Helen K White Lab

Well there it is – summed up by Counting Crows 7X platinum debut studio album.  We have finally hit the end of our time in the White Lab this summer.

Let’s recap:

10 weeks of work

3 trips to the Gulf

200+ samples collected

61 samples analyzed on IR and FID

Collaborated with Chris Reddy at WHOI analyzing some of their samples

Hundreds of hours of rockin’ music

Two trips to Kiwi frozen yogurt

10 bags of vending machine Cheetoes

I’d call our time here a success.  That is not to say that our work is over.  So far we have simply analyzed the samples on various machines.  The next step is to synthesize our mountain of data into streamlined figures and conclusions so we can actually say something meaningful about Gulf tar balls.  Never fear, we still have plenty to do.

We now all have a month to decompress and then it’s right back here for school and more hard-core science.  I’m off to bop around the Gulf of Maine for a few weeks and then we can get ready to do it all again!

We did all but one of these this summer...

As Helen is presenting some of our work this summer at a Gordon Research Conference (GRC) this week in New Hampshire, I am tidying up and getting ready to go home. This summer has been super productive, and a great start to my thesis (oh my goodness, I’m actually going to be a senior REALLY soon!)

Between two trips down to the gulf to collect tar ball samples for Pat (some of which I may be working on myself in the fall/spring), lots of sequencing data and a scram to construct 16S and alkB phylogenetic trees, I deem the summer a grand success! But after said success, it’s really hard to slow down… I just want to set up more PCRs and get some more cloning and sequencing done, but anyone who knows microbiology can tell me that I am crazy and all of that will have to wait for the fall BUT I FEEL LIKE I ONLY JUST STARTED!!!

Oh well, I get to go home to Greece for three weeks before coming back to start my thesis in full swing, and I can jump on the PCRs then. For now, I have some plasmid preps to test for inserts and possibly some plasmids to send out for sequencing before I leave. And then it’s clean, clean, clean! Autoclaving, disposal of ethidium bromide waste, restocking pipette tips and inventorying supplies, all that fun stuff…

Well, it’s been a great summer, and I can’t wait to be back in the fall with cohorts Katie Sheline and Sarah Harrison! And of course Pat, Zach, Jen and anyone else affiliated with the White Lab when they aren’t busy with the Haverfordian life.

It’s me–Sarah Harrison, rising senior in the White Lab, reporting from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science in New South Wales, Australia, and no, there are no really cool pictures of tarballs in this post! During the second week of July, I had the chance to attend the International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Cairns, Queensland. Through Haverford’s KINSC Student Travel Fund and the Smithsonian Marine Station, I got the chance to spend five glorious days basking in all things coral reef related. The conference included some hard-core chemistry, molecular biology, ecology, and modeling talks, but it also had many talks on coral reef management and management-science hybrid talks, about responding to the newest science in meaningful ways. Between the poster presentations, lectures, and thoughtful Q&As (which often spilled over into coffee breaks), the conference really did feel like a cohesive and ongoing conversation about coral reef science and management, and it left me itching to jump back into the lab to learn more.

The view of the Cairns Convention Center, home to ICRS, from our apartment.

My name tag, complete with a jellyfish! (No, I didn't make it...sadly!)

I presented a poster at the conference on a project I worked on during the summer of 2010 in the U.S. Virgin Islands with Dr. Valerie Paul, Ph.D., of the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida. That summer we investigated the sea urchin Diadema antillarum’s feeding preferences.

My poster and I!

You may be thinking to yourself, “What do urchins have to do with coral or coral reefs?” Well, allow me to draw a parallel with one of my favorite animals, the cow. (Everything can be explained through these humble herbivores, it seems!). If allowed to graze over an appropriate area of grass, a cow can maintain the grasses in the area so that they don’t grow out of hand and exhaust the soil. Similarly, sea urchins and other reef herbivores graze on all sorts of algae on a coral reef—both cyanobacteria and macroalgae—and in doing so, keep the algae at bay long enough for coral to carry out a normal life cycle and bring balance to the reef. In the 1980s there was a disease, still unknown to this day, that nearly wiped out Caribbean reefs of one of its chief grazers, the spiny sea urchin, Diadema antillarum. Predictably, with fewer grazers the algae cover of reefs grew, leading to less coral cover, and general decay in the coral reefs across the Caribbean.

What we were interested in was whether or not certain species of macroalgae and cyanobacteria chemically deterred the sea urchin Diadema antillarum. We tested this by three different assays. It turns out that the urchins were not huge fans of the brown macroalgae Lobophora variegata, Dictyota menstrualis and D. pulchella and the cyanobacterium Dichothrix utahensis. This subtle chemistry may have important consequences in shaping reef communities, because when given a choice, these urchins may not eat these algae when other more palatable species are available.

