Western Society of Naturalists 2020 meeting: a success! Here's my talk!

This weekend I got to participate in the Western Society of Naturalists' 101st meeting! 

It was all online, but I still got to connect with and see many old and new friends. Some of the highlights for me were:

• New mentorship program where I got to meet with lots of other scientists and talk about careers and life
• Trivia night with over 100 trivia questions
• I got to be a judge for the first time since I'm not a student anymore
• Cool digital meeting rooms where you can move around and bump into people to chat (Wonder rooms)
• Many talks are recorded, so I can view them later if I missed them!

Above is a screenshot of a Wonder room. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a screenshot while the conference was still going, so I'm the only one here (the purple dot), but during the conference there were many other small circle people moving around between the rectangles (rooms). When you get near someone it turns on your camera and microphone and you can see and chat with that person! Anyone can join your circle at any time.

Another excellent bonus of an online conference is that I now have a recording of my talk! Since it's under five minutes long, it's a fantastic way to share my research with a very wide range of people. I think the most technical word I use in here is Nucella, which is just the name of the snail, and there are zero graphs or tables, so hopefully my message is quite accessible! Enjoy!

 

Title: POPULATION VARIATION IN AN INTERTIDAL PREDATOR SHAPES HABITAT STRUCTURE AND COMMUNITY COMPOSITION

Authors: Contolini, G.M.1*; Palkovacs, E.P. 1

1- UC Santa Cruz

Abstract: Population-level trait variation is an important form of biodiversity that can alter community and

ecosystem properties. While recent work shows the ecological importance of population-level trait

variation, few studies describe this for predator-prey interactions, especially for predators

consuming foundational prey. In marine systems, where populations are traditionally viewed as

open and highly connected, much debate exists about the importance of intraspecific trait variation.

Here we test the prediction that intraspecific foraging differences among populations of a marine

intertidal predator (Nucella ostrina-emarginata) differentially alter California mussel bed

communities by altering mussel bed structure. In a nine-month field experiment, we measured

mussel bed structure and community composition within the matrix after treatment with Nucella

from one of three populations. Using a piecewise structural equation model, we identified a

pathway through which Nucella foraging can decrease Shannon diversity within the matrix: larger

drilled mussel size increased remaining mussel size which decreased Shannon diversity. As the

different Nucella populations on average drilled significantly different sizes of mussels, our results

show that intraspecific variation in Nucella foraging can differentially alter mussel bed communities

via changing mussel bed habitat structure. These results support the hypothesis that populationlevel

variation in predators can have community consequences in marine ecosystems.

This seafood month, celebrate sea vegetables

October is national seafood month!

Photo: NOAA

What do you think of when you hear the word “seafood?” Chances are you think about tasty sea creatures like shrimp and salmon—the creators of the above seafood month icon surely do. But what about sea vegetables? They are just as much sea and just as much food as shrimp and salmon. (They may even be more sea than salmon, which spend a lot of time in freshwater!) Also known as seaweed and marine algae, sea vegetables are a type of healthy, vegetarian seafood that is seriously underrated. Sea vegetables are similar to land vegetables in that they need sunlight, water, and nutrients to grow, but unlike their terrestrial counterparts, sea vegetables don’t have roots; the whole body, called the thallus, takes up nutrients directly from the water in which it bathes. One of the best parts about sea vegetables is that in California, they are free—you don’t need a license to harvest them recreationally!

The western U.S. has miles and miles of undeveloped coastline with abundant, healthy algae readily available for harvest at low tide. Here, I describe the full process of putting seaweed on your plate and focus on a few of my favorite northern California seaweeds, many of which are available throughout the entire west coast. For more information on edible seaweeds throughout California and beyond, check out these pages on commonly harvested marine algae in California and common seaweeds of the Pacific Northwest. 

