Photo source: Dalboz17

We have two podcasts this week!  Thanks to Dawood and Gurk & Aurora, Deirdre, and Monica for their podcasts!

The larger birds – Common & Thick-billed Murre and Red & Black-legged Kittiwakes -were captured with a simple noose attached to a long pole.  These seabirds nest on cliffs away from the ground.  Why do you think they do that?

Black-legged kittiwakes build nests on cliffs; Note the bird on the upper right has a black smudge on its face. That's so we can keep track of it. We also have leg bands on the birds which you can see on two of the birds in this photo.

In order to capture the birds I used a long noose pole.  I would dangle the noose over the bird’s head and then pull!  This didn’t hurt the bird, but I’m sure it was quite a shock!  Why was I able to do this without breaking the bird’s neck?

I remember this Red-legged Kittiwake capture! It was tough! Look at the end of the pole and you can just barely make out the bird I was attempting to capture.

I got it!

Look at my pretty red feet!

Common & Thick-billed Murres also nest on cliffs, but they tend to nest up higher than kittiwakes so we had to noose them from above.

My research partner Ali bravely sits on the edge of a cliff to capture a Common Murre.

Common Murres nest on cliffs, but note the absence of a nest. Murres just lay their eggs directly on the cliff. What would be the advantage and disadvantage of that?

The noose method only works on large birds.  How did I catch the medium-sized Crested and Parakeet Auklet?  I used something called a mist net.  Mist nets are nylon mesh strung between two poles.  When set up they are very hard to see!  Can you see the mist net in this picture?

I promise there's a mist net strung up behind me. Can you see it? I can't!

Because it’s nearly invisible, my partner and I would set up the mist net right in front of an area where Parakeet & Crested Auklets were nesting (like the Murres, they also nest on cliffs).  When the adults would leave the nest to fly out to sea, they would swoop down into our waiting net.

Removing a Crested Auklet from the mist net. Now, can you see the net?

I thought the mist net was the most difficult of all the techniques as the birds would sometimes get quite tangled and it was hard to get them out.  It was really stressful because we had to get the birds out within two minutes to take a blood sample right away (more on that later).

Posing with a Crested Auklet

The smallest bird, the Least Auklet, doesn’t nest on cliffs.  It nests in rock crevices!  The Least Auklet is only the size of a sparrow, making it one of the smallest seabirds.  Why does it nest in rocks?

Least Auklets sitting on rocks. They nest in the crevices below.

It was really fun capturing these birds.  We made noose mats – basically, mesh that had tiny little loops tied into the mesh.  When the birds would step on the mat and walk around, their feet would get stuck in the loop, and when they tried to fly away – caught!!  It was fun because sometimes you’d catch two or three birds at a time.

My research partner, Ali, sets up a noose mat on a popular Least Auklet hangout. Note the shipwreck!

Measuring a Least Auklet's beak.

So those are the techniques I used to capture the seabirds.  Did you think it looked like fun? Would you like an experience like this one?  A couple of years ago I took some students on a research expedition to study seabirds in Alaska through the organization Earthwatch.  They have some great research trips for teenagers.  Most of them are quite expensive, but they do have a fellowship program (unfortunately, the deadline was December – next year!).  Let me know if you’re interested in an Earthwatch trip and I can give you tips on which ones are really good (I still know people who work there).

I will end with a great video of the island I was on – St Paul Island, Alaska.  Brings back such great memories!  Truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life!

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Times Square during the "Christmas Blizzard" of 2010; Photo source: Asterix611

On my four-wheeler heading out to study seabirds such as this adorable black-legged kittiwake chick.

I was inspired to blog about my experience after reading Hannah Water’s post, “Seabirds as indicators of marine ecosystem health: an introduction.”  I discovered the post when Jason Goldman mentioned it in his list of amazing female science bloggers (FYI: Waters was recently interviewed by Carl on Extreme Biology).

In her post, Waters explains why seabirds can indicate the health of an ecosystem.  Seabirds sit at the top of the marine food chain.  Scientists refer to different levels in the food chain as trophic levels.  The levels include primary producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer, etc.  The number of levels depends on the type of ecosystem.  What trophic level would a black-legged kittiwake occupy in the ecosystem?

Below is an image of a marine food web (click to enlarge).  What would you expect to happen if the number of amphipods were to decrease?