Our picky eater: the sea urchin, Diadema antillarum

Finally, I want to share with you all a project that was presented on the final day of the symposium. The Catlin Seaview Survey hopes to become the Google Street View of coral reefs. So even if you didn’t have the chance to get your toes wet this summer, feel welcome to take a virtual dive and get all starry-eyed over the wonder of coral reefs!

My Top Five: ICRS

1) Incorporating the myriad of acronyms of the coral reef world into my own vocabulary: MPA (marine protected areas), OA (ocean acidification), COTS (Crown of Thorns Starfish), PNG (Papau New Guinea), the GBR (the Great Barrier Reef), and the CT (the Coral Triangle), to name a few.

2) Learning the term Charismatic Marine Megafauna: (noun) large sea animals that the general population is jazzed up about, like dolphins, sea turtles, dugongs, manatees, whales, and to a certain extent, sharks. I found myself quite enthused after l learned that the humble dugong, a distant cousin to the Atlantic’s manatee, has actually taken on two U.S. Secretaries of State in court and won. (See the 2005 case Okinawa Dugong v. Rumsfeld).  Charismatic, indeed!

3) Having to pick between five fabulous talks at once, all day, every day for five days. Do I choose “Response of Coral Larvae to Deepwater Horizon Dispersant” or “Human Influence on Fish Biodiversity”? Or what about “Chemical Warfare on the Reef: Herbivores vs. Macroalgae”? Needless to say, my tiny, but mighty purple moleskin runneth over with crunched notes on all the talks I went to over the course of the week.

How I spent most coffee breaks: pouring over which program to see next. Note the saucer.

4) Realizing that I only met three other undergraduates over the course of the week! Three! Out of almost 2,000 attendees! Most of the coral reefers I met were on their way to finishing up their doctorate or were more established names in their respective fields, so it was a tiny bit intimidating!

And finally,

5) Hearing Dr. Geoffrey Jones, Ph.D., a leader in the world of fish larvae recruitment, refer to adolescent fish as lost little Nemos finding their way home! So yes, I (kind of) did find Nemo at the Coral Reef Symposium!

Wow, what a day! It started out with clear skies, delicious donuts from Ronnies and 10-40% chance of rain after checking the weather channel and radar reports. Little did we know that the storm apocalypse was on its way.

And so we got to Grand Isle, excited about the day ahead and planning the number and type of samples to be collected. Once we hit Elmer’s island, we were faced with a load of trucks heading the other way, off the beach. But we plowed forth and decided to brave the elements, making our way in the trusty jeep to the edge of the beach, where we decided to wait out the storm. After a little while of waiting, I turned around and witnessed what looked like the disappearance of beach behind us. That was when we decided to head for higher ground- but what constitutes higher ground in Louisiana where most of the state is below water level??

As it turns out, the supermarket acted as our safe haven (but getting there proved interesting, with giant puzzles, um puddles to plow through). Once the storm blew over enough that we could get out of the car without getting blown over and smacked down by the rain, we ventured onto the beach, where we came away with an impressive number of samples given the stormy conditions. We found tar balls scattered all over the beach, in the high surf line, way up on the beach behind the plant barriers and all over really, except the rock jetties. Pat confirmed that those were all underwater and unattainable.

After Grand Isle beach we made our way to Elmer’s island where the mosquitos came out to bug us, but only after we blew it out of the park and found an impressive number of samples! Well, Katie was the one to thank, she located a gold mine’s worth of tar balls that filled an impressive number and size of jars. Whoot!

And so we concluded our trip with grand successes, having experienced extreme weather conditions (even though Debby was not on the radar this trip, weather turned out to be much more unpredictable!) but definitely coming out on top. New Orleans was a treat, with the opportunity to meet some of Helen’s friends and the cutest baby(!) over delicious and food-coma-inducing Vietnamese food.

Great way to end the trip, the night and this blog post.

Our day really started off with a bang when we stopped at Mr. Ronnie’s Donuts. Naturally, I got the one with the most chocolate– the chocolate covered devil’s food– and a second red velvet cake donut for good luck. I had the honor of navigating for the day, so I got a good look at all the canals and swamp lands by which we drove. The Mississippi River Delta is such a beautiful place, and I would have loved nothing more than to take a canoe and paddle all throughout the waters. Or to take a ride on one of the air/ hovercraft boats. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to find a nice Louisiana native to take me around on his boat and go gator hunting. Maybe next time…
Per usual we got stuck in a massive thunderstorm that lasted for hours. As we pulled into Elmer’s Island, which was supposed to be our first site, everyone else was heading out. We drove out to the beach and parked to wait out the storm, but soon enough the line between sand and water started to blur so we headed back to the main road for safety. We headed towards Grand Isle, but not without driving through foot deep puddles that had completely flooded the road in parts. So many red flags going off in my head. In the end, we made it out alive and the car didn’t get swept away to sea like I may or may not have feared would happen. I even braved the rain and chilling wind to collect samples. The things I do for science… However, in reward we treated ourselves to sno-balls of a variety of flavors. Sugar for lunch!
After re-energizing, we headed back to Elmer’s Island and collected tar ball on tar ball on tar ball from the beach in a worryingly quick amount of time. Then we hopped back in the car and braved a few more storms before making it to New Orleans, our last stop of the trip.

