company. On 5 October 1943, American naval aircraft from Yorktown raided Wake. Two days later, fearing an imminent invasion, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98 captured American civilian workers remaining on the island, kept to perform forced labor. They were taken to the northern end of the island, blindfolded, and executed by machine gun. One of the prisoners (whose name has never been discovered) escaped the massacre, apparently returning to the site to carve the message 98 US PW 5-10-43 on a large coral rock near where the victims had been hastily buried in a mass grave. The unknown American was recaptured, and Sakaibara personally beheaded him with a katana.

POW Rock

The inscription on the rock can still be seen and is a Wake Island landmark. The murdered civilian POWs were reburied after the war in Honolulu's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, commonly known as Punchbowl Crater. The remains of Japanese fortifications during World War are still visible around the islands.

Another successful rescue and our first bit of science

2011-03-17T21:56:00.001-10:00

by Lisa Munger
photos by Brian Hauk and Kara Osada-D'avella

Recovering the EAR

After a safe transport of personnel from Kure Atoll to Midway, we took advantage of our unexpected diversion to recover an Ecological Acoustic Recorder (EAR) deployed in May 2010 a few miles southeast of the atoll. The EAR is a passive listening device that records ambient underwater sounds on a programmable schedule, and stores the recordings on an internal hard drive. EARs are capable of recording for months or years, and provide long-term data on noise-producing marine animals such as snapping shrimp, fish, whales and dolphins, as well as human activities and natural events. The battery life of this EAR should have allowed it to record during the recent tsunami that arrived at Kure on March 11th, but we will not know until the EAR returns to Honolulu, where the data will be extracted.

The Kure EAR was anchored to the seafloor in a location over 100 meters deep, which prohibits retrieval by divers. Instead, the EAR was released from the bottom by sending an acoustic command (a specific series of pings at a set frequency) from a transducer aboard the ship. Within a few minutes, the EAR floated to the surface, where it was spotted by scientists watching from the bridge deck. The recovery took place from the ship, and it went incredibly smoothly thanks to the combination of excellent piloting by LTJG (sel) David Vejar, skillful gaffing by AB Carmen Greto, and the cooperation of many other crew members and scientists both on board and on land.

Sperm whales off our bow

One of the marine mammal species likely to be recorded on the Kure EAR is the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). We enjoyed the opportunity to observe sperm whales first-hand in this area a couple of days ago, when we spotted a pod of approximately 14 females resting at the surface. Several more distant sperm whales were sighted today by L. Munger from the bridge. Sperm whales produce distinctive clicks when they are underwater; these clicks are used for communication with each other and for hunting squid, their primary prey. These air-breathing mammals can dive to depths greater than 3000 meters (almost 2 miles) and hold their breath for up to 90 minutes! Throughout the cruise we will be recording marine mammal sightings such as these and will taking ID photographs for the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) cetacean research program.

From Midway to Wake ... or Maybe Kure?

2011-03-16T16:15:00.001-10:00

by Ben Richards
photos by Lisa Munger

HI-2 heads in to Midway Atoll

We arrived at Midway atoll early this morning and, despite wet and windy conditions, successfully deposited our Laysan Island refugees in good hands with the US Fish and Wildlife Service personnel on island. At present, it looks as if they will remain on Midway for a week or so, before being flown to Honolulu aboard a US Coast Guard C130 that will be conducting overflights of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to evaluate damage from the recent tsunami.

After recovering HI-2, we began our transit to the southwest and to Wake. We had not been on our way more than an hour when we received the call that we were needed again. Five NOAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service personnel stationed on Kure Atoll were in need of evacuation. While risks still remain fairly remote, the threat of radiation contamination from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power station remains. Were we not to evacuate these personnel, it would take a minimum of five days for another ship to transit from Honolulu to Kure Atoll if the current situation worsens. Add in the complications of a potential government shutdown, and it was deemed prudent to evacuate all personnel while the Hi'ialakai is in the area.

HI-2 returns to the Hi'ialakai

So, we are back in rescue mode. Thankfully the large swell of the past few days has dropped substantially and Kure has both an easily navigable channel and a small boat dock that will make the evacuation of personnel much more straightforward that it was at Laysan. Our plan is to take the people aboard this afternoon and take them back to Midway atoll, from where they will be flown to Honolulu along with the personnel from Laysan. Once this operation is complete, we hope to be able to continue to Wake to begin our original operations. As always, we'll keep you posted.

Evacuation of Laysan

2011-03-15T12:02:00.006-10:00

by Ben Richards

Our Captain stands by

the radio, monitoring

the operation

The Hi'ialakai arrived at Laysan Island at first light and as the sun rose it was clear that the 12 foot swell we had expected was in reality more like 15-18 feet. We watched in amazement as the breakers crashed on the reef sending up towers of spray thirty feet into the air. As we found the landmarks for the western passage through the reef, it was clear there was no way we would be able to get a boat into shore to retrieve the shore party. Slowly we made our way south along the west side of Laysan, hoping for a break in the surf. As we rounded the southern tip of the island it seemed luck, and the conditions, were on our side. Jutting out from the beach was a shallow bench of reef that appeared to be breaking up much of the surf. As we watched, we saw a few small waves crashing here and there, but nothing that would prevent a rescue effort. As we made ready the boats, the rescue swimmers and coxswains had their final safety briefing and laid final plans for the recovery.

The AVON, with coxswain Gaetano

Maurizzio and rescue swimmer

Jamie Gove head in to shore

We would send in two boats. The larger SAFEBoat would wait just offshore of the surf zone while the smaller, and more agile, AVON would make its way as close to shore as possible before deploying the two rescue swimmers. After making their way through the small surf to the beach, the swimmers would then bring the shore party out to the AVON, one-by-one. After reaching the AVON, the members of the shore party would then be transferred to the SAFEBoat for transit back to the Hi'ialakai.

As luck would have it, there was a strong rip current pulling off the beach and out to sea, which meant that the rescue swimmers had a hard swim in, but everyone had a fairly easy swim out to the boats. After recovering all personnel, the two swimmers went back in to the beach to recover the few belongings our new guests would need until they returned to Honolulu.

The rescue mission was a resounding success. A few cuts and scrapes, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The SafeBoat returning from Laysan

Reports from Laysan Island

2011-03-13T16:59:00.000-10:00

by Ben Richards

We will arrive at Laysan tomorrow at first light. If conditions are safe, we will launch one of our 19 foot SAFE Boats to retrieve the 5 personnel (3 from the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and 2 from the US Fish and Wildlife Service) from the island, and will then begin our transit to Midway Atoll. From Midway, the 5 personnel will be flown back to Honolulu. A large swell generated by a storm in the north Pacific is forecast to arrive at Laysan tomorrow, which could potentially cut off the primary access point into Laysan. If this is the case, and the boat channel is impassible, we will transit to the east side, where we'll launch both our Avon and the SAFE Boat, and assess conditions for an alternate beach retrieval point.

Although the Laysan personnel are used to inclement weather and adverse conditions, being hit by a tsunami was understandably traumatic. The field team completed their first inspection of the island yesterday. They reported extensive damage to the island, with the wave line extending well into the vegetation. In places, reef fish were found in the short trees that ring the island. Most of their food buckets and water jugs were washed away, and they were still seeing buckets and jugs being washed back to shore. The kitchen tent was destroyed and they are cooking and eating at the USFWS camp.The USFWS camp has 32 six gallon jugs of water, which should be enough to sustain the Laysan personnel for the remainder of their time on island. Fortunately no injuries have ben reported and their office tent was spared and most of their electronics and communication equipment were not damaged.

Once aboard the Hi'ialakai, the Laysan field team will be evaluated by the ship's medical officer. Several of the scientists have offered their bunk space and the ship's stewards will be putting together linens and anything else they may require for their short stay aboard the ship.

Tsunami update: Headed to Laysan Island

2011-03-12T10:01:00.003-10:00

by Ben Richards

We receive BBC world service aboard the Hi'ialakai and watched in awe and sadness as the news of the Sendai earthquake started to come over the airwaves. Being far out to sea and in deep water, we are safe from the effects of a tsunami, but many aboard have family and friends in Japan, Hawaii, and elsewhere around the Pacific. Our hearts and thoughts go out to all those who have been devastated by these recent events.

Monk Seal camp at Laysan Island

At present we have been diverted from our course to Wake Atoll to assist with the evacuation of NOAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service personnel currently on Laysan Island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. All of the researchers on Laysan are accounted for; however, their camp was inundated with water stemming from the tsunami, causing their supplies of food and fresh water to be compromised. We should arrive at Laysan on March 14 to begin the evacuation and transportation of the field scientists to Midway Atoll, from there they will return to Honolulu. If all goes well, we will then continue to Wake Island to conduct a somewhat abbreviated set of surveys.

Headed Out

2011-03-11T21:57:00.004-10:00

by Ben Richards

Aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln

across from us at the fuel pier

After a nearly on-time departure from Ford island, we made our way to the fuel pier where we spent the next few hours taking on the fuel we would need for the next few months at sea. As we approached the pier, our 240 foot ship started to feel smaller and smaller as we pulled in next to (and almost under) the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which was docked just on the other side of the pier. I was on the top deck of our ship, looking directly across at the Lincoln's anchor. It was at least another 30 feet up to her flight deck, where the jet fighters were packed wingtip to wingtip. We watched in amazement for the next few hours as the 5600 sailors and airmen started to disembark and, presumably, head into Waikiki.

With our tanks full, we slowly pulled away and headed out of the mouth of Pearl Harbor, and turned to the west into the open seas. After a few minor engineering hiccups (the ship has been beside the pier for the last four months) we cleared Ka'ena point and the western end of Oahu and were on our way. We have nine days of transit before we reach Wake Island and the science party is taking some much needed rest after the whirlwind of pre-departure preparations. We will spend the next few days conducting emergency drills, making ready the scientific equipment, and planning out our upcoming operational days.

Behind The Scenes

2010-11-05T08:17:00.001-10:00

by Julia Ehses

Today is not only the last day of the expedition HA1008, but it is also the last day of a long field season. The CRED research cruises usually last from March trough November. This is a long time especially for the scientists who come on and off the ship for month long adventures but the Hi’ialakai is home for those who work the whole season, and take part in every expedition, and repair and stock the ship during in-ports. I’m referring to the crewmembers of the Hi’ialakai who spend the majority of the year away from their family and friends. The crewmembers share a big portion of daily responsibilities on the NOAA research Vessel Hi’ialakai.

Seven NOAA Corps officers control the ship and find the safest and most comfortable path by navigating trough rough waters, wind and weather.

Six engineers operate the ship while monitoring, fixing and controlling 4 engines plus one emergency generator, the steering system as well as the air conditioning, water treatment systems, and much more. The daily checklist for the engineering staff is very long.

The electronics technician or ET does the maintenance and repair of all the electronics including the navigation systems, data acquisition systems, and communications that allow the ship to stay connected to the rest of the world from many miles offshore.

A survey technician is also onboard. She supports the scientists and facilitates scientific operations including CTD, pCO₂ and water column properties measurements as well as running the seafloor mapping system.

The dive chamber operator is an important crew member particularly if a dive accident were to occur. He administers and supervises any hyperbaric treatment required. A member of the National Health Service, affectionately referred to as “Doc” is also one of the officers and takes care of any injury and sickness that may occur on board.

One of many responsibilities of the eight deck-team members is small boat operation. This means launching 5 small boats every day, driving these boats through rough waters to bring the divers to their survey sites, and recovering the boats every afternoon. Watching the team launch and recover the boats is like watching a well-choreographed performance. The safety of many is at stake with cranes lifting the heavy loads, lines in tension, and pinch points galore. Each member of the deck crew knows and executes their role perfectly time and time again.

And of course all this work couldn’t be done without sufficient nutrients. The Chief Steward and his staff do an incredible job taking care of hungry bellies with a huge range of cooked, boiled, baked, steamed and fried specialties. You might be asking, “Fresh fruits and veggies every day…..is it magic?” Well, it may not be magic, but creativity and a talent for management is certainly required. Many sailors say that the role of the Chief Steward is the most important job on the ship because good food equates with high morale and a job well done.

This is just a glance into the variety of jobs on board but one thing is for sure; A successful expedition is like a big puzzle where everyone (both scientists and crew) represents the small pieces that come together to form the whole big picture.

A big THANKS to the crew who, once again, have brought the scientists safely back to shore.

You just can’t win them all.

2010-11-04T08:00:00.008-10:00

by Oliver Vetter

I like oceanography. I’ve been studying it and doing field work my entire adult life, it has offered me amazing experiences as well as a rewarding, challenging and exciting career but there are a few things I’ve learned along the way... like it or not oceanography, and particularly the study and practice of field oceanography, is wrought with failure, occasional danger, frustration and mistakes. There is the old oceanography tale on an ocean wide cruise of the Professor leaving his graduate student in charge of a mapping instrument while he went for dinner, in days before high-frequency, high powered, computer aided instruments. The student was instructed to sit and watch the instrument and GPS. The instructions were simple; click the ‘on’ button once for every minute passed. An hour later the professor returns to find the instrument off and the student is sitting with his feet up. The professor asks, rather angrily why the student wasn’t concentrating on the GPS. “It ran out of memory after 45 minutes” the student replied. The professor, in rising horror and disbelief, repeats his instructions with the vital amendment: “click the ‘on’ button once for every minute Longitude passed…”

But a large part of oceanographic mishaps have to do with the inherent nature of the medium in which we, as oceanographers, spend much of our time: The ebullient, treacherous, unpredictable and seemingly endlessly challenging ocean. The first hurdle is that the moment perfectly well-made tools, knives, shackles, dive gear, boots, clothing, your own skin, anything electrical or any other article you might take for granted hits salt water, the timer starts: If you don’t have it washed packed and rinsed in ‘x’ number of minutes or hours, it will fail, break, tear, short or simply drop off and sink. Nothing is sacred and nothing is spared from the inevitability of corrosion. The second issue is weather and subsequent ocean state. What might be a simple operation at 8 AM, becomes a high-current torrent of white water with fire-hose like wind-spray by mid afternoon, making positioning, boat handling and even moving around the deck of a 18 ft boat likened to a sickness inducing dance on the back of a bucking horse. Just finding the correct position to drop divers becomes a juggling game of how far upstream to drop so they hit the mark, how much time to give them on the surface etc. To shed some light on these observations I will give an example from this very cruise. The oceanography team on the Hi’ialakai cruise HA1008 was requested by some colleagues to help them out by collecting some of their moorings from around Kauai. Each mooring was in approximately 100 ft depth and simply required a diver to find the mooring and remove the instrument from the mooring line with a large pair of bolt cutters. Simple enough.