Photo source: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA)

Animals that sit on the top of the food chain rely on the health of organisms on lower levels of the chain.  Therefore, one can assume that if animals at the top of the food chain (like seabirds) are healthy, then animals lower in the chain must be as well.

But, how do you measure seabird health?

Well…How long do adults survive?  How often do they successfully reproduce?  How fast do chicks grow and what is their weight when they leave the nest?  How much time do adults just hang around the nest vs how much time do they spend searching for food?  These measurements were suggested in a landmark paper by D.K. Cairns in 1987.  Do you agree that these are good indicators of seabird health?  Why or why not?

These measurements were the basis of my research on seabirds.  In a series of posts, I will discuss my work with these seabirds in more detail and the findings from the research project I worked on. But, before I begin I should first give you a list of the seabirds I studied:

• Parakeet Auklet
• Crested Auklet
• Least Auklet
• Black-legged Kittiwake
• Red-legged Kittiwake
• Common Murre
• Thick-billed Murre

Can you find any great youtube videos about these birds?

References

Cairns, D. K. (1987). Seabirds as indicators of marine food supplies Biological Oceanography, 5, 261-271

Waters, H. (2010, October 5). Seabirds as indicators of marine ecosystem health: an introduction [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://fishes.southernfriedscience.com/?p=1048#comment-7858

Photo source: Peter Davis

Every living organism “poops”. Actually, “poop” is a common term used for feces. Feces, by definition, are the solid waste, which is expelled through the rectum (the end of the large intestine). The role of feces in organisms actually plays a huge purpose in the cycle of life ranging from helping organisms flourish or simply giving an organism something to eat.

As talked about in a Washington Post article released last year, feces are in fact useful for many organisms. For example, elephant feces are full of undigested plant matter. Now, what can be a significance of an ordinary pile of elephant feces? Well, to the ordinary dung beetle, an ordinary pile of feces can be heaven to the beetles. Dung beetles, in fact, thrive on the feces. They eat the feces, mate on the feces, and even reside their eggs on the feces. It many sound disgusting to the ordinary eye, but in order to meet the biological goal of surviving to reproduce, the dung beetles must do so.

Just recently, researchers at Harvard University looked at the importance of whale feces, and they soon found a major discovery. Whale feces are hard to compare to regular feces because they leave liquidly emissions from their rectum. The emissions then rise up to the surface, and in fact, carry important elements from the depths of the ocean (nitrogen being one of these main elements). This is known as a “biological pump”, in which an organism takes up a certain element to the surface. This, in result, increases the amount of life that exists at the surface. Higher amounts of plankton then reside near the surface, and therefore more fish and other organisms come to feed to the surface. Nitrogen is the main element that has a major role in this situation. When nitrogen reaches towards the surface, plankton tend to reproduce more often and quickly, which causes a growth in the amount of plankton. At the bottom of the food chain, extreme amounts of plankton can provide an easy feast to dozens of animals, but a real surprise occurs when the amount of nitrogen increases, resulting in an increase in plankton, which gives a higher percentage of fish a good meal.

Are there any other types of organisms that use feces in a way that is beneficial to helping the organism live? Is it true that some animals sometimes eat their own feces to gain extra vitamins or is it just a myth? Can feces benefit humans in any sort of way?

Photo by Denn

When I hear dishonesty I think of lying. It turns out that other animals besides humans can lie, too. When I hear that, I think no way, but scientists from Australia have found out that there is dishonesty in the animal kingdom. The dishonest animal is only two centimeters across, the fiddler crab.

The fiddler crab has one giant claw which it uses to attract mates and fight rivaling males. If the big claw is lost it can always grow a new claw. This is where the lying comes in. During the growth of the claw, the crab’s body says there is a “cheaper” way. They make the claw bigger but they also make it lightweight and toothless. Dr Simon Lailvaux of the University of New South Wales says that the interesting thing is that other males can’t tell them apart. Before a fight the crabs display their big claws which is important to the process.

The study is important because it helps us understand more about dishonesty among animals. The thing is it is hard to pick up on it. It is hard because dishonest signals are supposed to be hard to catch on to. Lailvaux said “By studying how animals fight we can learn what physiological and performance capacities enable males to win fights, we’re getting closer to identifying which traits are likely to be generally important for male combat.”

Can these crabs lose their claw multiple times and if so do they get weaker each time? Are there other animals that can bluff in a similar way as the fiddler crab? How are fiddler crabs able to re-grow their claws?  Can this be used to help humans?