Accessing sea vegetables

Most sea vegetables grow on intertidal rocks. The first step finding them is to locate an accessible intertidal area with rocky substrate. Check local tidepooling and natural resource websites for suggestions, but make sure the site you pick is not in a Marine Protected Area, state park, or state beach where harvest is not allowed. Next, plan your visit during a low tide, ideally when the tide level is zero ft. or lower. There are lots of websites with this information, but I like to use NOAA’s tide predictions. Arrive at least one hour before the low tide and plan to leave about 2 hours after (the tide will be coming in faster at that point and you don’t want to be out on the rocks when the ocean returns!) Finally, check the marine forecast to avoid storms and big waves.

Harvesting sea vegetables

To harvest sea vegetables, you just need a few simple tools: a bucket or bag to hold your harvest (Ziplocs work great), scissors or a sharp knife, weather-appropriate clothes, sturdy shoes, and some natural resource knowledge. Algae are (partly) the base of the intertidal food web, so it is important to harvest them sustainably by leaving behind a large portion of the thallus (remember, that's the name for the body of a seaweed) and only cut what you will keep. Additionally, there are laws prohibiting selling marine algae without a commercial algae harvesting license and there is a 10-lb. limit per person per day for recreational harvest, which does not require a license. Harvest is not allowed in any of California’s Marine Protected Areas, and due population declines, harvest or even disturbance of sea palm (Postelsia palmaeformis) and seagrass (Phyllospadix spp. or Zostera marina) is prohibited. (Fun fact: seagrass and eelgrass are not algae, but true flowering plants! And you don't want to eat them anyway.) Similar rules may apply in Oregon and Washington. Finally, always avoid harvesting near polluted areas like large storm drainage pipes and sewage outfalls.

Sea palm (Postelsia palmaeformis; left) & seagrass (Phyllospadix torreyi) are not permitted for recreational harvest. Photos by CDFW (left) and the Multi-agency Rocky Intertidal Network.

Cooking with sea vegetables

While I could probably get away with calling myself an expert on finding and harvesting sea vegetables, I am by no means an expert on cooking with them. I only started doing it this summer! However, I think it's fantastic to eat wild-harvested foods and I want to encourage people to give it a shot. So here's my disclaimer: all the cooking info is written by an amateur sea vegetable chef and is probably at least a little inaccurate.

Normally, I love eating raw vegetables, but unless you’re a sea snail, most sea vegetables are not meant to be eaten raw! They are extremely chewy and can be a little slimy. To prepare your seaweed, as soon as you get home, rinse it in tap water to remove surface impurities (and any tiny, clinging herbivores!). If you don’t plan to use your seaweed right away, you should dry it, though it can be stored fresh in the refrigerator for a few days, after which point it will become very slimy. Drying can be done in the oven (on warm), in the sun, or in a dehydrator, then store the seaweed in an airtight container for months or even years.

You can cook most sea vegetables by frying or roasting in a pan or in the oven for just a few minutes. You don't need to rehydrate them for this, but oiling them is a good idea. They’re done when they’re crispy and very brittle and they may change color. If you want to make noodles (e.g. wakame noodles), you should use hydrated seaweed so it is easy to cut. You can rehydrate your dried seaweed by soaking it in warm water for about 10 minutes. Either way, if you're concerned about your seaweed having harmful bacteria on it, don't eat it raw; cooking will kill bacteria. After cooking, you can eat your seaweed plain; grind it up to use as a salty seaweed sprinkle topping; use it like any other vegetable in your recipes—I like to add it to stir fries; or plop a dried alga in your boiling pot of soup, rice, or beans to add flavor. Find more great cooking tips in this Sea Greens 101 article by Heated!

Photo: Vicky Wasik

Common northern California sea vegetables

Here are some pictures and facts about my favorite northern California sea vegetables!

Nori

• Scientific name: Pyropia perforata 

• General category: Red algae (Phylum Rhodophyta)

• Description: Grayish green to brownish purple and often very frilly. Smooth and one cell thick; you can see through it!