Day one of this particular operation we had everything we needed; a GPS position, a basic understanding of what was happening, 28% oxygen NITROX gas for the deep dive and the 4 ft bolt cutters in hand. The wind was blowing about 25-30 knots by this point, so we knew there’d be some current at the surface so dropped a little upstream to try and hit the point correctly. We roll off the small boat Rubber Duck and quickly headed downward to get off the surface and out of the chop. At around 60 feet we could start to see the bottom and the current was lessening with distance from the surface wind. All was just fine but one small thing: there was no mooring. We started a search pattern, found some hard substrate, and dropped to 110 feet. We continued the search… and found nothing. I’ve no doubt the mooring was there, somewhere, but at 110 feet you’re limited on bottom time, we had about 10 minutes total, limited by nitrogen toxicity and volume of air. We return to the small boat empty handed.

There was no time for a repeat, these dives were one shot deals; particularly since we had special gas mixtures there was no time to return to the same place on a different day.

Day two and another mooring attempt, this time on the north side of Kauai and the weather was better. I was driving the boat and dropped the team on the site and watched them disappear beneath the waves. Expecting at any moment to see the mooring come to the surface I waited… and waited. The divers returned. This time they found the mooring; a success! However, the instrument that was supposed to be attached was gone with only a loop in the line to show it had ever been there. Failure again.

Empty mooring line at 79 feet.

Day three and one more mooring; this time on the east side of Kauai. Again, we dropped with our bolt cutters and spare air sources aiding our descent. Quickly we found the upper buoy of the mooring and hoping for better luck. Dropping to the bottom, at 120 ft, we find the instrument, real success!? I raise the bolt cutters to remove the instrument and triumphantly return to the surface… but it was not to be so simple. The bolt cutters were either old or poorly set, the cutting blades didn’t close all the way so wouldn’t cut the wire rope regardless of how hard I tried. Time was running low. We removed the instrument but had to leave the mooring to become part of the reef; it was already heavily grown over. We retrieved the instrument, but this was one small triumph in a succession of time consuming failures, on one of the most basic of operations.

On a typical year the oceanography team retrieves and replaces hundreds of scientific instruments of one type or other, through precise metadata (GPS points, descriptions) and well-executed and practiced operations, but for some reason, this particular series of events just didn’t work in our favor. And, after the ranting and raving and calculation of losses, you just have to learn, smile, and give the ocean a little more respect.

Bolt Cutters and spare air.......ready for the dive

It is day 25 on our 30 day research expedition

2010-11-03T09:55:00.002-10:00

by Bernardo Vargas Angel

The HA 1008, Main Hawaiian Islands RAMP cruise has unfolded successfully. In addition to having benign weather and sea conditions, daily operations have run quite smoothly, no doubt the result of the high level of training, experience, and professionalism of all aboard. Equally important to this success is the positive and up-beat attitude of all involved, and the strong cooperative spirit, in spite of many of us having been out here for a long time. It's not always easy to keep the pace of long work days, with just a few breaks.

Daily small boat launch with team of divers

So far we have visited and completed work around the islands of Hawai’i, Maui, Lana’i, Moloka’i, Ni’ihau, and Kauai, gathering data on the relative abundance and spatial distribution of reef fish, invertebrates, coral and coral disease, algae, as well as on water temperature, salinity, and other physical characteristics of the coral reef environment. To date, more than 100 towed-diver surveys examining over 260 km of coastline have been completed; the fish and benthic teams have conducted more than 150 and 70 surveys, respectively, and about 30 oceanographic instruments have been serviced and re-deployed with hundreds of water samples collected for further chemical, biological, and microbial analyses. In addition, nearly two dozen Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) have been recovered and processed to assess the coral reef cryptic invertebrate biodiversity. Altogether, the teams have tallied more than 1000 SCUBA dives since the beginning of the expedition.

Benthic diver Jacob Asher collecting coral demographics

and disease data

As we wrap things up, during the next few days of operations, divers will be working around the island of Molokai. The Main Hawaiian Islands RAMP cruise is a challenging mission given the unpredictability of weather conditions around the islands (high winds and surf), as well as the extent of the marine ecosystems to be surveyed in such a short period of time. So far, activities have unfolded exceptionally well, and the data collected thus far are critical to the understanding of the long-term dynamics of the coral reef ecosystems in the Archipelago.

Nightly meeting meetings held to plan next day operations

What’s Shaping Kaua`i’s Coral Reefs?

2010-11-03T08:42:00.002-10:00

by Courtney Couch

We set sail last Tuesday for Kaua`i and Ni`ihau with several new scientists and crew members (including myself) and hopes for continued good weather. Kaua`i is the oldest of the Main Hawaiian Islands (approximately 5.1 million years old) and one of the most geologically complex islands. Since it is situated further west out of the shelter of the other islands, a large portion of Kaua`i’s coastline is battered by persistent strong trade winds and heavy swell. These factors together with the heavy rainfall have etched spectacular landscapes of precipitous valleys and ridges along the windward coasts. The leeward coast of Kaua`i is comprised of arid cliffs and gradual slopes of tan and red soil. Although the leeward coast is protected from the brunt of the trade winds, Kaua`i’s small size (1/7^th the size of the Big Island) and its round shape, allows the winds to wrap around the island. We experienced these conditions first hand this week. Immediately following our departure from Pearl Harbor the trade winds started to pick up. By the time we reached Kaua`i, the winds along the west coast were sustained at 15 knots with gusts to 30 knots, and this was on the leeward side of the island! Most days since then have been a challenge to find regions that are safe enough to launch the small boats, conduct our fieldwork, and retrieve the boats at the end of the day.

Rough seas along West Kaua`i. Photo by: Courtney Couch

As you may expect, these environmental conditions have dramatically shaped the coral reef ecosystems surrounding these islands. I spend all of my time researching coral health and disease along the leeward side of the Big Island, so the MHI RAMP cruise has been a unique opportunity to see the myriad of factors shaping coral reef structure on other islands. On the leeward reef slopes of the Big Island, you generally see dense Porites compressa beds as far as the eye can see. The lower wave action due to deeper water along this coastline facilitates growth of this fragile species, which provides important habitat for many reef fish and invertebrates. Kaua`i’s leeward reefs are a different story. Many of the leeward study sites are comprised of flat algal covered pavement, bolder and small patches of consolidated reef. On the windward coast, reefs are primarily composed of flat pavement, rubble and boulders covered with low profile coral colonies. Overall, Kaua`i’s coral communities are sparser, comprised of smaller colonies and dominated by the more wave tolerant genera such as the pocilloporids and montiporids. So where has all the coral gone?

Kaua’i’s older age plays a large role the overall reef structure. As Kaua`i moves further away from the hotspot that the Big Island currently resides over, it moves into higher latitudes less favorable for coral growth. The slow erosion of the land and reefs also generates sand and together with the high wind and wave action can act like sand paper and scour the substrate. Wave action is arguably one of the most significant factors shaping reef structure in Hawai`i. High wave action prevents the development of fragile species and large colonies that can be easily broken off the substrate. Heavy rainfall along the windward coasts also transports large amounts of sediment onto the reefs reducing water clarity necessary for coral growth. Along the leeward coast of Kaua`i agricultural and residential development has facilitated sedimentation events during infrequent large rainfalls. These events blanket the reefs with fine red silt than can smother coral and reduced light.

Coastal erosion along West Kaua`i. Photo by: Courtney Couch

While many of Kauai’s reefs no longer have the structural complexity and coral cover that the Big Island now has, it does have flora and fauna not commonly found on the Big Island. While Kaua`i lacks vast stretches of coral like we see on the Big Island, there is quite a diversity of algae (limu). My dive buddy is a phycologist (limu expert) and frequently finds uncommon species, which is very exciting for him, and very educational for us. From a coral biologist’s perspective South Kaua`i does have unique coral communities. We found one of the largest populations of Pocillopora eydouxi I have ever seen. This beautiful species can reach up to 100 cm in diameter and its intricate branches serve as a refuge for a range of fish and invertebrates.

Pocillopora eydouxi colonies provide important habitat for reef fauna. Photo by: Courtney Couch

At a site not too far away we also encountered an unusually high number of cryptic coral species such as Leptoseris incrustans, Leptoseris tubulifera, Leptoseris papyracea, and Cosinaraea wellsi. As for fish, Kaua`i and especially Ni`ihau still have large curious predators such as uku and `omilu and kahala that come to see what you are all about on the dives. However, none of the teams saw more than a couple of sharks here and there, which was surprising. Where there is complexity (a lot of vertical relief of the substrate), there are nice aggregations of fish, and they typically are much larger up here.

Antipathes sp. found along South Kaua`i. Photo by: Courtney Couch

Even with the less than ideal weather conditions, the scientists and crew aboard the Hi`ialakai have successfully completed our surveys around Kaua`i, Ni`ihau and West O`ahu. With two days left in the second leg, we are ready for the last segment of the cruise, South Moloka`i.

Rest, recharge, and reloading for leg TWO

2010-10-26T16:55:00.001-10:00

by Jacob Asher

We pulled into Pearl Harbor for a short import of one night, disembarking a handful of scientists for the last time on this RAMP cruise, while others scheduled to return for a final series of dive surveys around O'ahu, Kaua'i, and Ni'ihau. The cruise really hasn’t been out on the water for all that long…we only left on the 7^th of October! However, we’ve already packed in 17 dive days with one day of rest. Multiplying the number of dives between all teams combined gives us a staggering number: without accounting for the last two days, we’ve tallied over 728 dives onboard, tens of kilometers surveyed with towed-diver teams, 51 REA sites and 107 fish sites surveyed, numerous water samples collected for dissolved inorganic carbon and microbial analysis, dozens of CTDs deployed, and ARMS arrays recovered/re-deployed. Folks worked hard, and were excited at the prospect of getting a bit of rest in town, back with friends, loved ones, with all the creature comforts of home.

There will be some personnel coming off, and several others coming onboard for the last push, leaving on Wednesday the 26^th and heading straight to Kaua'i. Some folks are old salts, spending time on several RAMP cruises this year, while a handful of scientists will be newcomers, bringing in new perspectives and an infusion of excitement and experience levels. With work remaining on O'ahu, Kaua'i, and Ni'ihau, it’ll be an amazing, albeit challenging, 10 more days before the cruise wraps up. Stay tuned for more episodes and blog posts!

Ocean sounds

2010-10-25T13:09:00.003-10:00

By Polly Fisher-Pool

Do you ever wonder what makes snap, crackle, pop underwater? The culprits are thousands of tiny snapping shrimp; they create a cavitation bubble by closing their enlarged claw and use the acoustic wave to stun their prey.

Alpheid sp. (snapping shrimp) collected on an Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS). NOAA Photo by M. Timmers.

That is just one amongst the myriad of sounds that can be heard underwater. A well known sound producer is the Humpback whale. Humpbacks come to Hawaii to breed and calf during the winter season. Word through the grapevine is that this year’s first whales were sighted recently.

http://www.badongo.com/audio/24444826
(by clicking on this link you will be redirected to a page with the soundfile)

Humpback whale song recorded by an EAR.

Other, lesser known signal producers may be swimming in your tank at home. There are ~700 known species of sound producing fish species, although this is a relatively new field of study and sounds are still being documented. Dr. Tricas and his lab at University of Hawaii at Manoa use the Ecological Acoustic Recorders (EARs) and video to record behaviorally relevant sounds produced by Hawaiian fish species.

http://www.badongo.com/audio/24444821

(by clicking on this link you will be redirected to a page with the soundfile)

Unknown fish sound recorded by an EAR.

CRED uses the EAR, an autonomous non-intrusive tool to record acoustic data on coral reef biological activity. There are a total of 12 EARs currently deployed within the main Hawaiian Islands. So far, during this cruise we have retrieved 3 of these recorders and replaced them with new ones to continue acoustic data collection.

Divers Polly Fisher-Pool and Oliver Vetter replace an EAR on the island of Hawaii for continuous acoustic monitoring. NOAA Photo by F. Mancini.

Each recovered dataset provides new and exciting sound files. We will listen to what our main Hawaiian EARs heard once we get back to land.
For more information on EARs visit: http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/ear.php

Good bye to Maui County, hello to O'ahu

2010-10-22T16:59:00.005-10:00

By Mary Donovan

After 5 days of surveys in Maui and 3 days in Lāna'i and Moloka'i with the great weather, we are heading to O'ahu. People who have not been to O'ahu may picture the island based on some movies and television shows such as Lost and the most recent, Hawaii Five-O. It is home to the scientists of the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division. We will do surveys around O'ahu for a couple of days before some of us disembark and the ship heads to Kaua'i County.

'Oahu is the most populated island in the State of Hawai'i, with the population of 880,000 (U.S. Census 2000). High rise condos and hotels in Honolulu district show the development of the Island. Its great location and accessibility also attract tourists from all over the world. In each month of 2009, more than 300,000 people visited to O'ahu (Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, State of Hawai'i). At night, it is the one of the brightest places in the Pacific Ocean.

The earth at night. The main Hawaiian Islands are within the circle. Source: Image and data processing by NOAA National Geophysical Data Center.

Marine ecosystems associated with high human populations have traditionally suffered the consequences of overfishing, pollution, and invasive species (just to name a few). Directly or indirectly, human lives and activities negatively impact the natural environment, and the marine/coastal environment is not an exception. Our work around O'ahu will help us understand how coral reef systems in the proximity of high human populations are different from those without those stressors. With this insight, we hope to educate people about the importance of taking care of our marine environment so we can continue to enjoy our weekends at beautiful beaches!!

Maui from the surface

2010-10-20T07:58:00.004-10:00

by Tomoko Acoba

As a data manager, my days are slower than the scientists who dive everyday. The cruise around the main Hawaiian Islands is especially busy for the scientists because there are no transit days between the islands. Therefore, hardly anybody is around during the day. Besides 3 meals and occasional exercises to avoid my butt gluing to the chair, my work mainly revolves around the 13.5 inch laptop screen (may be 15). I have to say…it is not as exciting as seeing the marine creatures and sceneries.

A view of the east side of Maui. NOAA Photo by T. Acoba

I cannot describe the underwater world for you, but Maui Island is beautiful from the sea surface. I am excited for the rare opportunities to see the whole island from the ocean. Everyday when we wake up in the morning, the views are different. The east side of the Island, by Hāna, is fully vegetated in various shades of green; we can even see the waterfalls in the distance. The southwest side looks dry, but the landscape with the rugged terrains is astonishing. And then, there is Mount Haleakalā (Hawaiian for House of the Sun), rising imposingly in the distance with the summit cleared from clouds. It is probably obvious how often I take “coffee breaks”.