(Concerto No. 2 in G Major 1st Movement by Joseph Haydn Cadenza by Ferdinand Küchler)

Stradivarius violin; photo by Giant Ginkgo

A few months ago, an important discovery was made in the world of violin making. A test was done to see whether a violin like the Stradivarius could be created. Amazingly, it was with the help of Francis Schwarze of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research and a Swiss violin maker, Michael Rhonheimer. The test was to see if fungi treated wood could create similar wood that was used when Stradivarious created his violins. This article was published in Science Daily, New Scientist, and Live Science.

During Stradivarious’s time, he used wood with a low density, which was abundant in the cold weather between 1645 and 1715. The reason that scientists chose fungi in this experiment was because fungi break down rotting wood, and in doing this, they change the cell structure of the wood, which creates a lower density in the wood. This structural change makes a lighter wood that is similar to the wood Stradivarius used to create his violins.

Here is a video that shows how the weather affects wood, and about the history of the Stradivarious violins.

Dead Man's Fingers; photo by pellaea

This test used five violins. Four would be made from the same type of wood and one would be treated for six months, one for nine months, and the other two were untreated. The other violin would be a Stradivarius. The violins were treated with two different types of fungi. One was Physisporinus vitreus, which was on the spruce top half of the instrument and they other was Xylaria longipes (Dead Man’s Fingers), which was for the sycamore bottom half of the instrument. They tested these instruments by having a British violinist, Mathew Trusler, play the four instruments in front of an audience of 180 people at the Osnabrücker Baumpflegetagen conference in Germany, which focused on forestry. The instruments were played behind a curtain and the audience judged their tone. 90 out of the 180 people thought that the violin treated for nine months had the best tone quality and 113 of the people thought that it was the Stradivarius that was being played. The Stradivarius came in second with 39 people.

Photo by asluthier

This test will help create new violins, which can have high quality and be sold for around $25,000 instead of over two million. Also, more musicians will be able to afford quality instruments, which will increase the number of classical musicians. The only problem concerning this test is that violin tone quality is a subjective matter. To one person, a violin might sound dull and have no timbre, but to another person it might sound clear and have a vibrant tone. The average person can tell the difference between a $50 violin and a $1,000,000, but this test could have had different results if done with a different group of people. This test might have been more accurate if professional musicians or violin makers were used because they have trained ears that can pick out quality sounds better than the average person.

To get more information on the fungi used in this experiment, I contacted the microbiologist Moselio Schaechter. His blog, Small Things Considered, had a blog post about the Stradivarius violin test, so I asked him the following questions:

1. Do you know how and or why the process of this decaying of the wood by the fungi takes place?

2. Do you know if this is just these certain types of fungi or are there others that can create these instruments?

Here is an excerpt from Moselio Schaechter’s response to my email:

“Fungi are the ‘Great Recyclers’. They can digest almost anything (short of some man-made plastics), including wood. They are the reason why old trees become dust (in time). If it weren’t for the fungi, you couldn’t walk into a forest without a chain-saw. In fact, life would eventually come to a halt because so much carbon would be retained in old trees and other plants without being recycled into carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide has a bad name now because of global warming, but some of it is essential for photosynthesis, that is, for life on Earth. So, fungi are essential for life on this planet.

It’s not surprising that the scientists who worked on the violins chose fungi to make the wood thinner. No other living organisms would have worked. The way fungi decompose wood is by making enzymes which they secrete into their environment. Some of these enzymes have the ability to chew (break down) constituents of the cell walls that make wood solid. These walls are stiff because they contain a complicated chemical polymer called lignin. The enzyme that works on it is called ligninase.

Some fungi are better at decomposing certain woods than others. This is why the scientists chose one fungus for the top of the violin, which is made of spruce, and another one for the bottom, which is made of sycamore. This way, they gave themselves the best chance of getting the desired thinness in the wood.”

How could different types of fungi make wood with different qualities?  Can fungi be used to improve the wood quality for uses other than violins and other instruments?  Are there any other factors that contribute to the lowering of wood density?

