Science for Everyone

Hanging Scallops by a Thread

Guest blog post by Research Assistant Bailey Moritz

Giving scallops the "ear" piercing

Our little guys are growing up! With many of the baby scallops from our spat bags now over 2 cm in size, it’s time for them to begin the next phase of scallop aquaculture. We visited the Darling Marine Center to learn from Maine Sea Grant’s Dana Morse about what that can look like. And what better way to do so than immerse yourself in the process and get muddy!

Completed scallop line ready for deployment

Ear-hanging is one method that can be used to grow scallops once they are about 2 inches across. A hole is drilled in the “ear” or wing of the shell, and gets threaded onto a rope that will be suspended in the water column. The technique comes from Japanese scallop farms, where operations are large scale and far more mechanized, as in this video. While it is a labor intensive process, researchers have been finding improved growth rates using the ear hanging method because water flow and space are unrestricted. Out on Hurricane, we will be using bottom cages for this coming year of growth, but may consider ear-hanging in the future.

Biofouling after several months in the water

Joined by others interested in pursuing scallop aquaculture, we boated around the corner to where Danas’ scallops have been growing in bottom cages, the same kind used for oysters. Upon hauling the cages up, it’s immediately clear how much fouling can occur. The bags were covered in tunicates, but they are easy to scrape off if you don’t mind the squishiness. We took out the larger scallops and brought them into the lab to be processed. The goal of the afternoon was to set up 4 lines of 60 scallops to deploy, each testing a different location of the drill hole. One ear is slightly larger than the other providing more stability for the hole while the other has a spot where drilling does not damage the shellfish’s mantle tissue. Dana will go back in 6 months to see if one method held up better than the others, and remeasure each individual to determine any growth rate differences. Ear-hanging is an exciting possibility for Maine waters. Dana is definitely leading the charge and it was awesome to see how doable it would be for Hurricane Island to carry out the technique ourselves next year!

 

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Dive Team Updates

Guest blog post by Research Intern Jessie Batchelder

On Saturday August 13th we finished our last scallop dive day on Muscle Ridge! (If you would like to learn more about what happens on our scallop dives you can read my previous blog post, First Scallop Dive Day!) Finishing our dives is a little bittersweet because dive days have been a blast this year, although I definitely feel a sense of accomplishment for all the work we have done this summer.  All in all, we lucked out with great dive conditions and are extremely excited to have finished our Muscle Ridge dive days before late October when temperatures are much cooler. First, I would like to send a huge thank you to the wonderful fishermen Tad, Dan, and Jim who so graciously have taken us out on their boats and work as amazing dive tenders while we are underwater.

Do you think we have enough gear?

Even though we have not yet gone through our data to start the analysis from this season, we have noticed that there are more juvenile scallops this year than in past years.  When comparing our survey results to the drop camera results from previous years, we have found that our dive surveys have been less successful at capturing the juvenile population.  This could be due to the difficulty of spotting small scallops in poor visibility conditions, or because in past years that size class has not been present at our sites.  Finding juvenile scallops at a number of our sites this season has been a positive sign because it suggests that we were not simply missing them because of visibility.

Scallops - we find all sizes while diving!

Thinking back to the first day we dove for the scallop project in early July, I can’t believe that time has gone by so fast.  This was my first experience with research diving and it is hard to believe that at one point I was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the methodology and protocols. Now, completing the scallop transects feel like any other dive.  I have found that the biggest difference with research diving is that you go underwater with a purpose, not simply to “see what you can see”.  However, this does not mean that our scallop dives have not been fun or that we did not see interesting organisms.  I could start a long list, but some of my favorite things I saw were two crabs mating, and some stocked jellyfish.  Scallop dive days were a huge focus for this summer—realizing that we finished our last transect is the first of many signals that unfortunately, summer is starting to wrap-up very quickly.

Bailey and I with Hector

In addition to diving for the scallop project, Bailey and I also had the unique opportunity to dive with the Rozalia Project’s ROV.  The Rozalia Project is a wonderful group whose mission is to “clean and protect our ocean”.  They visited Hurricane Island in late July to help teach two of our programs about their mission. Between cleaning up marine debris and teaching our highschoolers’, they helped us locate a lost mooring in our harbor using their ROV, Hector the Collector.  From the deck of the boat Hector was maneuvered onto the seafloor, with the help of his sonar sensors and a small screen aboard the boat, we were able to find the mooring block without too much trouble.  The real fun began when Bailey and I dove down to Hector in order to attach the mooring line back onto the block.  I had never dove with an ROV before—it was fun to have something else with us while we were underwater.  Hector even stayed with us on our safety stop to keep us company and take some fun photos! Diving with Hector was a new experience for me and it was also satisfying to put our dive skills to use in order to help find the lost mooring.