A view of the southwest side of Maui. NOAA Photo by T.Acoba

My little pleasure at the end of each day is watching the sunset and eating sweets (for most of the time, chocolate). The sunsets are beautiful without a doubt, but the sweets make them so much better. I realized, though, that having time to watch the sunset everyday is a luxury. Maybe very subtle to other’s eyes, but these little things make me come back to be on Hi'ialakai and make sitting in front of the computer a bit more exciting.

Of course, the sunset. NOAA Photo by T. Acoba

Coral Reef Oceanography: The CTD

2010-10-17T08:42:00.001-10:00

by NOAH POMEROY
The bow of the Rubber Duck plowed through the frothy white cap of another wave and drenched us with sheets of salty water as we motored closer to the southern-most point of land in the United States; South Point on the island of Hawaii. The two 90 horse-power motors pushed us doggedly upwind toward our next survey site. With a trusty oceanographic instrument known as a CTD onboard, we were ready to collect some valuable data about the water column.

The view from below as a CTD is lowered over the side of the Rubber Duck by Oceanographer Oliver Vetter. NOAA Photo by N. Pomeroy

CTD — an acronym for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth — is a tool for measuring a variety of physical properties of sea water. Although a large version of this instrument can be found on our research ship, the Hi’ialakai, we make use of a smaller version of this classic oceanographic instrument when conducting operations from our small boat, the Rubber Duck. When we arrive at a survey site in our small boat, we lower a handheld CTD over the side of the boat to collect data about the water column. The protective steal cage of the CTD houses a variety of instruments that collect data continuously as the device descends through the water column. This data includes a detailed account of water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity. This information helps us to better understand how ocean water characteristics are distributed across space and time around the islands we visit. Shallow water CTD data, coupled with results of actual water samples that are collected at CTD survey sites, helps paint a picture of major influences on reef life, such as transport of warm or cold water, nutrients, and possibly organisms from one region to another.
With our CTD full of detailed oceanographic data, we secured it to the console of the Rubber Duck and began our transit to the next survey site.

The Big Island of Hawai‘i

2010-10-14T09:06:00.001-10:00

by Darla White
The windward coast of the Big Island is very rugged and beautiful, with steep cliffs and characteristically rough waters. Access to these areas is quite limited, and human populations along the coast are sparse. The Main Hawaiian Island Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) expedition got off to a great start, with nice weather and favorable ocean conditions along the windward shore of North Kohala. The five small boats launched on their first day with views of Pololū Valley under blue skies and light winds. Of course, that did not last long; the winds picked up, and after a couple of days rains moved in, and the swell increased. However the diving was still good, albeit a bit murky at a couple of sites.

Waters off North Kohala, on the northeast coast of the island of Hawai’i. NOAA Photo by B. Vargas-Ángel

The opportunity to dive in these remote areas is uncommon, so I would like to share with you a little about what we do and what we have seen on our dives from the perspective of the Benthic Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) Team. Benthos is the life that inhabits the sea floor, effectively attached to it, whether sessile (attached) or mobile (moving) on it, such as corals, mobile invertebrates, and algae. The Benthic REA team has a pair of divers for each of these three categories. Bernardo and Jake are the coral team, recording coral species and colony sizes and diseases. Molly and Max are the mobile invertebrate team, and they count critters and also work with the ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures; which Max is going to tell you more about soon).

Divers conducting belt transect surveys on the North Kohala Coast of Big Island. NOAA Photo D. White

Rodney is the limu (algae) expert, and he and I are the Line-Point-Intercept (LPI) team; whereby the organism (usually algae or coral) falling underneath the transect line is recorded to species level at every 20cm interval for 25 meters on each of two transect tapes. Photoquads (photographic images of the benthos) are also collected along the transect line. These methods combined gives a good ‘snapshot’ of the benthic community composition at this place and time. Everything out there has a role to play in this complex ecosystem, and looking at community composition can give you the pulse of an area. Our teams return to monitor the same locations year after year, and so will record changes over time.

Species of hard coral, encrusting sponges, and other sessile invertebrates populate the shallow benthos along the east coast of the Island of Hawaii. NOAA Photo D. White

Each of our sites is in depths of 45’ – 60’, too deep for pounding waves, but these areas observe plenty of water motion from surge and currents in these windward waters. Many of the sites that we surveyed were boulder habitats, where fields of boulders were encrusted with all kinds of life: hard corals, rubber corals, algae, sponges, urchins, and a variety of other critters about. It’s a veritable wall of mouths of a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. The closer you look, the more you see…in fact, it is truly amazing just how much life is out there!

Close-up of sponge. NOAA Photo. D. White

When you are on the benthic team, you tend to have your head down most of the time and really don’t see many fish, apart from saddle back wrasses (Thalassoma duperrey) and the Hawaiian toby (Canthagaster jactator), and a few eels hiding out in the cracks. Loving fish like I do, I have made it a point to look around when I’m finished collecting data to see what I might find, and other times a buddy will point something out that I’m missing. I have a number of favorite fish, and so far I have not been disappointed. On the first day a couple of large kahala (Seriola dumerili) swam close to me as just happened to finish my data collection. The next day two reticulated butterflyfish (Chaetodon reticulatus) swam straight up to my mask as I fumbled for my camera. You know that you are in a remote area when the fish come to check you out instead of swimming away! Okay, the flame angel (Centropyge loricula) was a little shy…but that’s typical. At one site a manta ray (Manta birostris) glided around and around a swirling column of ‘opelu (Decapterus macarellus) 30’ high, which could only be topped by the two longnose hawk fish (Oxycirrhites typus) perched in the branches of a black coral. And, I think we’ve seen spinner dolphins every day thus far.

Longnose hawk fish (Oxycirrhites typus) perched on the branches of a black coral. NOAA Photo N. Pomeroy

We have spent the last couple of days on the leeward side of the Big Island and wow! The coral reef communities over here are truly amazing; I really wish my camera could do it justice. I’ll try to get some better pictures for you at South Point tomorrow!

Drawing to a close

2010-09-28T09:22:00.000-10:00

By Russell Reardon,

Well, we are nearing the end of our return transit to Honolulu and are on schedule to pull into Pearl Harbor tomorrow morning. During 15 days of in-water operations on this expedition, favorable weather allowed the scientific party to safely and comfortably conduct a total of 768 SCUBA dives, documenting the coral reef biota, habitats and oceanographic parameters of the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

We have but one more quick stop to make today at a location known as “Five Fathom Pinnacle,” approximately 25 miles west-southwest of the island of Ni`ihau, where the Oceanography Team will conduct one last dive to swap out an Ecological Acoustic Recorder (EAR).

An Ecological Acoustic Recorder (EAR) rests on the seafloor and records ambient sounds.

An EAR is an instrument that sits on the ocean floor and records ambient sounds as a way to characterize the presence and activity of sound-producing marine organisms on the coral reefs and in surrounding waters. The recorder is also well suited for monitoring human activities on the reef. The noise produced by anthropogenic sources, such as boat engines and anchor chains, is also captured along with naturally occurring sounds. To learn more about the EAR and passive acoustic monitoring of coral reef ecosystems visit http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/ear.php

Over these last transit days, the scientists have been busily entering and checking their data and pulling together the bits and pieces that will comprise the official cruise report. Equipment has been cleaned and dried, offloading and refueling arrangements have been made, and preparations for the next cruise are being finalized.

In just one week after our return to Honolulu, the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division’s next research cruise as part of the Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program will begin. The 30-day expedition will study the coral reef biota and habitats in the main Hawaiian Islands. During the brief time the ship is in port, the small boats will be serviced and necessary repairs will be made, scientific equipment will be added, the ship will be re-provisioned, and a new compliment of scientists will prepare to embark on their journey through the ‘Main 8’ (though 1/3 of the scientists currently aboard will actually be departing on the next cruise as well).

Thank you for following along with us on this mission to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and be sure to check back on this website to follow along with the next compliment of scientists as they embark on the next cruise beginning October 7, 2010.

Stepping back...

2010-09-28T09:10:00.001-10:00

By Annette DesRochers

We’re now down to the last few days of transit, and while they have been more relaxed for some, for me, not so much. As data manager, one of my responsibilities is to work with each of the teams to help compile all of the information that was collected into a final cruise report for the mission. We have learned the hard way that the more that we are able to complete prior to the end of the cruise, the better. As soon as we pull into port and disembark the ship, all of us will quickly be immersed into the life, work, and responsibilities that await us back home. So the push is on.

The first quasi-annual masquerade ball, a welcome diversion from the winding-down activities. A great morale boost in the final days of the cruise.

While working on database stuff for the report today, I kept thinking about how I would find the time to write my blog, and then debated what I would write about. For a bit I thought I might talk about the responsibilities of a data manager during a research cruise, but let’s face it. Who really cares? I manage data. Enough said. Rather than talk about my small role in this large effort that we’ve all contributed to, instead I’d like to try and take a step back and take a look at the big picture.

Those who know me will easily concur that I can tend to be a bit of a workaholic at times. Out here it is even easier to get sucked up into the work to be done because you never get to go home and separate yourself from it. To work at such a pace can be taxing, both physically and mentally. Individual morale can be all over the map depending on how much sleep you’ve had, how many days in a row you’ve been working, what the sea conditions and weather are like, and so on. And sometimes, when all you want is a moment alone, it’s really hard to find it when there’s 40-something people on a 240-something foot ship. So your emotions are pretty much out there, exposed for all to see. But that can be a good thing too because when you’re having a moment, someone is there to laugh you right out of it. The comradery amongst the scientific staff and the crew is really incredible.

The highly-prized trophy for the winner of the masquerade ball, handmade by Chief Engineer Jesse Duncan.

As the cruise quickly winds down, there is still a long list of “to-dos” that must be accomplished. Myself and others included have spent hours on end at the computer, writing the reports and doing database things, others have been checking supplies, breaking down gear, and packing up, and some are even prepping for the next cruise which departs only one week after we return. But despite the push, there is still the need to stop working for a bit to take time out for ourselves and to appreciate all that has been accomplished.

Paula Ayotte, forever our (my) ring leader. You can't not smile when she's around.

So I took time out tonight to watch the highlights from Ben and Cristi Richards’ trip to Mongolia, followed by a much needed 8-min abs workout and stretch with our ring leader Paula Ayotte. Though I could have done without the workout (bazinga Paula!), it was just what I needed after a long day at the computer. We were up on the aft deck on our yoga mats stretching, and I just gazed up at the evening sky. I so wish that I could have photographed it for you all to see. A clear dark night lit only by the stars. It reminded me of why it is that we are all out here in the first place. We’ve just been to one of the most beautiful places in the world, and we came here so that we might help to protect it. We just have to remember that while we’re engrossed in our own work to accomplish that end, that it’s important to take that step back and appreciate all of it while we can.

Traditional Hawaiian Observations and Western Science

2010-09-26T20:35:00.002-10:00

By Mark Manuel

‘A‘ohe pau ka ‘ike i ka halau ho‘okahi.

Not all knowledge is learned in one school.

As our voyage on the Hi‘ialakai comes to an end, there are many great moments instilled in my memory as well as an exceptional amount of ‘ike or knowledge that I’ve gained through this experience. The ‘ōlelo no‘eau or Hawaiian proverb above speaks of the ability to learn or acquire knowledge in different ways and that not all knowledge is gained from one source. It is one that I live by every day and one that I try to live by when encountering new environments or situations. To me there is never a point in which you stop learning and there is never only one place to learn from. Similarly, there is never one fixed way in doing things in life to inevitably reach the same goal or achievement. That is why I would like to compare my experiences on this cruise with the western science approach of using experimental designs, statistics and quantifiable data to the simple observations taken by my Hawaiian ancestors, both of which strive for conserving resources.

Stationary point count method

Through my experience as a fish team diver, I’ve had the opportunity of observing numerous reef fishes around the various atolls and islands that we’ve visited using a method called the stationary point count (SPC). This is a unique method that utilizes two divers working along a 30 meter transect in which each diver identifies, sizes and counts all fish within their respective 7.5 meter cylinder. These surveys are done at various depth stratums around each atoll to get a thorough quantifiable representation of fish abundance, diversity and biomass. Other teams on the cruise also utilize various methods with strong scientific background and research objectives. The oceanographic team uses an intriguing instrument called the RAS (Remote Access Sampler), which is deployed to collect water samples. The benthic team deploys ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures), which are recruitment apparatus’. All together as a team this cruise has been filled with intense scientific data collection, which can be used to help ensure the proper management and conservation of these finite resources and help understand the coral reef ecosystem as a whole.

Fish diver Mark Manuel trying to count a large school of ‘ōmilu or Caranx melampygus

From a Hawaiian standpoint simple observations were made daily and transcribed in mele (song), oli (chant) and mo‘olelo (story). These important observations were a necessary part of their survival and utilized to conserve resources that could be limited due to the geographic isolation of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiians viewed all living things with respect as if they were part of their ‘ohana or family. They tried to observe everything from a holistic standpoint and made connections or correlations with their observations. In many cases there was always something on land that was connected to the ocean and vice versa. This comes from the perspective that what is done on land will inevitably have some kind of influence or effect on the sea, whether good or bad. For example, this is the Hawaiian Lunar month of Hilinamā, which gets its name from the switching of weather from calm/stormy and humid/breezy conditions during this equinox time period (Kalei Nuuhiwa 2010). According to the ‘ōlelo no‘eau, Pua ke kō, kū mai ka he`e, when the sugar cane blossoms the he‘e or octopus appear, refers to this time of year in which sugar cane blooms and he‘e are abundant. Interestingly, one of the other fish divers and I have noticed that there were quite a few he‘e on a number of dives we’ve done during this trip. Some may view this traditional knowledge as coincidence; however, we must consider that this information has been passed down from generation to generation as a way of life. This is just one of many examples of the intuitive connections Hawaiians had with their surrounding environments and the conclusions that were drawn in order to conserve resources.

Day octopus or Octopus cyanea

Fortunately, through my collegiate career I’ve had the opportunity to take part in numerous research projects that have allowed me to gain valuable insight into various western science approaches, all of which inspired me to continue my affiliation in the research field. However, I’ve also been exposed to many great Hawaiian elders and practitioners that have inspired me to embrace my Hawaiian culture and learn from those who have come before me. So whether it be conducting SPC’s or just making simple observations of my surroundings, there is one saying that comes to mind, Ma ka hana ka ‘ike, knowledge is gained by doing, so we as conservationists need to get out there and make a difference. With that said, Mālama i ke kai…Aloha!

Amazing sunset following a long day of diving

Green Island

2010-09-25T23:40:00.001-10:00

By Hailey Ramey

It’s been exactly one year since I last stepped foot aboard the Hi`ialakai. This is my second trip to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and I feel so privileged to be here again. I am a visiting scientist who has been contracted by NOAA to count and size fishes. I can’t think of a better job or imagine a better office. After an amazing 22 days at sea we have begun our four day transit home. As I reflect back on the cruise I thought I would share one of the more memorable days with all you blog followers.