• Used in sushi, but ground up and flattened into sheets

• Nori makes great chips when fried in coconut oil!

Photo: CDFW

Sea lettuce

• Scientific name: Ulva lactuca 

• General category: Green algae (Phylum Chlorophyta)

• Description: Smooth, bright green and in broad sheets. Two cells thick; you can see through this one as well!

• Fry or roast, but not as good for chips

• Can be added fresh to salads

Photo: James Watanabe

Wakame

Fresh wakame (left) and dried. Photos by CDFW (left) and Gina Contolini

• Scientific name: Alaria marginata

• General category: Brown algae; more specifically, wakame is in the kelp family (Phylum Ochrophyta, Family Laminariaceae)

• Description: Dark green, wide, smooth ribbons with thick midrib; very long (up to 19 ft!)

• Wakame is used traditionally in miso soup; it can also be used to flavor rice or soup stock

• Since it is so long, it is great for making noodles!

My veggie bowl with fried wakame noodles—the dark veggie on the left!

Kombu

• Scientific name: Laminaria setchellii

• General category: Brown algae, kelp family (Phylum Ochrophyta, Family Laminariaceae)

• Description: Dark greenish brown. Slender, erect stipe (stem) leading to wide, smooth blade with many dangling finger-like strips.

• Good in soup stock or to add in rice or bean water.

Photo: CDFW

Sweet kombu AKA sea cabbage

• Scientific name: Hedophyllum sessile

• General category: Brown algae, kelp family (Phylum Ochrophyta, Family Laminariaceae)

• Description: Dark greenish brown; long, thick blades with no stipe. Looks similar to kombu tips; however, sweet kombu can have smooth or wrinkled blades.

• Great as a soup stock or add in water when cooking rice or bean

Photo: CDFW

Sea oak AKA sea fern

• Scientific name: Stephanocystis osmundacea

• General category: Brown algae (Phylum Ochrophyta)

• Description: Dark greenish brown with stiff stipe and many branches. Branches have pneumatocysts (floats) that look like many small beads strung together.

• You can eat it raw, but I haven’t tried!

• Often pickled

Photo: CDFW

Dulse

• Scientific name: Palmaria mollis

• General category: Red algae (Phylum Rhodophyta)

• Description: Reddish pink with many small blades (under 1 ft.) that are thick, leathery, and usually lobed

• Great sauteéd with other vegetables or fried like chips!

Photo: Algaebase.org

North Coast Kelp Restoration Community Science Project Launched

Huge Hidden Forests

Northern California is known across the globe for its towering redwood forests. Home to the largest known living tree, Hyperion, at 380 ft. tall, there is no question that this corner of the world has impressive natural habitats. In the shadows of these giants, however, lies a different type of forest, equally as impressive as the soaring sequoias. While there are no billboards and gift shops off the main highway heralding its beauty, it is an essential part of the history of northern California communities. 

Northern California kelp forests are hotspots of marine biodiversity. Growing along cool, rocky shores, the “trees” of this forest are a species of brown alga called bull kelp. The animals that inhabit bull kelp forests have sustained booming tourism sport fishing industries for decades, and Tribal communities since time immemorial. Hundreds of people for hundreds of years have molded their lives around bull kelp forests, harvesting the seemingly endless supplies of fish, invertebrates, and algae living among the kelp fronds. That’s why it was such a shock when the forests disappeared.

A series of stressful oceanographic and ecological phenomena destroyed bull kelp populations (Figure 1). First, warm waters killed existing bull kelp, then a COVID-19-esque epidemic (Sea Star Wasting Syndrome) killed the predators that reduce kelp herbivores. Now these herbivores, especially purple sea urchins, roam freely and devour any kelp plants that sprout up, preventing the recovery of the habitat-forming species. 