Moon Jellyfish; Photo by suburbanslice

In the field of marine biology, there have been many new discoveries. Some are new species, others are missing links. This post will show you some of the newly discovered species as well as some other fascinating marine species. This is a newspaper article from Hawaii about a Giant Jellyfish also known as, Anomalorhiza shawi. This jellyfish, although rare and hardly seen, is not a recent discovery. This giant jelly was found in Kane‘ohe Bay, Hawaii. This is extremely rare for this species to be in tropic waters. Anomalorhiza shawi is usually found in colder waters around the Philippines. This is only the second sighting of the giant jelly since 1983. The jelly’s “umbrella” is about 2 feet in diameter. They do sting but they don’t have one that is strong enough to hurt a person too badly. Click here to see footage of the huge animal for the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.

Another jellyfish that is commonly seen and not thought about much is the Moon Jellyfish, also known as Aurelia aurita, saucer jelly, and common jellyfish. It is relatively small only measuring at around 5-40 centimeters. The jelly has many different color and dot patterns on its bell. Like the giant jellyfish, the moon jellyfish’s sting is mild. The moon jelly prefers swimming closer to the surface of the water. Doing this helps their tentacles cover more area so they can grab something to eat. An interesting fact about the moon jelly is that they have what is called rhopalial centers. Rhopalial centers allow the jelly to control the rate at which their bell pulses. This, in the end, allows them to control their respiratory rate when the oxygen level is too low.

The Common Dolphin is not the dolphin you’re thinking of. The common dolphin goes by other names such as Mahi Mahi (which means strong strong in Hawaiian), Dorado (meaning gold in Spanish), Coryphaena hippurus or the dolphinfish. The dolphinfish is a fish, unlike the other dolphin which is a marine mammal. The common dolphin usually has a blue dorsal fin and upper part and progressively gets into a light green color. They are also known to have gold on their bodies. The common dolphin is found in tropical waters in the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans. They move around or migrate a lot and are found in schools around coastal areas or even in the open ocean. The diet of the Mahi Mahi is usually squid and crustaceans, but ranges to other fish and zooplankton, which are microscopic organisms that drift around the ocean.

"A Very Nice Mahi-Mahi" by manoellemos

The Mola mola, or Common Mola, is an ocean sunfish. They can reach enormous lengths. The largest being over 10 feet long and weighing almost two and a half tons. Most of their body is their head and behind the head there are two large fins called sweeping fins. In most pictures and sightings the sweeping fins appear to be on the side of the fish because of its position but really it is on the top and bottom of the fish. On the shark-like, sand paper-feeling skin there is a layer of mucus. This layer of mucus is extremely important to the fish. It is important because of its diet which consists of different jellyfish, Portuguese Man-O-War, and jellyfish-like zooplankton. The jellyfish could injure the Mola mola without the mucus and the Portuguese Man-O-War has been known to kill people. So the mucus is vital to the survival of this species. The mola has also been known to eat small fish, deep sea eel, serpent star parts, and sponges. According to studies, a four and a half foot Mola mola female produces over three hundred million eggs (that’s 300,000,000 eggs)! The Mola mola has one of the most eggs per female out of most other fish. This is again vital to the growth of the species. Because of the mola’s close relation to the puffer fish after a larvae hatches, it has what appear to be spikes around its body. After growing up to a full grown Mola mola, it has many predators to worry about. One being parasites. On average a mola has over 40 different species of parasites in and on its body!

Mola-Mola (uglyfish) by Burnblue

This video is about the Mola mola ocean sunfish.

Another great picture of a Mola mola; photo by Ilse Reijs en Jan-Noud Hutten

The Great White Shark is my favorite animal in the ocean. The Great White Shark is obviously a type of shark. It is also know as Carcharodon carcharias, but it has many names: White pointer, white shark, manila shark, and even Man-Eater. It has generally two colors blue and white. White Sharks generally grow to huge lengths of twenty feet and weighing over five thousand pounds! Although huge, they are known to be extremely fast, mostly because of its torpedo shaped body. They also have extremely dark, usually completely black eyes that almost look like glass. The Great White Shark has an extremely large habitat range from California to Africa. They also have an appetite that matches the habitat’s size. Whites eat a huge variety of food. They eat a lot of marine mammals such as elephant seals and sea lions. They also eat a wide variety of fish. The Great White would not be able to have such variety in their diet if it wasn’t for their razor sharp and large teeth. The shark has many rows of these teeth so that when a few fall out the are replaced as soon as possible.