Green Island, a tropical paradise.

After our last day of diving at Kure Atoll I was fortunate enough to be one of the few scientists who actually got to go ashore on Green Island, the atoll’s largest and only habitable land mass. We were asked by the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to assist with the transport of water samples back to Honolulu. The samples were collected from a fresh water seep in the island’s interior by Cynthia Vanderlip, the manager of the State of Hawai`i’s Kure Atoll Wildlife Sanctuary. She has been doing work on Kure for the last decade. She and three other people are currently stationed on Green Island for half the year working on the eradication of the terrestrial-based plant Verbesina encelioides (aka Golden Crownbeard). It is an invasive species that is rapidly overtaking and outcompeting native plants for precious and limited space. The Green Island crew also plant several native species of ground cover in an effort to stabilize the fragile dune structure of the eroding atoll. A fifth and recently arrived team member is responsible for observing monk seal behavior and in particular mother and pup interactions.

Scientists Zoe Dagan, Hailey Ramey, Erin Looney, and Kaylyn McCoy dressed in Kure garb.

We were greeted at the shore line and given shoes and a sarong to wear. There are strict rules in place to ensure the island remains isolated and free from foreign contaminants, and visitors are not allowed to wear clothes that haven’t been previously frozen. The freezing kills any foreign seeds that might be stuck to clothes. The shoes that were provided to us were to protect our feet from the thorny balls of the native ground cover. We got a quick tour of the Green Island camp which consisted of tents, a couple small buildings, and a picnic table. It is evident that birds are the dominant life form on the tiny, one mile long island. I couldn’t imagine living for an extended amount of time in such small, secluded quarters. I was thrilled to get the opportunity to experience it but after a half hour my curiosity was satisfied and I was ready, if not eager, to get off the sun drenched island and get back to the ship and all its amenities.

Booby birds keep watch from a tree near the camp.

As we loaded up the boat to depart I spent a few minutes beach combing for alien marine debris that the people living on Green Island regularly pile up for removal from the island. I found a glass bottle that must have drifted thousands of miles to wash up on these shores. I couldn’t help wondering how long that journey must have taken and what cool things it might have encountered along the way. How many tiger sharks had it unknowingly floated by? I kept that bottle as a memento because what most people view as trash or marine debris will always remind me of this remote paradise. Kure Atoll, with its stark white beaches and crystal clear water, is by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Glass bottles washed ashore on Green Island.

Have You Ever Felt Like Shark Bait? - A Towboarder’s Point of View

2010-09-24T21:35:00.005-10:00

By Marie Ferguson

It’s another typical day on the towboard boat along the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. My tow partner, Edmund, and I are getting geared up to enter the water for our second dive of the day. The other two tow team members, Ben and Jeff, are coxswaining the boat and act as the look-out for any problems with the tow lines, divers, etc. Our job…to assess relatively large areas of reef habitats by quantifying and qualifying larger fish populations (>50 cm length) and benthic biota. We complete a total of six dives a day, 50 minutes in length each, covering close to 2 kilometers of reef per dive. Edmund is the benthic tow boarder extraordinaire and I’m the fish tow boarder.

“You guys ready to get in?”, blurts our coxswain as he maneuvers the small boat upwind and into proper position to splash divers. My partner and I look at each other, glance for a buddy gear check and nod at the driver. “Alright, engines in neutral. Ready when you are.” We fall back in the water with tow boards in hand. ‘Should be a pleasant and mellow dive’ I think to myself as I swim away from the boat and look around me with 100 ft. plus visibility. An ulua appears to greet us as we position ourselves and wait for the 60 meters of tow line to feed out. Shortly after, a few small Galapagos sharks show up. Edmund and I motion the ‘start survey’ signal to each other and I send up the ‘start survey’ signal to the boat via our beeper, similar to that of a morse-code signaler. ‘Start survey’, two short beeps followed by one long.

For about the first 20 minutes of our dive all is well. Visibility is still incredible and we’re not experiencing any strong current head on or large swell which can make a tow boarders’ dive that much harder and physically taxing. There aren’t many large fish to count on this dive but that is normal at some sites. I glance at my buddy for a buddy check and look around me. Those Galapagos sharks and the ulua are following behind and have decided to come along for the ride…something that is also not unusual on a tow board dive. ‘Cool’, I think to myself as it excites me to see sharks along these reefs. Sharks have historically gotten a bad rep but they are essential in an ecosystem as they are at the top of the food chain and control fish populations lower on the food chain. Sharks are a keystone predator in the marine environment and a sustaining, balanced population is indicative of a healthy functioning ecosystem.

Thirty minutes into the dive and my mind wanders for a second as I can’t help but notice the beautiful spur and groove habitat around me. I imagine how time has shaped these reefs and atolls as the continental plates have shifted over hot spots which created the entire Hawaiian Archipelago. I can’t help but think how nature is truly amazing and how we are capturing a moment in time as creation continues to take place. Towboarding is a truly unique method of surveying a reef as our tows collectively circumnavigate an entire atoll or island. On one dive you can pass through several types of reefs and ultimately have experienced the various marine ecosystems a place provides. I imagine the various reefs throughout the Pacific which our research group visits and how my tow experience has greatly varied at each one. Sharks and large fish galore at Kingman, Jarvis and Palmyra; extreme underwater geological reef features in American Samoa; fields of Acropora coral, hammerhead sharks, ripping current and 100 foot vertical walls at Howland, Baker and Johnston Atoll; and schools of ulua, galapagos and grey reef sharks as well as some of the most beautiful coral reefs along the Northwestern Hawaiian Island chain. Life is good.

A sudden movement from my peripheral jolts me back to the dive. ‘What the?!?’. I look at Edmund then around me. It’s those eight Galapagos sharks still following us. A couple are right on top of Edmund’s tag line. Ok, not a problem. They’re just curious, nothing new here. Oddly enough, we see this often and have become somewhat ‘normalized’ to it. Commence fish surveys. Seconds later something brushes against my fin blades. I look behind me. A galapagos shark swimming in between my fins. ‘Whoa. That was a little too close, buddy’, I think as I attempt to get a visual on all the sharks around me. A couple more pass quickly within a foot underneath me. ‘Okay. These guys are coming in a lot closer now’. As I look towards my tow partner I notice a shark brush through his fins while another makes a twitching and arching motion as it bumps the end of his tag line. Researchers believe that these types of movements (arching their backs and throwing back their head as well as twitching and posturing) are indicative of a shark becoming aggressive prior to an attack. Not good. I glance towards Edmund and give him the look. ‘Did you just see that?!’. He reads the expression on my face. He smirks and shrugs his shoulders.

For the remainder of the dive these sharks continue to bump our tag lines and fin tips, brush within a couple of feet of us and posture. I’m not going to lie. I was a bit worried. But there are no records of Galapagos sharks attacking humans so why the seemingly aggressive behavior? Maybe it’s a sort of territorial gesture letting us know that this is their turf. No one can say for sure. Our timer beeps indicating the end of our dive. I send up an ‘end survey’ signal and we begin our 3-minute safety stop with all sharks still on our tails. Another few minutes…3-2-1…safety stop done, ‘stop’ signal has been sent to the boat and I am swimming as fast as possible back to the boat. Michael Phelps’ got nothin’ on me. Glad I invested in a nice new pair of longblade, freediving fins before this trip! I clench my towboard close to me as a sort of ‘shield’…you know, just in case. I reach the boat in 15 seconds and grab on to the side as I catch my breath. Ben, who’s been topside, takes my board. “How was the dive”, he asks not seeing the bit of frantic still in me. “Those sharks are crazy!”, I shriek as my bulging eyes are scanning below for the sharks. Ok, I’m good, I’m good. Just breath, baby, just breath. I’m safely alongside our Safeboat so I take a few more minutes in the water to catch my breath, stare at the world beneath me and ponder what just happened. Man, what a wild ride. That was pretty awesome. A smile comes to my face. Now that is what I live for. That is why I do this. I can’t imagine a better job than getting to towboard and dive in some of the most beautiful places in the world and experiencing moments like I just did. It really is the wild west out there. Not something that you see every day or, for some, ever. So is it the raw beauty that keeps me coming back for more or the adrenaline running through you as a shark brushes just beneath you? And does it get any better than this? I’m not really sure. All I know is, I dig it and I’ll see you next cruise…

Corals, the most beautiful part of the reef

2010-09-24T10:19:00.001-10:00

By Erin Looney

What is the most beautiful part of a reef? Some would say it is the fishes, some would argue it’s the algae (only the rare and highly-prized phycologists would dare), yet others, like myself, would say it’s definitely the coral. I mean, it’s called a CORAL reef, right? Not a fish reef or an algae reef. I would even venture to say that coral is what makes the reef-world go round. Without it, where would the all fish hide, or more importantly, where would they go to reproduce? Also, without coral, what would people pay lots of money to see when visiting areas that depend on tourism? Coral reefs support not only one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world, but also one of the most beautiful.

Arc-eyed hawkfish hiding out in a healthy Pocillopora meandrina colony at French Frigate Shoals.

Corals serve many purposes, and it is this reason that we try to understand the communities that make up reefs in order to better protect them. My dive buddy, Jason Heyler, and I spend our days looking at coral. We each have segments in which we document and measure every coral present. We can get an idea of what species are there, in what abundance, and in what size-class. Along with this information, we are also interested in the health of corals, so we’re on the watch for coral diseases and bleaching.

Human influences are thought to be directly or indirectly linked to most disease and bleaching, whether we’re talking about reefs that are close to human impact (pollution, run-off, over-fishing) like those off the Main Hawaiian Islands, or those that are much more isolated, like the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Coral disease has been a threat to reefs for some time, but the incidence and severity of disease seem to be growing steadily. In few cases, the cause of disease is known, but mostly, we’re only left to speculate what factors lead to disease outbreaks. Coral bleaching, while not a disease, is another threat to corals and has been linked to elevated sea surface temperatures. Bleaching happens when corals are stressed and their symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) are released, thereby losing their pigmentation and appearing white, or bleached. Bleaching can lead to mass fatality because, with even just a little pollution, the exposed skeleton is easily overgrown by algae or it is broken down by storms and waves and all that is left is a coral graveyard. Because sea surface temperatures around the islands we’ve surveyed on this cruise are higher than normal, there was a prediction of mass coral bleaching, but luckily we’ve only seen background levels.

Bleached and half-dead colony of Pocillopora meandrina at Kure Atoll.

Porites colony with signs of Porites trematodiasis.

We strive to learn all we can about these fragile organisms and the reefs they build so that we can have a hand in protecting them. With corals having so much importance and yet so much disturbance, often times it’s frustrating for me to look at the big picture and wonder what in the world I can do to solve a problem so large. But that’s when I remember there is also a smaller picture, one in which we all have the power to make decisions with these ecosystems in mind. And when we’re diving on these reefs and are witnesses to the beauty (yes, this even includes the algae and fish), I know it’s all worth it.

Beautiful Acropora at French Frigate Shoals.

We’re out of coffee?

2010-09-23T10:47:00.000-10:00

By Frank Mancini

Howzit blog followers?! I struggled with what to write about for more than a few days. Truthfully, I attempted to avoid blogging all together. Playing dead, running away (but the ship is only 224 feet long) and acting like I didn’t speak English all failed. Finally some increasingly less friendly reminders from my coworkers and a single blank spot on the blog calendar for over a week forced me to cave and jot down my name.

Last week an announcement was made at our morning meeting that at our current consumption rate of one bag of coffee per day, we were 5 days away from being completely tapped out and more than two weeks from getting back home. For some, this was no big deal. For me and my fellow coffee junkies, this was like a kick to…yeah.

This is what happens when oceanography team member Frank Mancini, goes without his cup of joe.

My initial reactions were: What am I going to do to wake up in the morning? Do I give in and switch to tea? Not likely. Do I go cold turkey and suck it up? Probably a bad idea seeing that I am arguably one of the grumpiest morning people presently on this ship. Ask any of my friends, family members or coworkers. They’ll all agree. There is a visiting scientist on this cruise that is seriously challenging my crown though. I tip my hat to you and welcome the competition.

Divers Erin Looney and Hailey Ramey enjoy the last few minutes of breakfast in the aft mess chatting with Chief Cook Lydell Reed and Doc Joe Harris before heading out for another day of diving at Lisianski.

Anyway it got me thinking, as I savored one of the last hot cups of joe that would cross my lips for weeks to come, that this is one of those situations that is unique to the kind of work we do. Sure we have run out of fruits and vegetables plenty of times…no problem, I’ll go to the farmer’s market when I get home. I’ve seen the ice cream bin empty one week into a 2 month cruise, whatever, no need. But coffee? Come on! Even prisoners get coffee!!

Maybe your favorite neighborhood coffee shop is closed for renovations for a few days and you are forced to go to the mega-chain on every corner for your morning fix. Ok. One cup hopefully won’t kill the rainforest. Your caffeine need is satiated and you are off to continue your day. Aboard a ship 1000+ miles from the nearest city, alternate options like that don’t exist.

Just another day at the office!

I know when you read our blogs and see our photos, our work looks and sounds pretty incredible (and I have to admit, a lot of times it is), but running out of coffee is just one example (obviously a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things) of shipboard life that might not come to mind when you see what we do.

Frank Mancini, hard at work deploying a subsurface temperature recorder.

Thankfully a few days later another case of coffee was found in the stores and the potential mutiny was squashed. I cannot say that I am getting any less grumpy in morning, but at least my mug is full and my hand is warm while I watch the sun rise out of the ocean each morning with one bleary eye open.

Why do fish school?

2010-09-21T20:00:00.001-10:00

By Jamie Gove

The swirling black mass from above was hard to miss, particularly given the flurry of activity of squawking birds dive bombing the ocean surface, only to emerge seconds later with a flopping small fish in their beaks. As an amazing of a spectacle as it was from above the surface, I wasn’t prepared for what was happening below. Jumping in off the side of the boat, it took my eyes a few seconds to focus and my mind even longer to comprehend the scene unfolding before me. A school of thousands of tiny bait fish were swirling in a large tornado-like vortex, while just beneath, a large group of mackerel were rising from below and striking the ball of fish with lightening speed. Also in the mix, albeit on the periphery, were a small group of rainbow runner and few grey reef sharks. Basically, we had just entered nothing short of a total feeding frenzy, with the school of bait fish at the center of it all….

A 3-shot sequence showing mackerel coming from below, striking the school of bait fish.

Fish congregate together in schools for a variety of reasons, ultimately to enhance an individual fish’s chance of survival in a competitive and dangerous fish-eat-fish world.