Figure 1: California Department of Fish and Wildlife aerial kelp survey results. Bull kelp primarily exists in the North Coast Mainland and North Central Mainland areas, shown in purple and green. The marine heat wave started in 2013 and bull kelp has not recovered since then. https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Marine/Kelp/Aerial-Kelp-Surveys

Communities Respond to Kelp Forest Devastation

Needless to say, community members are deeply concerned. While rigorous scientific experiments are underway to determine the best kelp restoration strategies, local scuba divers are eager to help. To leverage the power of the masses, as the California Sea Grant Kelp Management Extension Fellow I am helping to lead a community science project using volunteer divers to cull purple sea urchins in one monitored location (Caspar Cove in Mendocino County; Figure 2). The purpose of this project is to investigate whether in-water purple urchin culling by volunteer divers can support kelp regrowth. Results will help managers determine whether this can be a useful kelp restoration tool more broadly. This project is in collaboration with The Waterman’s Alliance, CDFW, the Ocean Protection Council, and Reef Check California.

Figure 2: Location of Caspar Cove in California. 

To participate, divers must have a valid recreational fishing license and scuba certification. They can use hand tools to cull subtidal purple sea urchins on the south side of Caspar Cove (areas A–C in Figure 3). They should record details about their dive including how many urchins they culled using this form: https://tinyurl.com/CasparCoveDiveLog. Results are automatically updated every 5 minutes at https://tinyurl.com/CasparCoveDiveLog-data.

Figure 3: Map of legal urchin culling area in Caspar Cove, California. Divers should

focus on areas A–C. Credit: Joe Tyburczy, CASG

We are thankful to have such a supportive community and excited to get recreational divers involved in solutions for kelp forest recovery!

Access the dive log here: https://tinyurl.com/CasparCoveDiveLog

Live results:

New publication in Marine Ecology Progress Series

I just published a new article in Marine Ecology Progress Series with coauthors Eric Palkovacs and Kristy Kroeker!

Predator populations differ in their foraging responses to acute seawater acidification

Doi: https://www.int-res.com/prepress/m13406.html

Do all marine predator populations respond similarly to acute seawater acidification? We tested how Nucella dogwhelks from three different populations altered the consumption of mussels under ambient and acidified conditions. Our results demonstrate that exposure to acidification does not universally impair predators and responses may be related to prior pH exposure, leading to divergent ecological effects among different populations.

 

Huge thanks to Sandra, Cory, Nicole, and all others who helped those many early mornings and late nights in all weather conditions checking on snails every 12 hours for 60 days!

New job!

I am extremely excited to announce I accepted a position with California Sea Grant as a Kelp Management Extension Fellow! The position is located in Eureka, CA.

Humboldt Bay, California. Photo credit: Robert Campbell

It took 25 mins to align these photos; Blogger sucks don't use it.

I'll be using my marine biology training to help assess the state of kelp forests in California (they are not looking good: see this CDFW article) and create a plan for their recovery. This statewide fellowship is modeled after the successful Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship Program that brings early career marine scientists to Washington D.C. to experience the creation of federal marine policy. My fellowship is essentially a Knauss fellowship for kelp forests in California. I'm very excited to learn both the ins and outs of natural resource management and the diverse needs of all the people that use and need the kelp forests (called stakeholders). The two-year fellowship will round out my ecology education with policy experience so I can join the ranks of scientists and politicians who make sure our rich, culturally and economically important marine resources continue to thrive. More info about the position here: https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/fellowships/california-department-of-fish-and-wildlife-california-sea-grant-statewide-kelp

Tegula snails grazing in kelp forest. Photo credit: Lynne Wetmore

More Tegula snails grazing on kelp. Photo credit: Norbert Wu Productions. 

Okay, so maybe I just want to save all the cute baby snails that live in the kelp. Is that so bad?! ;) __@_v

Plugging myself into the Marvel universe (as that's what I've been doing most evenings now during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place mandate): by learning how policy and management work, I can become more than the soft-spoken scientist who knows about only the natural world and then becomes a pawn for political powers! 