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Kelp Ecosystem Ecology Network (KEEN) Diving

Guest blog post from Research Intern Jessie Batchelder

One new addition to Hurricane Island this summer is the establishment of a Kelp Ecosystem Ecology Network site (KEEN).  KEEN is a global network of scientists who are assessing the impacts of global change on kelp forests.  Kelp forests are an important ecosystem because they provide a complex habitat that supports a high diversity of marine organisms.  Through KEEN, scientists across the world are using a standardized sampling protocol to observe kelp forests over time and understand how resistant they are with rapidly changing oceanic conditions.

A rocky shore entry at Pemaquid Point

In late July, Bailey, Cait and I traveled down to Pemaquid Point where we worked with a team from Northeastern University to learn how to conduct the KEEN sampling protocols.  Each KEEN site requires that data be taken from four separate 40 meter transects.  There are five different protocols that have to be conducted on every transect so there was a lot for us to learn!  From the five different protocols, data is collected about the kelp species that are present along with the fish, algal, invertebrate and vertebrate species that are found along the transect.  The KEEN protocols require a lot of species identification so brushing up on our ID’s especially for species that were present at Pemaquid but not on Hurricane Island was beneficial.  It was also helpful to hear from the Northeastern divers who were familiar with these protocols and get their suggestions and advice for the most efficient way to conduct the dives.

Early morning light before one of our dives on Hurricane Island

Our site on Hurricane Island is the most northern site on the eastern coast of the United States.  One of the biggest challenges involved with the KEEN protocols is site selection.  Before laying out our transects, Bailey and I dove twice on Hurricane Island to find kelp habitat at a suitable depth.  Much of our kelp is shallower than the 8-12 meter depth range required for the KEEN sites but we eventually found a good site off the north end of the island.  So far we have completed two of the four transects needed for the site.  With each transect the protocols have become easier and our dives quicker.  Since these dives are shallow (~25 feet), we can stay underwater for much longer than we can on our deeper scallop dives.  On our second transect, our dive lasted 74 minutes, which was the longest dive I had ever completed.  In addition to completing the remaining transects, we also have to install temperature loggers at the site to collect temperature data throughout the year.  We have two more transects left that and I am looking forward to finishing those this week before I leave the island for the summer.

Becoming a part of KEEN this summer has been a great opportunity to contribute to this global network of kelp studies. As this is the first season for our site on Hurricane Island, this year’s data will be used as a baseline for any changes we see in the future. 

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Kelp Aquaculture at Hurricane Island!

Guest blog post by Communications Intern Stef Burchill

On the coast of the North side of Hurricane Island, snuggled between two small white buoys is a kelp aquaculture site. Amongst the waves there is one long submerged line that the students at Deer Isle-Stonington High School seeded with kelp spores last fall. Sugar Kelp, Saccharina latissima, is naturally found in cold Northeastern American waters. In the wild, they need a rocky substrate or coastline to attach their holdfast to.

Ocean aquaculture may become a solution to the degradation our agricultural systems have been facing over the last century. Large-scale food operations with big monocrops, such as corn and soybeans, result in soils that are very susceptible to issues of erosion and nutrient deprivation. When large areas have these issues they become more difficult to work with, and need far more chemical fertilizers, machinery, and water pumped to them, which causes waste and more dependence on local and outsourced aquifers. A driving issue that started the problems in our current food systems is that they are disconnected from the natural environments and seasonal patterns that the individual foods originated from.

Many naturalists have suggested over the years that one possible solution to this disconnect is to simply begin with a local food movement. Putting the foods that grow seasonally in an area into one’s grocery cart can create a powerful community. Building up this community atmosphere fosters a self-sustaining motive, thus keeping the income for local businesses sustainable and maintaining healthy local farm and land practices.