First and foremost, fish school as a “safety in numbers” strategy; the more fish there are in a group, the less likely a predator will be able to eat any single fish. Generally speaking, it’s much easier for a larger predatory fish to track down and eat a solitary smaller fish, whereas schooling fish can distract and disorient a predator, making it more difficult to snatch a fish from the group.

Danny Merritt goes for an up-close view of the bait ball.

Fish will also school to increase the chances of finding food. Essentially, the more fish there are in a group, the greater an area those fish can cover when searching for prey, or, detecting an area in the ocean which may be more suitable for finding prey. The downside of this strategy is rather obvious; an individual fish must share whatever food they find with the rest of the school. When I write these fish “share”, it’s not as if a fish will offer half of their dinner to another, more that they must compete within the school for the food they do find, making it highly possible for a number of fish to miss out on a meal when the rest have eaten more than their fair share.

A swirling blur of fish.

It is also thought that fish will school for a hydrodynamic advantage. Similar to how professional bicycle riders will draft behind other riders so as to reduce wind resistance and friction, fish swim in schools, following behind one another for the same reasons; to reduce friction in the water thereby conserving energy.

Not all fish school, but many do, particularly those which live in the open ocean which is devoid of hiding places or any form of protection from predators. In general, it is all about trading costs for benefits, and for certain fish, it just makes sense to come together to eat, and to hopefully avoid being eaten.

Microbial Mondays

2010-09-21T12:10:00.002-10:00

By Zoe Dagan

Imagine a coral reef ecosystem in all its complexity. This turquoise sea hosts impressive coral gardens, aggregations of colorful fishes, hidden invertebrates, sleek sharks and giant turtles. When we close our eyes and envision such a tropical scene, we rarely, if ever, consider the microbial communities of a coral reef.

Microbes are a fundamental aspect of all marine ecosystems. Microbial agents (bacterium, fungus, viruses and protists) are also associated with reef-building corals. The abundance and function of the microbial community on reefs may also play an important role in coral health.

Coral health worldwide has declined in the last 20 years. Reasons for compromised coral health are numerous, and many are linked to humans and the way we affect our marine ecosystems. Examples of human induced impacts on oceans include marine pollution, overfishing, global climate change and ocean acidification. When coral health is compromised, microbes can infect corals and cause disease. Infectious coral diseases have increased in frequency and distribution since the 1970’s. These diseases continue to increase exponentially and have resulted in a significant loss of coral cover.

The global decline in coral cover has caused great concern. Coral diseases play a significant role in this decline. Researchers from around the world are devoting time and expertise to the study of coral disease. I am aboard the Hi’ialakai collecting and processing water samples for one of these researchers.

Hi’ialakai’s wetlab

Each day while diving I use 4 Niskin bottles to collect 2-liter reefwater samples. The shipboard processing of these samples takes about two hours. At the end of this Northwestern Hawaiian Islands research cruise, the processed water samples will be shipped to San Diego State University for further analysis. While the work is not glamorous, it is important. And the view isn’t too shabby either.

Are certain algae getting bad press? When is a lot of algae too much algae??

2010-09-20T13:43:00.001-10:00

By Rodney Withall

The effects of algal blooms seem to frequently make news headlines. Whether we all pay attention to it or not, most of us have seen images of algal blooms from around the world and the problems that are associated with them. These can range from toxin production that contaminates our food supply, the formation or massive unsightly and inconvenient masses, or effects on the ecosystem community such as coral reefs.

Australian sailors training on a bed of algae at the Olympic sailing venue at Qingdao in China. (Photo: AFP)

An algal bloom is a rapid increase in the population of a particular (or multiple) species of algae. In recent years we’ve read about the effects of blooms; including toxin producing microscopic algae in the Atlantic that have closed the shellfish industry from Maine to Long Island, NY. In 2008, over 10,000 workers and 1000 boats were tasked with removing algae off the coast of Qingdao, China after a huge algal bloom formed at the sailing venue prior to the Beijing Olympics. At the same time, the first macroalgal blooms at Midway and Kure Atolls (the two northern-most atolls in the Papahānamokuākea Marine National Monument) were being reported by CRED divers. On this occasion, Boodlea composita, a bright green branched filamentous alga that forms dense spongy mats, was rapidly increasing and covering the shallow water reef lagoon habitats of these two atolls.

Boodlea composita surrounding a colony of Pocillopora meandrina at Kure atoll in 2009.

To most people, Boodlea blooms are viewed in negative light as they are thought to over-grow live coral colonies and block light penetration, however, even though this may be true in some cases, reports indicate that, in 2008, blooming Boodlea grew mostly over sand and rubble substrata. It should also be noted that some positive observations associated with Boodlea blooms can lead to a confounding situation and confusing assessment as to the real impacts and net outcome these blooms can have. Some of the positive observations include a larger abundance of juvenile fish being reported around dense Boodlea cover and Hawaiian Monk seals being observed resting on thick mats of Boodlea that wash ashore.

Since the initial observation of Boodlea blooms at Kure and Midway Atolls, scientists from the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division and other programs have been monitoring the increase or decline of Boodlea populations. I was fortunate enough to sail aboard the Hi`ialakai to both Kure and Midway atolls in September 2009 as part of a RAMP (Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program) cruise with the Papahānamokuākea Marine National Monument. We observed Boodlea distributions and densities that were not dissimilar to those reported the year prior in 2008, and visiting the Northwestern Hawaii Islands again this year is an opportunity to note distributional patterns for 2010.

A dense mat of Boodlea at a lagoon site in 2009.

A few days ago we observed and reported that Boodlea is also now blooming at the lagoon sites we surveyed at Pearl and Hermes, an atoll 81 nautical miles to the southeast of Midway. The density and distribution seemed considerable, however, the benthic team surveyed too few sites in the lagoon to map the extent of the distribution. These observations may represent the first scientific documentation of Boodlea blooming at Pearl and Hermes and may be further evidence that blooms are spreading throughout the archipelago.

Today was our second day of diving at Kure with sites from the forereef, backreef, and lagoon surveyed on each day. Although we have another day of reef assessment left at this atoll, our preliminary data and qualitative observations that we make while transiting from one site to another in the lagoon suggest that the severity of the Boodlea has declined at Kure. In witnessing this decline, I also noted evidence of Boodlea induced changes in the reef that were of particular interest to me.

Since Boodlea has the ability to over-grow or out-compete many coral species due to its more rapid growth rate, this species can quickly create a shading or light blocking effect, particularly surrounding or between the living portions of the coral Porites compressa. During Line Point Intercept surveys at one of our fairly shallow long-term lagoon monitoring sites yesterday, I noticed recently dead calcified red algae that normally thrive in light spectrums that are characteristic of dark shaded areas, under over-hangs or in much deeper water. All that remained of these delicate calcium depositing algae were their bleached-out white calcium carbonate crusts. I began to wonder if dense Boodlea mats once covered these portions of reef and were in fact creating conditions favorable for calcified red algal growth. Gently removing masses of spongy green algae soon answered my question. Yes!, I found healthy, thriving delicate calcified red algae underneath each piece of Boodlea that I removed. Considering that most calcified algae grow at and can deposit calcium carbonate more rapidly than most stony corals, I began to wonder if Boodlea blooms were actually helping a sinking atoll grow by creating more suitable habitat for coralline algal growth. Despite its bad reputation for over-growing coral in some places, it’s quite possible that there are great benefits that we don’t see upon initial superficial inspections.

Calcified red algae that typically grow in deep or dark shaded water were observed growing at shallow depths under dense sections of Boodlea at Kure in 2010.

Perhaps this served as a reminder to me that a good scientist has an objective mind rather than a judgmental one whom draws quick conclusions. It will be some time before we completely understand the net effect of Boodlea blooms at these atolls, but as for the blooming algae at the Olympic venue in Qingdao, well, I think I’ll plan to attend the London 2012 Olympics just in case their sailing venue has an algal bloom of comparable proportions.

Giant Trevallys

2010-09-19T08:21:00.000-10:00

By Kaylyn McCoy

My favorite part about visiting the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is being able to see the giant trevallys, also known as uluas, or Caranx ignobilis. Luckily, I’m a member of the fish team, so it’s my job to watch these guys swim around. Living on Oahu, I don’t see too many big fish, but out here is a different story. These atolls are so remote that these fish thrive.

A school of Caranx ignobilis in the shallows at French Frigate Shoals.

These uluas, also known as jacks (family Carangidae) are very curious, and usually come very close. It’s quite impressive to see a meter plus long fish swim directly up to you and stare you down while it swims around you. These species are the largest of the genus Caranx, and can grow up to 1.7 meters and weigh over 60 kilograms; that’s a lot of fish!

A curious fish comes in for a closer look.

The juveniles spend most of their time in estuaries or lagoons, while the adults can be found on the forereefs. They are usually silver in color, but the older adults can be mostly black. Giant trevallys are apex predators, and eat smaller fish and a variety of crustaceans. They use a varitey of hunting techniques, and have been known to follow sharks to ambush their prey.

It seems this ulua got a little too close to a shark.

Part of the equipment we carry with us on our fish dives is a monopod, or a meter long stick that we use to position a camera for benthic photos. Yesterday, I had a fiesty Caranx ignobilis, or CAIG (fish team short-hand: first two letters of the genus name, first two letters of the species name) actually bite the monopod while I was taking photos!

Paula Ayotte takes pictures using the monopod while several giant trevally circle her.

These fish are usually attracted to shiny objects, thinking that the shiny object is a small delicious fish. I’ve seen one nip the top of my buddy’s head as it went for a shiny sticker on his snorkel. These fish tend to follow us around on a dive, as we swim from one transect to the other, and they even hang out with us on our safety stop.

Several giant trevallys circle a shiny reel as it bobs at our safety stop.

Rumor has it that the brave/crazy ones will actually try to bite the propellers on the small boats…while they are spinning! It’s never a boring dive with these guys around!

Kure Atoll, the Darwin Point

2010-09-17T21:29:00.004-10:00

By Jamison Gove

We finished work at Pearl and Hermes Atoll today, and are now en route to Kure Atoll.

Kure Atoll lies at the northwest tip of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at 28.50° N, 178.50° W and marks the end of a long string of islands and atolls originating 2400 kilometers away at the island of Hawaii. Kure was formed roughly 35 million years ago when the sea floor beneath it was located over the same volcanic hotspot on which the Big Island is currently situated. In fact, Kure Atoll is the vestige of what was once a volcanic island, probably not too different than Lana’i, with an expansive fringing coral reef encircling the island. Through time, Kure has gradually moved to the northwest due to plate tectonics and has slowly subsided due to the weight and higher density of the volcanic island compared to the sea floor. The coral reef surrounding the island continued to grow upward staying near the sea surface, keeping pace with the island sinking. Eventually, the volcanic island was enveloped by the sea, leaving behind a large, circular lagoon surrounded by a ribbon of coral reef.

A Landsat satellite image of Kure Atoll

In addition to being located at the northern end of the Hawaiian Archipelago, Kure Atoll is the northernmost coral atoll in the world and also lies on the Darwin Point; the point marking the geographic extent in which coral reefs are able to exist. Corals require warm and clear tropical waters to photosynthesize, grow, and maintain their hard calcium-carbonate structures. In general, ocean water temperature decreases moving away (north or south) from the equator, reaching a point where temperatures are too cold for coral reefs to grow. This is the Darwin Point, named after Charles Darwin who devised a number of theories related to coral reefs in the 1800’s. Presently, the corals at Kure Atoll are growing slightly faster than the atoll is subsiding; however, as the Pacific Plate continues to move to the northwest, Kure will slowly move beyond the Darwin Point, sink below the ocean surface and no longer be the thriving coral reef ecosystem that we know today.

Hidden Diversity

2010-09-16T22:02:00.001-10:00

By Scott Godwin

I have had the privilege of participating in expeditions to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands every year since 1999. My participation has always involved documenting and collecting the hidden animals that make up a majority of the diversity on coral reefs. I am a marine invertebrate zoologist but I do not focus on corals. I instead look at the variety of invertebrate organisms evolved to use coral reefs as a home. Since these animals hide or are camouflaged, most people do not have many chances to see them while diving on coral reefs. While my colleagues are counting fish and documenting corals I usually am looking under rocks or have my head stuck in a hole. Most everyone is familiar with crabs, snails and sponges but do not realize the important role they play in the existence of coral reefs and that some of them represent our closest relatives in the ocean. Furthermore the beauty that these organisms possess can rarely be seen since they are able to hide so well.

A set of ARMS underwater at French Frigate Shoals, Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Photo by Scott Godwin

It is always a challenge to document and collect these hidden organisms with the short time allowed underwater on SCUBA. I was asked to participate on a project on this research cruise, which is being run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center, Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED). The CRED is partnering with the Census of Marine Life (CoML), Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems (CReefs) scientists in the development of Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) to provide a systematic, consistent, and comparable method to monitor these hidden organisms. These ARMS mimic the complex habitat present on a coral reef that is used by a variety of crabs, worms, sponges and other organisms. The ARMS are discrete structures composed of a series of stacked plates that can be placed on the seafloor, left for a certain time and then retrieved. This allows the collection and documentation of many different species that take up residence in the ARMS without damage to coral reef habitat. These organisms will be identified and documented through a combination of taxonomy and genetic methods. I am assisting CRED scientific staff in the retrieval and deployment of ARMS, as well as taxonomic documentation of specific coral reef organisms that are collected by the structures.

An ARMS plate with colonial sea squirts and bivalve mollusks. Photo by Kerry Grimshaw

I have spent many years identifying crabs in coral reef habitats throughout the tropical Pacific. We are attempting to use the variety of crab species documented from ARMS as an indicator of diversity in various coral reef habitats here in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Crabs are some of my favorite species to work with and I get to see species that are normally hard to collect under usual circumstances. I identify crab species collected everyday and help process all the other material. Crabs are one of the most diverse marine invertebrate groups found on coral reefs. They range from large carnivores that prowl the reef to small species that live within the arms of coral colonies.

The sponge Leucetta on natural reef habitat. Photo by Scott Godwin

There are a great number of other species that take up permanent residence on the ARMS but never move again; also known as sessile species. The most common species are tunicates, or sea squirts. These can exist as solitary species or multiple individuals that form a colony. Colonial tunicates are brightly colored and appear as a thin slimy layer on the ARMS plates. Sea squirts are in the Phylum Chordata, which also includes humans. These species along with sponges, clams and other sessile fauna consume food from the water column and are prey for other coral reef residents. Species like sea slugs, marine worms and hermit crabs consume sessile fauna as they move across surfaces. Sea slugs can be found on ARMS since they are attracted to the food provided by the sponges and colonial sea squirts. Other species like sea cucumbers and sea stars are found with the ARMS because ARMS provide a place of refuge. Since the ARMS are meant to mimic reef habitat a variety of mobile and sessile organism take up residence.