 Dr. Zola: "I am certain of nothing. I fear it may not work at all." 
Gen. Johann Schmidt: [pushes Zola out of the way] "I have not come all this way for safety, doctor!"

I've only watched four movies so far, but I'm wondering if they made a movie yet where the PhD is the superhero. It seems useful to spread the message that education, rather than magic (Capt. America, Capt. Marvel) or money (Iron Man), is power. 

Teaching Intro to Field Research is Amazing

Last weekend for my Introduction to Field Research course, we visited Año Nuevo State Park (also a University of California natural reserve), saw male, female, and baby elephant seals, spoke with reserve manager Dr. Patrick Robinson about the incredible physiology and life history of these animals, and saw some tagging and oceanographic equipment the seals get to wear.

 

Remaining adult elephant seals after most of the breeding season is over. The males here are not dominant males; those have already taken off to sea. Nevertheless, we saw them snorting and charging each other, and even mate with a female!

Here is Dr. Robinson showing the students the data loggers that are glued to the seals' skin and to collect information about depth, temperature, conductivity (used to calculate salinity), and light. The seals naturally shed their skin on land every year, so the tags just fall right off!

Then we visited the rocky intertidal at Davenport Landing, where I truly came to understand how I have realized my childhood dream of understanding (to some level) all the creatures that live in the intertidal zone.

Obligatory neon green anemone photo. Neonness courtesy the zooxanthellae. The students totally noticed that some anemones were more neon, so I got to explain the symbiosis! Photo credit Emmet P. 

You're really between a rock and a hard place when you find yourself between being eaten by a sea star and an anemone... until you realize you're the only one with an exoskeleton here. Then I guess you're just between an echinoderm and a cnidarian.

We only found one singular nudibranch who was all tucked up and not very happy looking, but the students loved the trip nevertheless. Then I took them all to Whale City bakery, where I always went after fieldwork at Davenport, and we enjoyed hot drinks and snacks to warm ourselves from the frigid wind.

Finding the shiny slugs is always my primary goal. This one was less shiny but just as sluggy.

I feel so lucky that I get paid to do such fun and rewarding things!!

Job aps are in

This quarter at UC Santa Cruz, I am having a blast teaching Introduction to Field Research as well as Ecology of Reefs, Mangroves, and Seagrasses.

Students making natural history observations during the Intro to Field Research and Conservation class' field trip last weekend to Fort Ord Natural Reserve in Marina, CA

Unfortunately, the term ends in April, and then I'll be on to new things! It has been very exciting applying for marine biology jobs all over the Pacific Northwest. I see myself as an educator, researcher, and natural resource manager, and so far this year I have applied to four jobs in these categories, including:

• California Sea Grant-California Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Debris Program Extension Fellow (Oakland, CA)
• California Sea Grant-California Department of Fish and Wildlife Kelp Management Extension Fellow (Eureka, CA)
• Cabrillo College Biology Instructor (Aptos, CA)
• Olympia Oyster and Bull Kelp Habitat Restoration Project Manager at Puget Sound Restoration Fund (Seattle, WA)

All these are full-time positions doing things I love in places I love (with the exception of one place that will remain unnamed in case employers are checking out this blog; hehe). 

I look forward to giving updates on the statuses of all these soon!

* Update 3.09.2020: I have interviewed for both Sea Grant positions and have an interview with Puget Sound Restoration Fund later this week. I was not offered an interview at Cabrillo College. 

  

New year accomplishments

I am very, very excited to announce that I have completed my degree and I am now Dr. Gina Contolini!

Me with my family the night I passed my closed defense.

Me starting my public defense.

On that note, my first dissertation chapter was published as a stand-alone research article in the journal Oecologia. Seeing this publication come out was a great way to graduate on a high note. Check it out online using the link below, and if you want full access, feel free to contact me.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00442-019-04591-x

Now, I'm teaching a couple courses here at UCSC while applying for postdocs and faculty jobs in the area. It is nice to be able to transition to another phase of life!