MS Marine Ecology student getting into the kelp harvest on Hurricane Island

Kelp has been diversifying the portfolios of Maine fishermen and lobstermen during their off-season because it is a crop that grows best in wintertime (once it is established, sugar kelp grows 5-7 centimeters per day as it continues to pump out its spindly blades!) and can be harvested early March through to the early fall season. Researchers at NOAA in conjunction with researchers at Universities and other Institutes have begun to study if the process of photosynthesis in kelp may be a potential aid to issues of ocean acidification. The kelp takes in CO2 from the water, and replaces it with oxygen—much like plants and trees do for our air. If the research studies continue to be positive, and we implement more aquaculture off of our coastlines, we could begin to mediate some of the pollution that is going into our ocean systems. This concept is currently being investigated at Oceans Approved, an aquaculture site in Southern Maine, where they hope to use kelp to locally decrease CO2 around shellfish aquaculture sites.  Paul Dobbins of Oceans Approved was the one who graciously came out to help us find the site for our own kelp farm last summer!

Not only is kelp aquaculture good for our coast, and for local economic sustainability, kelp can greatly improve one’s health! This nutrient rich macro alga contains iodine, potassium, calcium, protein, and Omega-3 fatty acids—similar to those found in fish.

Once all of the little microorganism grazers and biofoulers are removed from the blades, kelp is ready to be cooked into many fun and tasty dishes! A few personal favorites I enjoy are: seaweed salad (which is a favorite in many Americanized Asian restaurants), miso soup, super food kale and seaweed salad, as a side dish to fresh caught fish, and a Hurricane Island favorite (even tested by the pickiest of middle schoolers)—chocolate seaweed pudding!

Our educators and researchers make kelp harvesting accessible to our student programs, by first educating them on the process of setting up a kelp aquaculture site and the benefits of kelp while in a lab setting. Armed with this background knowledge, students can then cruise over in one of our boats and harvest the kelp themselves. Teaching the next generation of thinkers why sustainable food systems matter, will someday create a world where they matter in the public eye. Here at Hurricane Island we will continue to promote healthy oceans, and healthy people by growing our aquaculture one spindly frond at a time.

MS Marine Ecology students showing off with their harvested kelp

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First Impressions Series: Jessie Batchelder

Guest post by Research Intern Jessie Batchelder

As an early start to our Fourth of July celebrations on the island the Scallop Research Team headed out on Sunday for our first dive day of the season.  Sometimes dive days can be hard to plan because of uncertainties in the weather, wind, and swell, so it was exciting that yesterday’s dives went through.  Additionally, because of the collaborative nature of this project, local lobstermen take us out on their boats so dive days have to be coordinated around their schedules.  Being out with the lobstermen is a great way to connect the science side of the project to the people it is actually impacting.  They also have such a wealth of knowledge about the area and ocean, which is extremely beneficial.  Plus, Dan was a great DJ!

Research Assistant Bailey Moritz posing with a scallop

Our day started bright and early as we met Dan, the lobsterman who we went out with, at 7am at the dock.  Because diving in general requires a lot of gear, plus all of our research equipment, loading the car to haul all the gear to the dock required a 5:30 am wake up.  Luckily, it was beautiful morning and we were all excited to get in the water so the early morning was not an issue. 

This was my first research experience underwater.  Compared to a purely recreational dive, there are many more things that are necessary to think about.  In addition to everything you have to pay attention to during a normal fun dive, on our scallop dives we also have to be aware of collecting scallops, staying on track with our transect, taking note of substrate types and other organisms we see, all while maintaining buoyancy with an ever increasing bag of scallops dragging us down and paying attention to how much air we have left.  Especially when the tides are running, staying parallel to the transect can be quite the challenge.  To record our data underwater we write on waterproof paper that is taped onto a PVC pipe around our arms. I never thought my handwriting could look worse than it normally does but then I put on 5mm dive gloves and realized how wrong I was.

Emptying the scallops we collected on the dive so we can process them on board

We were lucky to have a great tide day and for three of our four dives the currents were not that strong.  One of the sites the currents caused us to be swimming perpendicular to the direction of the transect which made that dive a little more challenging than the others.  Almost more importantly, we had great visibility, which was a huge relief because at times the visibility can be so poor you have to call off the dive. 

Once we get back aboard the boat our work continued to process all the scallop shells.  This involves taking a tissue sample for genetic testing and collecting the shells so we can measure growth rates once back in our ‘lab’ on the docks of Hurricane Island.  This usually takes up most of our surface interval time but it is long enough to warm up from the frigid Maine waters before we jump back in and do it all over again.  It was a great first day and I’m excited for the many more that are to come!

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