The crab Trapezia tigrina living within the branches of a coral. Photo by Scott Godwin

The ARMS team leader, Kerry Grimshaw, oversees the entire process to make sure we stick to set protocols and provide concise data. A typical day for the CRED ARMS team begins by diving on a site and retrieving three ARMS and replacing them with new ones. The ARMS are returned to the lab on the Hi`ialakai for processing. They must be dismantled and all the plates photographed before we begin removing target species. Everything is preserved in jars of ethanol at the end so that further analysis can be done by genetic researchers at a later date. This process begins in the early morning and takes all day. Many of the CRED researchers from other projects come by to help out when they return from diving. We see cool stuff every day and this helps make the long hours in the lab much easier.

The sea slug Chromodoris tinctoria. Photo by Scott Godwin

The species being documented by the CRED ARMS project represent the hidden diversity of a coral reef. The variety of animals mentioned above can be considered to be maintenance engineers for the coral reef. They consume excess organic material, provide food for many species, and integrate and recycle minerals important to reef structural integrity. The diversity and abundance of these hidden organisms can be considered a gauge of the condition of a coral reef. This is the reason behind the interest of the CRED in these organisms and the development of the ARMS program.

Pacific Lake

2010-09-16T11:06:00.002-10:00

By Edmund Coccagna

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands must geographically lie in one of the most consistent wind belts on earth. This statement may or may not be a meteorological fact (I’m actually sure that it is not), but is based purely on observation for this account. That being said, I feel it is a pretty legitimate observation having spent at least nine months of my life here and day in and day out having been blasted by the wind and its creation, waves. Wind chop on the water and passing squalls on the horizon are an everyday scene up here with the frigate birds flying high on the winds created by the fronts and the spinner dolphins riding the wind swell with ease. That’s just the way it is. A day like today, however, is an atmospheric anomaly. Calm. Still, actually. No wind. No waves. We might as well as rename it, the Pacific Lake.

Scientists who have frequented the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands over the past several years say that they've never seen the seas as calm as they were today. Much aloha to the weather gods for their continued mercy on us.

A flat day on the water in a small boat is a good day. It is particularly a blessing for the tow team as we often find ourselves surveying the windward sides of islands. It is standard business to get beat up and bounced around, used and abused to utter exhaustion, but that is one reason the Towed Diver survey method exists and works well. The windward sides of these islands often make stationary surveys, such as the Line Point Intercept or Coral Belt surveys conducted by the Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) team, impossible because of currents, surge, and various other oceanographic conditions. For towed divers, all we have to do is hold on to our tow boards as we’re literally towed behind a small boat. It sounds difficult, but we’ve got it down to a science.

Towed diver Marie Ferguson conducting a fish towed-diver survey at Pearl and Hermes Reef (note the sharks in the background).

We expected nothing but smooth sailing when we saw the conditions today; however, the calm conditions actually made surveying our intended sites difficult! The funny thing is that we planned to survey a couple backreef sites, where the water is almost always calm and pleasant. We look forward to the break that backreef tows provide, yet today was a different scenario. The water was too calm! When the water is in this state in combination with a sunny day, the surface of the water acts like a mirror and makes it impossible to see what lies beneath. This is a hazard to navigation on the backreef, as we target very shallow water and can’t afford to run aground in the SafeBoat, our vessel of choice. Due to this problem, we were forced to restructure our daily survey plan and head back out to the forereef where the water is deep and allows some flexibility when you encounter a mirrored ocean.

The towed-diver team, Edmund Coccagna, Benjamin Richards, Marie Ferguson and Jeff Anderson, heading out for the day onboard the SafeBoat.

On the forereef, conditions were splendid and we were able to complete our 6 tows despite the minor navigational setbacks and brutal work conditions. I mention the word “brutal” only because the lack of wind provided for a very intense heat which really does take a lot out of you. Imagine baking yourself in an oven for 8 hours straight. Sounds great, right? It only makes jumping in the water that much more enjoyable, especially when you get to witness a truly chilling experience, an underwater “snow” storm.

Close-up of the towed-diver's equipment, the towboard, which is equipped with a SeaBird to capture temperature and depth, a timer, and either a still or video camera to document the habitat and fish presence.

As my dive partner, Marie, and I descended to the bottom, we dropped through a cloud of plankton. Typically this is an upsetting occurrence for a diver because it reduces visibility and everyone would prefer to see what’s coming from a long ways away when diving in a predator-dominated ecosystem. Our attitudes quickly changed though when our towlines grew tight and we began our flight through the water and it’s abundance of plankton. When being towed through this setting, it feels just as though you are in the middle of a snow storm, minus the chilling temperatures and misery. Life is good at Pearl and Hermes. The water is a toasty 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the sun is shining, the weather is sweet, and we can only hope that the weather holds for tomorrow.

Click the picture below to view the "It's snowing" video clip.

What is a Chief Scientist?

2010-09-14T20:00:00.002-10:00

By Peter Vroom

I have been a scientist working at the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) for 9 years, and started serving as Chief Scientist aboard our Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) research expeditions in 2004. When our program was smaller, the Chief Scientist had to start preparing for research expeditions months in advance by writing preliminary cruise instructions, finding staff available for our 1-3 month long cruises either internally from CRED or else from partnering agencies, writing permits, deciding on cruise itineraries, making sure that all participating scientists had their medical forms and diving qualifications up to date, and dealing with myriad other issues. Fortunately, our program has grown substantially, and we now have staff to help the Chief Scientist with the majority of these pre-cruise operations. For this particular cruise to the NWHI, many thanks need to go to Kevin Lino, Bonnie DeJoseph, and Faith Opatrny for their many hours of work on permits, staffing, and pre-cruise instructions.

Scientists from the REA teams assembled in the “dry lab” before morning launch. Clockwise from front left: Erin Looney, Rodney Withall, Zoe Dagan, Kerry Grimshaw, Scott Godwin, Paula Ayotte (our shipboard “Rockette”), Peter Vroom, and Cristi Richards.

While at sea, the Chief Scientist typically works out in the field collecting data alongside our research divers. I am an algal biologist, and study the plant communities associated with reef systems. On this particular cruise, I fulfill several roles depending on the needs of the individual teams. For instance, so far I have served as a safety diver for our oceanography team, I have served as a Line Point Intercept (LPI) diver collecting benthic percent cover information for our benthic REA team, and I’ve served as an Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS) processor for our ARMS team. Although all the roles I fulfill are interesting, I was particularly fascinated by the ARMS. These structures will be discussed in significantly greater detail by Scott Godwin in the September 16 blog; however, ARMS are essentially boxes with many compartments in which cryptic invertebrates settle. While taking these boxes apart, we found many species of brittle stars, sea cucumbers, tunicates, bryozoans, crabs, worms, snails, oysters, shrimp, and even fish. The list of organisms is staggering, and the diversity and array of colors of the animals was beautiful.

Getting ready to launch HI-2. Kaylyn McCoy, Peter Vroom, and Cristi Richards. On this particular morning, Vroom and Richards served as safety divers for the oceanography team. However, because of weight limitations associated with launching the small boast, they were launched in HI-2, and then transferred to the crowded oceanography boat once away from the Hi`ialakai.

After a day of diving, most scientists on board have dinner and begin entering their data into the ship’s database. For me, I eat dinner, and then hold a meeting with all the team leads to review the operations that occurred that day, and discuss operations for the next day. On this cruise, the team leads are: Danny Merritt (oceanography), Edmund Coccagna (towed diver surveys), Rodney Withall (benthic REA surveys), Kaylyn McCoy (fish REA surveys), and Annette DesRochers (data management). Based on their input, I record all the types of surveys that occurred and incorporate them into a cruise report, which I work on every night. After meeting with the team leads, I meet with the Hi`ialakai’s Operations Officer, Tony Perry, to present our work plan for the next day. Together, we decide on the safest place for the Hi`ialakai to launch small boats that is close enough to our work area so that long transits by the small boats can be avoided.

Evening planning meeting involving Chief Scientist and Team Leads. Clockwise from from left: Edmund Coccagna (towed diver team lead), Rodney Withall (benthic team lead), Kaylyn McCoy (fish team lead), Peter Vroom (chief scientist), and Danny Merritt (oceanography team lead).

Being in charge of a RAMP expedition is fairly straightforward if everything is running smoothly. However, while at sea, rarely do things ever always run smoothly! In addition to the normal daily routine of the Chief Scientist discussed above, numerous other unplanned issues take up my time, but also help keep my days interesting. One this particular cruise, we have had several unexpected issues arise. As one example, ARMS deployments are fairly new, and this is only the second research trip where we are starting to collect and process ARMS. During our last cruise to American Samoa, the ARMS processing protocol we used generated ethanol waste, which was effectively and safely disposed of at sea in a manner that did not harm wildlife or impact the environment. However, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument has stricter, no discharge, rules than American Samoa, and we realized after we departed that we would not be able to dispose of our ethanol waste in the same manner as American Samoa. Our ARMS team (Kerry Grimshaw and Scott Godwin), the CO, and myself met several time to try and find alternate ways to dispose of the waste ethanol, store the waste ethanol on board the ship, or else change the ARMS protocol in order not to generate ethanol waste. With the aid of our Division Chief, Rusty Brainard, and numerous colleagues involved in ARMS research around the world, we figured out a slight change to the protocol that eliminated all ethanol waste, yet still allowed for effective processing of the ARMS. Not only did we creatively find a way to comply with important environmental regulations, but we potentially devised a method that eliminates waste altogether, which is always a good thing!

During and after the cruise, the Chief Scientist is responsible for writing and submitting a final cruise report that lists and discusses all the accomplishments that occurred during the research expedition. Considering that our expedition collects all the types of data listed below, you can imagine how important it is to make sure the cruise report is well organized and methodical. Otherwise it would be very difficult to understand exactly what we accomplished.

This CRED RAMP cruise is collecting:

REA Benthic Surveys:
• Digital still photos of overall site character and typical benthos
• Digital images of benthic organisms from photoquadrat surveys
• Quantitative assessments of benthic composition from line-point-intercept surveys
• Algal voucher specimens necessary for algal species identification
• Field notes of algal species diversity and relative abundance
• Number of coral colonies by genus, within belt transects of known area, and overall coral colony density
• Size-class metrics of corals within belt transects of known area
• Tissue samples of diseased corals for histopathological analysis
• Samples of diseased algae for histopathological analysis
• Digital photographs of diseased corals and algae
• Field notes on signs of coral bleaching or disease
• Assessment of calcification rates from collected cores of massive reef building corals

REA Fish Surveys:
• Number, species, and estimated sizes of all fishes observed within a 7.5-m radius from stationary-point-count surveys
• Visual estimates of benthic cover, habitat type, and habitat complexity
• Digital still photographs to characterize benthic coral reef community cover
• Digital photographs of rare or interesting fish species
• Species presence checklists for estimates of fish community diversity

Towed-diver Surveys:
• Digital photographs and video of benthic habitats
• Temperature data
• Counts of non-coral invertebrates, including crown-of-thorns seastars, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins
• Quantitative assessments of large (≥ 50 cm in total length) reef fishes to species level
• Quantitative and qualitative assessments of key protected species and species of concern, including cetaceans, sea turtles, and rare fishes (< 50 cm total length)
• Benthic habitat characterization

Shipboard Oceanography:
• Deepwater CTD profiles to 500 m
• CTD sensor includes dissolved oxygen, turbidity, fluorescence and pH measurements
• Chl-a and nutrient concentrations from water samples collected at variable depths
• Transects of profiles of ocean current velocity and direction collected using a shipboard ADCP unit
• Solar radiation, air temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction
• Surface pCO2 measurements
• Surface temperature and salinity measurements

Nearshore Oceanography from Small Boats:
• Shallow-water CTD profiles to a depth of ~ 30 m (water samples not taken)
• Shallow-water CTD profiles at all CAU sites with dissolved oxygen and fluorescence measurements
• Chl-a and nutrient concentrations from water samples collected in concert with shallow-water (≤ 30 m) CTD casts
• Chl-a, nutrient, salinity and carbonate chemistry samples from all CAU sites
• DIC and salinity concentrations from water samples collected in concert with shallow-water (≤ 30 m) CTD casts

Moored Biological Instruments:
• Environmental acoustics of reefs, marine mammals, and boat traffic from EARs
• Assessment of taxonomic diversity of coral reef species by collection of invertebrate specimens from retrieved ARMS
• Acoustic Doppler Profiler data
• Location of Calcification Acidification Units (CAUs) deployed
• Remote Auto Sampler – temporary high resolution carbonate chemistry

Moored Oceanographic Instruments:
• Sea-surface and subsurface temperature at variable depths
• Sea-surface and subsurface salinity at variable depths
• Spectral wave and tidal elevation
• Single-point and directional ocean currents
• Subsurface pH measurements at variable depths
• Surface air temperature, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, and ultraviolet radiation

Being Chief Scientist requires that I understand the science and goals behind the different types of sampling we are conducting. If bad weather prevents us from diving for one or more days, the Chief Scientist has to understand the implications of missing data to the overall statistical sampling strategy, and then make the best decisions possible to insure that we continue to collect the best data possible. Being Chief Scientist is personally rewarding for me because I know that the data we are collecting is helping to make a difference to understand our oceans, and potentially mitigate the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification.

Morning Madness

2010-09-14T09:57:00.000-10:00

By Annette DesRochers

Most if not all of the activities that take place on the ship are pretty much routine for the ‘veterans’ who have participated in numerous research cruises onboard the Hi’ialakai. As one of very few newbies participating on this cruise I find many of these activities new and exciting, which may be entertaining to those same salty veterans, especially when I’m running around trying to photograph every detail. This is especially apparent in the mornings, when I eagerly awake to participate, or at least be present for, what I like to call “Morning Madness”.

Deck hand Mark O’Connor operates the crane to maneuver small boat HI-3 from its cradle.

“Rubber Duck”, the Oceanography team’s small boat, is craned across the stern of the ship.

On the first day of dive operations at French Frigate Shoals, I was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the dry lab (our “Office at Sea”) along with everyone else that busy morning. A few suggested that I should still be in bed or reading the paper while drinking my morning coffee. You see, my role on this cruise is Data Manager and so while all of the divers were hastily prepping their dive gear, gathering their survey equipment, donning their wetsuits, and gobbling their breakfasts, technically I could have been hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock. Really though, there is no way to sleep through the flurry of activity that occurs each morning, and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to, and I especially didn’t want to that first morning.

HI-2, one of the two fish team boats, is lowered from its davits alongside the ship to the loading deck.

Deck hands Chris, Scott, and Rich load gear onto HI-3, the second fish team boat.