The Great White Shark is probably best known from the hit movie, Jaws (1975). This movie, admittingly good, really struck fear into the hearts of swimmers and people around the world. The movie is based off of a shark that was caught off the coast of New Jersey in the 1970’s. It was caught by Frank Mundus (October 21, 1925-September 10, 2008), whom my dad and I knew. The shark was 4,500 pounds. Mundus was the inspiration for the character Captain Quint, in Jaws. One of Captain Quint’s most famous quotes actually gives some factual information about sharks but also strikes fear into people:

“Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark … he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be living … until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then … ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and they … rip you to pieces.” -Captain Quint, Jaws (1975)

One fact in there is that they have black eyes and the other is that their eyes roll back when they bite to protect them because they don’t have eyelids.

Most marine animals are not well appreciated and the purpose of this post is to give some appreciation for these animals. The more people known, the more they have to respect.

Why aren’t Giant Jellyfish often seen in tropical waters?  Why is the Mahi Mahi, Dorado, or dolphinfish commonly called the Common Dolphin?  What are some downfalls and positives to being extremely migratory?  What are some advantages of having such a large head?

by Erik

Check out the animation I created about my post.  Enjoy!

Darwin’s Mockingbirds! by spudinski01, made at DoInk.com 

On two small islands somewhere in the midst of the Galapagos Archipelago live some 100-200 mockingbirds. These specific mockingbirds however are some of the rarest bird species in the world, and the story that comes with them is so grand that while I type right now, I still don’t have a title. Let’s take a trip back in time.

In September of 1835, the ship HMS Beagle arrived in the Galapagos Islands. Aboard this ship was a naturalist named Charles Darwin, and little did he know that while investigating this wondrous miniature world, he would start to form some of the most fundamental ideas in the history of science. It all starts with the Mockingbird. Darwin had encountered other mockingbirds on his travels through South America, but being the brilliant observer he was, something stood out to him while he visited the different islands. While on his travels through all of South America, the mockingbirds he found were mostly similar, but among the islands, the mockingbirds had very definite differences in size, beak, plumage, etc. He realized he was seeing more variation between Mockingbird species just miles apart than he had across the span of a whole continent. This got Darwin thinking.

photo by ...Point&Click

“I have specimens from 4 of the major islands, in each island each kind is exclusively found, the habits of all are indistinguishable, when I see these islands in sight of each other and possessed of but a scanty stock of animals, tenanted by these birds but slightly differing in structure and filling the same place in nature I must suspect they are only varieties … if there is the slightest foundation for these remarks, the zoology of these archipelagos will be well worth examining, for such facts would undermine the stability of species”- C. Darwin

Basically, this is when his light-bulb flipped on, but it gets better. Today these very same birds are extremely endangered, and have vanished from from the island they used to inhabit, surviving on two small neighboring islets. The specific reason is somewhat hazy, but unfortunately, humans probably had something to do with it. At any rate, a conservation effort has been launched to re-introduce the mockingbirds to the island, and this is where it gets really cool. While among the islands Darwin collected four of these birds, each one different, and from a different island. Those very birds Darwin himself brought back over 150 years ago have had DNA samples taken from them to compare to the current surviving birds. By doing this scientists can see which birds today have DNA most similar to the mockingbirds back then, and use those birds for re-introducing as they would be best suited for the islands. The other awesome thing is that by looking at bird candidates, birds can be chosen who have the large gene variation as well. The idea behind this is to give them a jump start on adapting to their environment, since the individual with the best traits will survive, having more variation among individuals, helpful traits are more likely to turn up and help the species survive.

Dr. Karen James of the Natural History Museum sums it up saying “We’re hoping to use the genetic profiles from the old specimens to help us select birds from the surviving populations to introduce to the old island.” Quite frankly, thank you Darwin, yet again.

You can view a video about this here.

photo by Sparky the Neon Cat

After finishing my initial post, I contacted Dr. Karen James herself to see if she could answer some questions.

Q: Do you know if scientists used this method of “selecting the best” individuals in other conservation efforts?

A: Most of the time they use these methods to monitor populations that have already been reintroduced; our project is one of the very few that proposes to use the method before the reintroduction, to select which birds should be reintroduced in the first place.

Q: it seems like it would be a more effective way to “re-grow” a species, or more successful anyway.

A: That’s the idea!

-Happy Darwin Day to you and your class
Karen

The natural History Museum at London is a highly regarded institution with a vast collection of specimens, and one of the biggest collections of historical scientific artwork in the world. It is definitely a good source to anyone who is interested.

Are there any other species this method could be used for? How was the role Darwin’s Finches played in his thoughts on evolution different?