To all the folks at home who have been following our southern adventures, our days of blogging on site are coming to an end.  Today we drove down to the Bayou and started our day with a rousing dose of thunder, lightening, and more rain than we would care to mention.  Elmer’s Island was right in the center of a rather exciting thunder storm and most of Grand Isle was under water when we found it.  After waiting out the storm we finally got on the beach to collect some oil.  Helen, Liz, and Katie found patties along the beach, but I struck out on the jetties.  I nearly died traversing slime-coated rocks and what do I get?  Barnacle cuts and smelly board shorts.

Never one to complain, we made our way back to Elmer’s Island for more tar balls.  I prayed and danced to every oil god I knew to no avail.  Once again I was unable to find any oil of my own.  I was able to help Liz, Helen, and Katie fill their own composites, but I brought in no oil of my own.  We finally called it a day and headed back to New Orleans for a dinner of pho and sticky rice.

This summer has been a whirlwind of science, long car rides, and fun in the sun.  Here’s to buckling down and doing the real work next week…

Here are some final photos from our final trip. Many thanks to Rob Scarrow, Tim Mclean and the KINSC at Haverford College for funding this work. Thanks also to Chris Reddy and Catherine Carmichael (funded by DEEP-C) for sharing their knowledge of tar balls in the Gulf with us. We look forward to sharing our results with you all in the near future.

We encountered our second storm of the trip today along the shores of ship island. As we grabbed tar balls, watched dolphins play, rays glide, catfish dart and hermit crabs scramble around, the grey clouds rolled in and around us. A small child cried to his dad “but we’re stuck on an island”, when the boat to take us back to the main land could not dock.  While we knew we wouldn’t be stuck for long, we did debate whether the fort or the restrooms would be the best location should a storm surge hit. When Katrina hit in 2005 ship island was under 25 feet of water from the storm surge, which is pretty incredible to even imagine. As it turned out, it was a very good day as Pat, Liz and Katie describe in their posts. Here are some images from the day’s events:

To be fair, we have had epic successes on this trip. We have hit 7 sites so far, and come away with 68 samples. Woohoo! And two of those sites are brand new, simply amazing!

Our visit to Ship Island ended in thunder and a frantic walk/run to the ship once it docked at the island, but only after we met with great success on both the ocean and bay side of the island. My day was also made by the frequent viewings of dolphins (there were some baby fins out there!) and sting rays of all sizes. And let us not forget the hermit crabs, who would hide as soon as they saw us coming.

All round, Mississippi and Louisiana were much friendlier to us tar-ball collectors this time around. More efficient and more interesting sampling, better service at Osaka for dinner (they brought us spring rolls and didn’t deny us the pleasure of soups and salads) and although the rains dampened the air around us, it most certainly did not dampen our enthusiastic spirits! Although the morning collection did result in sweat-lodge amounts of perspiration.

Prospects of humidity and scattered thunderstorms in the air tomorrow bode for a hot and sweaty day, and potential heat stroke/death by lightning on the rock jetties. But don’t worry, the woman at the deli in our Shoreway supermarket lunch stop tomorrow will clear the skies with her endearing way of calling everyone “Baby”.

More to follow tomorrow night! Posts might resemble the weather channel, given that this trip has been the most exciting weather-wise.

We started the day bright and early in Gulfport, MS. The town seemed much more lively than when I visited in December a year and a half ago, which was nice to see. We hit a new spot right next to the main harbor and hit all kinds of oil. Even though it wasn’t even 10 o’clock, the sun was brutal without a breeze and we were all awkwardly sweaty by the end of it. After a refreshing stop at the Winn Dixie to get garlic bagel chips and cheese for lunch, we made our back towards the harbor and took a ferry out to Ship Island. The boat ride seemed like it would have been really pretty, but I wouldn’t know because I fell asleep almost immediately and didn’t wake up until we had docked at the island. At the time, it seemed like we would have a wonderful, relaxing 4 hours to get more samples, have a picnic, and maybe even swim…

Little did we know, we were about to get hammered by a massive storm (see Image 3). Starting around 2 o’clock the clouds started rolling in, followed shortly by thunder and lightning. We collected some more samples as we retreated back to the sheltered area, and then we had another 2 hours to kill before the next ferry was supposed to leave to bring us back to the mainland. By 4:30 the storm was in full force and had churned up waves large enough to give the ferry troubles while docking. Eventually we made it back on the boat, completely soaked, and napped the way back. Then we headed out to Houma, Louisiana– home of the Swamp People (see History Channel), but not before I had the brilliant idea to stop and refuel at Krispy Kreme. Enough said.