For most of the divers, alarm clocks are set for 6:00 am. In the hour until breakfast is served, the divers have to gather and stage all of their survey and dive equipment, grab their lunch and water coolers, and make sure that the SCUBA tanks they’ve checked the night before are in the proper place before they are craned onto the loading deck at 6:45 am. Then it’s breakfast at 7:00 am sharp, dive safety meeting at 7:30 am, and then the queue to load and launch the small boats begins. It really is something to see when 19 SCUBA divers, 5 boat coxswains, 4 deck hands, plus the NOAA Corps officers work together to load, board, and launch 5 small boats off the Hi’ialakai in about 1 hour.

Divers and gear are loaded onto HI-2.

The Benthic team is ready and waiting to launch on board small boat HI-1.

What I hadn’t realized is that 3 of the 5 small boats are launched from the ship by a crane, and 2 are launched from davits. As I eagerly waited for the operations to begin, camera in hand, I also quickly learned that the crew takes the operations very seriously when they’re underway. Safety is of the utmost concern when the boats are being craned; hard hats and life vests are a must and when they’re operating the cranes, its best just to stay out of the way. One by one, small boats are craned from their cradle to the side of the ship, or lowered carefully from their davits straight downward. Once in position, the gear is loaded onto the boat, the divers board, and the boat is lowered to the water. The lines and crane hooks are carefully released when the order is given, and the coxswain drives off to the team’s first survey site of the day. Some of the teams visit only one survey site before returning to the ship (you’ll learn more about ARMS in the next couple of days), however, most of the teams are out on the small boats all day, returning to the ship just before dinner. The choreography from the morning’s operations is essentially repeated as the boats return to the ship, only in reverse.

The towed-diver team, onboard the Safeboat, is slowly and carefully lowered to the water as the deck hands signal to each other.

Benthic team member Jason Helyer and deck hand Guy Maurizio, release the crane hooks from HI-1.

We’ve been lucky so far during this cruise that Mother Nature has been kind to us; the weather and seas have been perfect. It’s hard to imagine what those launch operations entail when conditions are less than ideal. I’ve especially been grateful, not just for my colleagues who’ve had an easier time during their daily dive operations, but for my sake as well as I have yet to be struck by seasickness during this trip. Hopefully Mother Nature will continue to be kind to us during the rest of our time here.

HI-1 is released and the Benthic team is on its way to conduct the first round of surveys at Pearl and Hermes Reef.

The Remote Access Sampler (RAS) unit, deployed for the first time during this cruise at Pearl and Hermes Reef, was launched just after the Oceanography team.

Down time?

2010-09-13T10:36:00.002-10:00

By Paula Ayotte

Benthic team members Erin Looney and Rodney Withall discuss algal specimens.

The past couple of days were spent transiting from French Frigate Shoals (FFS) to our next destination approximately 600 nautical miles away, Pearl and Hermes Reef (PHR). Although it’s the weekend and we’re not diving, these aren’t days off for us; everyone is still busy working. Whether catching up on data entry, quality-checking data that’s already been entered, prepping gear and boats, downloading GPS points and making maps for the sites we’ll be visiting, participating in drills, or writing reports—with the myriad of tasks to be accomplished, it seems there is always something to do. Even if I’ve finished everything on my to-do list, as part of the fish team I can always review my identifications for fish we expect to find here. There are quite a few fish species that not only look very different as juveniles than they do as sub-adults, or males and females, but they can also vary in appearance between islands and across the Pacific.

Invertebrate zoologist Scott Godwin examines invertebrates collected from the Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS).

Because fish abundances and diversity are associated with the benthic habitat, we also are collecting basic information on coral and algae cover, habitat type, and complexity of the reef. We do this by taking photos of the survey area and of the substrate and by making visual estimates. Luckily, we have experts on board who can give us helpful hints on how to differentiate between coral, macroalgae, crustose coralline algae, and turf algae. Even more identifications to practice during transit!

Oceanography team members Jamie Gove and Frank Mancini prepare the Remote Access Sampler (RAS) for deployment.

Another way we make use of our time when we’re not in the water is by working out. Hauling tanks, dive gear, and heavy equipment while climbing in and out of the small boats can be physically demanding, and luckily there is a gym on board to help us stay in shape and prevent injuries. As a shorter petite female, I find that a consistent routine of weight-lifting, abdominal crunches and stretching is necessary for me to be able to don scuba gear that is almost half my body weight and complete four to five dives on a daily basis. Having two days out of the water to catch up, work out, and dry out after four days of diving at FFS is a perfect way to recharge and gear up for the next round of diving that lies ahead. We’ll be at PHR and Kure for the next eight days and while I know that I’ll be glad for the relief that the next transit day will bring, for now I’m looking forward to jumping back in and counting fish.

Scientists work on abdominal strength while crew members work on jet boat HI-1.

Scientists Kaylyn McCoy, Erin Looney, and Paula Ayotte take advantage of the shipboard gym facilities.

Coral reefs through time: what happened at site FFS-12?

2010-09-12T12:32:00.008-10:00

By Jason Helyer

Two summers ago I participated on my first research cruise to the NWHI. As one of four benthic divers, I counted corals, identifying them to species, measuring their size, and estimating how much of each colony was alive and whether it was healthy or diseased. All surveys were done at historic monitoring sites that were marked with stainless steel transect markers and on this cruise we are re-surveying sites that we visited in 2008. Once again, I am measuring corals along the same permanently marked transects and I am looking forward to seeing how sites in the NWHI have changed over the last two years.

Out of all the reefs that we surveyed in 2008, the one that I was most excited to re-visit was FFS-12 located just south of Disappearing Island, a small sand spit in the southern region of French Frigate Shoals (FFS). In 2008, FFS-12 was characterized by massive tabulate coral, Acropora cytherea, which were so abundant that colonies often overlapped, creating a magnificent home for corals and other invertebrates. Acropora corals are extremely rare across the Hawaiian Archipelago but they are fairly common at FFS where in a few locations, such as FFS-12, these coral dominate the benthos.

As we approached the site from our small boat, I gathered my snorkel gear in preparation for our first task: to free-dive and locate the permanent transect markers. As soon as our boat driver gave the okay, I rolled into the water anxious to see the impressive table corals. Once the bubbles from the engine cleared, I dove down and immediately noticed a dramatic difference from my last dive at FFS-12. Instead of the magnificent field of pink table coral that we saw in 2008, the reef appeared gray and many of the large colonies were absent being replaced by dead coral and small fragments of live coral. Obviously, a major disturbance had occurred since 2008!

Indeed, the first major hurricane originating from the central Pacific since Hurricane Ioke in 2006, passed through the NWHI in late October, 2009. Hurricane Neki was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached the NWHI on October 23, 2009, but the storm passed directly over FFS creating large southerly waves and strong winds. Little damage was reported at Tern Island, the only populated island at FFS; however the wind and waves generated by the storm caused Disappearing Island to… well… DISAPPEAR! These conditions likely caused the damage that we observed at the relatively shallow (30 feet) reef at FFS-12.

Click on the image to view the high resolution version

While I was saddened by the large impact that Hurricane Neki had on one of my favorite reefs in the NWHI, it is important to view this event from its ecological as well as historical context. Hurricanes are natural phenomena and coral reefs have evolved ways to cope with these disturbances. Hurricane Neki was the first major storm in the Hawaiian Archipelago since Hurricane Iniki in 1992, and Neki’s storm swell created large, powerful southerly waves that are rare in the NWHI. Therefore, southerly reefs in the NWHI such as FFS-12 grew with relatively little disturbances for a LONG time which could explain the numerous large colonies that were common prior to October 2009!

In 2010, few colonies had diameters larger than 1 meter, with most colonies being fragments or broken pieces of former colonies. This is one mode of asexual reproduction called “coral fragmentation” where one colony is broken into smaller colonies which can reattach to the reef and begin to grow again. Fragmentation may be an important mode of reproduction for some coral species and may be especially important for corals in the NWHI because of the islands remote location that rarely receive coral larvae (babies) from other reefs in the Pacific (which is another mode of reproduction: sexual). Therefore, storms may be important for growth of the tabulate Acropora population at FFS, as they break up larger colonies and spread their fragments around the reef.

Only time will tell how the Acropora corals at FFS-12 will recover. The remote location and protected status of Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument ensures that recovery will not be complicated by anthropogenic activities such as coastal development and runoff, but this status does not safeguard these reefs from global climate change and related effects from ocean acidification. However, recovery may depend most on the frequency of large southerly waves events. Who knows, if the NWHI are spared from a major hurricane over the next decade or two, we may expect the reef at FFS-12 to once again be dominated by large tabulate corals and the extent of the reef may even grow in size!

A day in the lives of the Oceanography Team

2010-09-11T09:42:00.006-10:00

By Danny Merritt

Day 1 of operations at French Frigate Shoals was a good example of a typical day for the oceanography team, which is to say, there is no typical day. Unlike most of the teams on RAMP cruises which have very specific tasks to perform every day, the oceanography team performs a range of activities that are ever changing. In fact, “Oceanography Team” is a bit of a misnomer, starting with the makeup of the team itself.

Russell Reardon and Danny Merritt in the Oceanography Team launch “Rubber Duck” (photo by Frank Mancini)

The only true oceanographer on the team is Jamie Gove who earned his M.S. degree in Physical Oceanography and is currently working on his Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography. Frank Mancini has spent his life around the water from New Jersey to Palau working on a multitude of projects. He is currently CRED’s oceanographic data manager. Russell Reardon works his day job as part of CRED’s marine debris program and facilities logistics. I’m an ocean engineer and tend to work with all of CRED’s programs.

The team started the day by replacing a sea surface temperature buoy (SST buoy). One of the unique tasks that the oceanography team performs are called “Working Dives.” SCUBA diving safety rules are set by the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA). Several decades ago, both recreational and scientific diving agencies successfully lobbied the government to get exemptions to several of the OSHA rules. Nearly all of CRED’s diving falls under these scientific exemptions allowing us to dive using Nitrox and dive without surface diving support. For a few of our dives, however, mostly involving heavy weights or power equipment, the OSHA rules still apply. The 250 lb SST buoy anchors require us to follow these rules. To meet the requirements, we enlisted the help of chief scientist Peter Vroom and Cristi Richards to act as our topside safety divers, making our little 19’ boat feel more cramped than usual.

Frank Mancini and Jamison Gove performing a lift bag operation of a 250lb SST anchor (photo by Danny Merritt)

The SST buoys are tethered to this 250lb anchor. The anchors are lifted and dropped using lift bags. By filling these bags with air, enough water is displaced to lift heavy objects. Air compresses and expands at different depths, however, so the diver controlling the weight is constantly having to adjust the buoyancy of the bag by adding air or releasing it.

These buoys are able to telemeter temperature data to our computers back in Honolulu via satellite 6 times a day in near real-time. This allows us to remotely monitor SST throughout the year. The data also help scientists to ground-truth satellite derived temperature data which tends to measure temperature over broad areas and has trouble collecting data through clouds and near land. Water near land or reefs is much more dynamic than in open-ocean water and therefore satellite derived temperatures do not always match what is happening near the reefs.

Next, the team deployed and recovered a subsurface temperature recorder (STR). We place these temperature sensors at multiple locations to monitor temperatures on the reefs every 30 minutes for the entire 2 year period between visits to islands and atolls. Temperature is a relatively easy and inexpensive parameter to measure over a long period of time, but it can tell us a lot about the physical oceanography that the reefs are experiencing. CRED’s temperature sensors are also very precise and accurate instruments that will allow us to insure that any changes we measure over time are associated with long-term environmental changes and not due to errors in the instrument itself.

Jamie Gove installing a STR (photo by Danny Merritt)

For the final dive of the day, we installed calcification acidification units (CAUs), collected water samples, and took a shallow conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) cast. CTD casts are one of the main tools oceanographers have been using to study the ocean for decades. Most casts are performed from large ships in very deep water; however, CRED also conducts these casts in much shallower waters around coral reefs to measure the water that is actually interacting with the reef. In addition to the standard salinity, temperature and depth sensors on our CTD, we also measure dissolved oxygen levels, and we have a transmissometer attached which essentially measures the amount of particulate matter in the water. Furthermore, we have been collecting nutrient and chlorophyll grab samples to measure the waters basic productive capacity and primary productivity levels.

Jamie Gove installing a CAU stake (photo by Danny Merritt)

In more recent years, CRED has been making strides to understand the effects of increased carbon in the nearshore reef waters. The ocean is absorbing a large portion of the increased carbon dioxide that has been released into the atmosphere since industrialization. While that process removes excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, it makes the ocean less basic. The pH scale goes from 0 (acid) to 14 (base) with 7 being neutral. Most ocean waters are slightly basic on the pH scale, usually measuring in the 8’s. Increased carbon levels are moving ocean waters towards the neutral level making it more difficult for anything that creates a calcium carbonate shell, such as coral reefs, to grow. In order to better understand the chemistry that is happening due to these processes, CRED collects dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA) water samples. Further, as a way of directly measuring calcification rates on the reefs (i.e. how fast reef is growing), CRED and its partners at Scripps Oceanographic Institute developed CAU’s, which are simply a pair of 4 inch square plates that are mounted to the bottom. In 2 years, the plates will be collected and calcium carbonate growth on the plates will be measured directly (see previous posting from Cristi Richards).

All this was done just in time to get back to the ship, clean gear, shower, eat, download instruments, process data, assist the ships survey technician with night time operations and prepare our gear for another day on the water do any number of jobs.

I wanted to be a fireman, or a dentist, or a PHYCOLOGIST

2010-09-10T09:26:00.014-10:00

By Rodney Withall

When most people think of surveying coral reefs, they often can’t visualize all that is involved or the enormous number of observations that make up an integrated Coral Reef observation system such as being conducted on this cruise to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Oceanographers are deploying and recovering instrumentation that record physical parameters as well as collecting water for chemical and biochemical analysis, fish biologists are recording fish abundance and biomass, coral biologists are recording the abundance and diversity of corals along with their state of health (healthy vs. bleached or diseased), and phycologists are recording the abundance and diversity of macroalgae.

There are many disciplines of research within the field of marine biology, and thus many different roles that each diver fulfills in our task to survey and study change within reef ecosystems on temporal and spatial scales. I’m fortunate enough to be one of the rare and highly prized phycologists. Often mistaken with Psychologist, someone whom helps you deal with personal issues and mental disorders, my profession is very different. “Phykos” is the Greek word for algae and “ologist” is of course one who studies a particular subject. Studying algae for a living and visiting places like the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is a pretty satisfying way to live. Algal taxonomy and understanding the diversity of marine macroalgae is of particular interest to me and is facilitated by our normal monitoring program that takes us to remote islands and atolls throughout the Pacific.

Algae are often collected, identified, and pressed on herbarium paper to create voucher specimens that serve as examples or records of a given species. Since only a few individuals of each algal species are required to create a voucher specimen, this can be done with virtually no impact on the population or the environment from which the algae are collected. In some cases an algal specimen is collected that differs (perhaps ever so slightly) from all those recorded in the literature and future study results in the discovery and description of a new species. This is not uncommon in science, particularly the field of algal taxonomy.

I was especially excited to have the opportunity to dive La Perouse pinnacle while at French Frigate Shoals. In the 10-years of reef surveys in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by our division, only three biological species completely new to science have been discovered and described in literature, all being species of marine algae, two collected at La Perouse, and all discovered by the chief scientist of this cruise. The two rare collections from La Perouse became known as Scinaia huismannii (named after the phycologist John Huisman) and Acrosymphyton brainardii (named after our division chief Rusty Brainard). In the numerous visits to French Frigate Shoals since these discoveries, these two species have rarely been collected. As a result, specimens or vouchers of these two relatively new species are quite rare.

Diving around La Perouse is not only one of the favorite dive sites of many working on the ship, but for me, also translates to an opportunity to (1) discover and observe the two previously mentioned species in the field, and (2) discover that this location may have more than just two new species of algae, and maybe I could discover one today.

We descended to our REA site at La Perouse, the same site where S. huismannii and A. brainardii were collected 10-years earlier. In addition to documenting the percent cover of each coral genus and algal species, part of our survey protocol involves recording macroalgal diversity at a given site within 5 meters of the transect line. If these two algal species or even a new species are present at this site, then this is where I’ll find it. I searched an area 5 meters wide on both sides of the transect over its entire length (50 meters) then expanded to include additional habitats such as overhangs and dark crevices (preferred habitat of red algae). My search turned up the greatest diversity of red algae that I have recorded since our surveys began at French Frigate Shoals including some rare observations. However, unfortunately after almost 80-minutes underwater, my search became limited by an exhausted air supply and I had to surface without finding additional examples of S. huismannii, A. brainardii, or finding something potentially new that I could describe and name after someone whom I thought to be influential.

Despite not finding particular seaweeds of interest or making new discoveries at La Perouse on this particular expedition, this REA site still hosts high coral and algal diversity, healthy coral populations including abundant Acropora. There are many days of diving ahead of us on this cruise at many sites in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that have similar potential for new and exciting discoveries. I look forward to every dive where I’ll continue to keep an eye out for cryptic species or something new and interesting while conducting my underwater surveys.

Cows in our oceans?

2010-09-08T23:42:00.000-10:00

By Cristi Richards

We have finished our second day of diving at French Frigate Shoals and work has been going well. The skies have been sunny and despite a small cold front that came through a few days ago, the seas aren't too rough. I'm glad for calm seas, especially because my role on this cruise is part of the installation team for Calcification Acidification Units or CAUs, which we affectionately pronounce 'cows'. These are small plastic plates sandwiched on a bolt and then threaded onto a stainless steel pin. We install a set of these CAUs at 5 survey sites per island and when the weather is calm, installation is much easier. These plates will act as settlement structures for calcifying organisms such as coral and algae. In two years, when we return to these sites, we will collect the CAUs to find out what organisms are present and how much they have grown. When I say 'calcifying organisms' I am referring to plants and animals that grow by producing their own calcium carbonate skeletons. Calcium carbonate is a hard, rock-like substance that corals and algae create from nutrients that are available in the sea water through a chemical process known as accretion or calcification. It is also the main component in pearls, eggshells and the shells of marine animals.

A calcification acidification unit, or CAU (pronounced cow), acts as a settlement structure for calcifying organisms such as corals and algae. By monitoring these organisms, scientists hope to better understand how they are affected by the changing chemistry of our oceans.

Why is this important to study? As the world's atmosphere changes due to the burning of fossil fuels and other natural and human influences, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide are affecting the world's oceans. Specifically, carbon dioxide that is being added to the atmosphere is being absorbed into the oceans where it forms carbonic acid – changing the chemistry of the whole ocean. Over the last 20 years, scientists have seen a rise in acidity levels of oceans around the world, which is impressive given their immense volume. Actually, the rate of this increase in acidity has changed from approximately 20% in the 1990s to 30% from 2000 to 2010. This is a significant increase in the rate that ocean acidity is changing and is the fastest increase documented since the industrial revolution. This increased acidity may have significant implications for the coral and algal communities, which would in turn affect numerous fish species, many of which are important food resources.

The amount of calcium carbonate that calcifying coral and algae are able to create is directly affected by the acidity of the water around them. Scientists are concerned that if pH levels drop too low, corals and algae won't be able to produce as much calcium carbonate. This has been shown to occur in laboratory experiments and in some areas of the Great Barrier Reef. A question that needs to be answered is, if the pH gets too low, will they be able to produce their skeletons at all? This is important because without a skeleton to provide protection from predators, the corals and algae won't survive.

It may not appear important to protect such small, and seemingly insignificant members of the ocean community, however the affect of these calcifying coral and algal species is far reaching. Beaches are dear to many people's hearts and to the economics of many coastal cities. Much of the sand that makes up our beaches is produced by Halimeda – one type of calcifying algae that could be in danger. This marine plant produces calcified, rock-like segments that break off and contribute to the sand on many of the Pacific beaches and it is estimated that Halimeda accounts for 30% of the sand production in some areas of the world. Calcifying algal species also provide a base for corals to settle and grow on, and provide food for many of the fish living on the reef. Without a place to settle, the number of corals and the structure they provide could decrease. Many of the fishes that hide among coral branches as juveniles would then be easier targets for predators. These same small fish are important to humans for food and are the base of the food chain for many of the larger fish that humans also eat. You may be getting the idea that the relationships between all of these organisms are very complicated, and you would be right. Everything is connected; starting with the unassuming alga and leading to the fish served on your dinner plate while overlooking a sandy beach while you are on vacation. The atmosphere affects the water, affecting the coral and algae that affect the fish and then our economy and a portion of our food supply.

To try to simplify and figure out some of these relationships, we are trying to break them down, studying one aspect at a time. Our hope is that by monitoring what species are building calcium carbonate structures and how much they are building, we will have an idea of how or if corals and algae are being able to adapt to the changing chemistry of the oceans. Will there be a change in how the skeletons are built or in their density? Will corals have sufficient protection with a skeleton that is less dense? Will the skeletons break down more easily during storms? If the algal skeleton that contributes to beach formation is not as dense, will it break down more easily leading to faster beach erosion? Installing CAUs is just one step in answering these questions. It is important for scientists to answer these questions so that we can determine how healthy our reefs are and can better predict their course for the future.

First Day of Dive Surveys

2010-09-07T22:37:00.010-10:00

By Jeff Anderson

Arriving on station late yesterday afternoon, this morning brought the beginning of dive surveys for this cruise. The activity of the morning resembled the well-orchestrated hustle and bustle of the city loading and launching the small boats carrying all the dive scientists to their stations. Reflecting on the trip of the last couple days, it has been quite a transition – a transition from the heavily populated, high mountains of Oʻahu, with its noise, light, and other forms of pollution, passing the high islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, entering the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument where the only noise is the whistling wind and rolling waves, and countless stars shine in clean night skies, passing the rocky cliffs of Moku Manu (Nihoa) and Mokumanamana (Necker Island), finally arriving at the atoll of French Frigate Shoals. Steaming into the sunset each night en-route to this remote place, it is easy to understand the spiritual connection Hawaiians have with this special place.

Despite the remoteness of this fragile unique marine ecosystem (this place is home to dozens of marine flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world), it is still critically important for these RAMP cruises to continue visiting on their periodic schedule as yet another transition is occurring – the transition to seas influenced from afar by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and the associated increase in air and sea temperatures along with the potential for the ocean to become increasingly acidic as it absorbs more CO2 from the air. Documenting scientifically how these ecosystems out of reach of local stressors can help resource managers make informed decisions about how to help protect them in the face of this transition.

Photo by Jeff Anderson

Another transition occurring today was the transition from a ship-bound cruise to being in the field conducting dive surveys. I participate on the Towed Diver team, conducting the types of surveys described in the blog posting below entitled, “Perspectives Of Underwater Flight: Towed-Diver Surveys Around The Line Islands.” Today was a first for me in another way besides being the first dive of this cruise. This was my first dive on my first trip to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Whether it was the brown booby and tern escorts we had traveling above our small boat from the ship to the dive sites, or the jacks that traveled with us occasionally during the dives, the “locals” seemed to be curious and welcoming of the strangers visiting their home. The 5 dives our small team conducted today didn’t seem to reveal anything out-of-the-ordinary from past RAMP cruises. We did see a few small clusters of Crown of Thorn Sea Stars, Acanthaster plancii, and there were not any areas of extensive coral bleaching, both preliminary findings being good news.

The team and project on which I participate is one of about 6 or so occurring on this cruise. Neither 1 project nor one day of diving tell the whole story, so stay tuned to the blog for more reports from the other scientists. Together, we hope to gain more understanding about the ongoing health of the fragile marine ecosystem within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

Approaching French Frigate Shoals

2010-09-06T17:38:00.012-10:00

By Kerry Grimshaw

After 2 and ½ days of transiting through vast blue ocean with no sight of land, we have arrived at our first destination for this cruise – French Frigate Shoals!

French Frigate Shoals (FFS) is the largest atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It was named by the French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse, who nearly lost two frigates (ships) when attempting to navigate through the treacherous shoals. The atoll is made up of a 20-mile long crescent-shaped reef, twelve sandbars, and the 120’ high La Perouse Pinnacle, the lone reminder of its volcanic origins. Near dawn or dusk the pinnacle has been said to have the appearance of a sailing ship, often attracting approaching ships that then subsequently foundered on the shoals and reefs surrounding it.

120’ high La Perouse Pinnacle, French Frigate Shoals

FFS first played a part in WW2 when it was included in the Japanese plans to refuel seaplanes from submarines in the sheltered waters of the atoll, as part of their larger campaign to conquer Midway Island. By mid 1942, increasing U.S. naval activity in the area prevented further Japanese use. After the Battle of Midway, the U.S. Navy built a Naval Air Station on Tern Island, enlarging the island sufficiently to support a 3,300 feet landing strip and ramp area sufficient for 24 single engine aircraft. On the little bit of remaining land, partially buried Quonset huts were erected to serve as housing. They were painted white to blend in with the surrounding coral rubble that makes up the island. Commissioned in 1943 the station was an auxiliary unit of NAS Pearl Harbor and it served as an emergency landing strip and refueling stop for fighter squadrons transiting between Hawaii and Midway providing surveillance of the surrounding area.

After the end of WW2, Tern Island was washed over by a tidal wave in 1946, after which the base was closed by the Navy. Then in 1952, the Coast Guard built a LORAN navigation beacon tower on the island, along with a 20 man supporting facility. The runway was used for a weekly mail and supply flight. The Coast Guard installation continued in operation until 1979.

Tern Island also played a role during the early days of space flight. During 1961-63, the Pacific Missile Range (PMR) had a portable tracking station located at one end of the island. PMR tracked not only the US Air Force Discoverer spacecraft, but also the Soviet Union's space efforts, including their first manned mission.

In recent years Tern Island became part of the Hawaiian & Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The refuge station occupies the former Coast Guard buildings and is occupied by small groups conducting research. The runway continues to be used for occasional personnel transfer and supply flights.

While FFS has quite an extensive and interesting history, we are looking forward to getting in the water and monitoring its impressive marine ecosystem. The reef complex at FFS hosts the highest coral diversity of all the Hawaiian Islands with 41 species of stony corals documented. FFS is also home to more than 600 species of invertebrates, more than 150 algal species and numerous species of fish. In addition the many islets of FFS provide nesting grounds for 18 species of sea birds and over 90% of the threatened Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles. FFS islets also provide critical habitat for the largest sub-population on endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals. Stay tuned for reports on what we see here!

The Giant Trevally, also known as Ulua in Hawaii, is one of the largest of all jacks and is an important top-level predator distributed throughout the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific
Hawaiian monk seals sunbathing on a sandbar at French Frigate Shoals

Drills, Preparations, and Stars

2010-09-05T21:40:00.002-10:00

by Benjamin L. Richards

Today was a day of drills and preparation. We awoke early and, after breakfast, began our pre-dive safety checks – going over all of our dive equipment, re-familiarizing ourselves with our dive boats, and meeting with the ship's medical officer to go over our recent medical history and to have a base-line neurological assessment. Once our checks were complete it was time for lunch, and then on to the safety drills – fire, man overboard, abandon ship, and the launching of the life rafts. Everything to get ourselves reacquainted with our new home.

We are scheduled to arrive at French Frigate Shoals tomorrow evening and at this point, most of our equipment has been prepared and we are ready to go. Tomorrow we will complete the final checks and settings on the electronic equipment and run through our plan for our first day of operations.

After dinner several of us took a few minutes to head up to the bow for the sunset and to watch the stars come out. If you have never seen the stars at sea, it is a sight to be seen. Sitting on the bow or leaning along the rails, each star becomes a gleaming pinprick of brilliance in the deep blackness of the sky. We sat, listening to the waves crash as the bow of our ship cut through the swells, feeling all the world like ancient mariners plying the waves.

On Our Way ...

2010-09-04T22:25:00.010-10:00

by Benjamin L. Richards photo by Cristi Richards

We have rounded the west end of Oahu and are headed northwest into open seas. The wind has turned fresh and the lower decks of our ship are wet from the occasional wave that laps over the side. Tomorrow we will start our safety drills and begin preparations for our arrival at French Frigate Shoals two days hence. We are on our way.

Final Post from the Previous Expedition: Back to Honolulu

2010-04-30T13:56:00.004-10:00

The Hi'ialakai returned safely to port in Honolulu on Sunday, April 24 at 0800 bringing a very successful completion to HA1001, the 2010 Pacific RAMP expedition to Johnston Atoll, the Phoenix Islands, American Samoa, and the Line Islands. All told, we had the participation of 44 scientists from eight different research institutions and local and regional management organizations. We visited 13 islands, reefs, or banks and were once again amazed by the diversity of life found beneath the waves.

In the days since the ship returned to port we have been offloading equipment and getting everything back to its rightful place, ready for our next expedition to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in September of 2010. We want to thank everyone who followed along with our expedition and especially those of you who wrote in with your questions and comments. We hope that we have been able to answer most of them and look forward to hearing from you again on future expeditions.

With that, we will sign off for now. As the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands expedition begins, we will host a new blog and will post the address both here and on the CRED FaceBook page where you can follow-along with all of the most up-to-date information on our program.


An octopus spotted in the field, looking very conspicuous indeed. NOAA photo by Paula Ayotte.