MCC's Marine Biology Study Ablog 2022

  Our week in Puerto Penasco has come to an end, but what a week it was! We started the week with some surveys of intertidal habitats and tidepools, with each habitat having a unique community. We found a myriad of organisms at the sandy shore with rocky reef behind CEDO, including octopus, crabs, fish, sea urchins, sea stars, snails, and lots of sea hares. The rocky shore behind Vina del Mar also had a high abundance of organisms, including apricot sea slugs, nudibranchs, brittle stars, snapping shrimp, octopus, sea cucumbers, and crabs. The students enjoyed all of the habitats we visited, but I have a feeling the Cholla Bay mud/sandflat may have been their favorite. It had considerably less hard substrate, but the animals took advantage of the hiding places that were there. We found a lot of crabs, octopus, clams, and hermit crabs, and even some penaeid shrimp, gorgonians, and a flounder.  The sandy shore and rocky reef habitat behind CEDO.  Students tidepooling at the ...

Yesterday, we went on an all day boat trip. We put on wetsuits to keep us warm and afloat. I expected the water to be a lot colder but the wetsuit did a good job! When we took a dip in the ocean, a bunch of sea lions came to greet us. I had never seen one up close before. They looked so playful and cute. I heard that it is safer to look and not touch them because if they’re a pup, their mom might get the wrong idea and attack you. Glenn and four other people went diving. I would like to get scuba certified too some day. Later in the day, we saw a whale. The divers got pretty close to it and said it was pretty cool. For lunch, we ate some carne and shrimp cocktail. This adventure was the most exciting one we’ve had all week.

 Today is the last day of the trip. I’m surpised on how fast the trip went, feels like i’ve been here for a month but also a day. It’s such a changing expirence! I learned many things.  First thing I learned was to NOT EAT AT EL OKTOPUS! My stomach is hating me for that right now. Second thing I learned was no matter how careful you think you are, you are still going to get burnt. This trip has really changed my perspective on a lot of things. I’ve learnt so much about marine biology that i didn’t know and i made so many good friends while doing it. This is a trip i’ll never forget for the rest of my life. I feel like it’s the very start in my marine biology academic career and i’m so thankful to have such a memorable expirence.  Everyone here has such a great personality and it comes together to make a fantastic group of people. There is so much laughter, teasing, joking, and inside jokes that came from this trip. It was truely one for the books. I’m so happy I went on t...

  On our fourth day here we went down to Choya Bay. I really enjoyed this exploration and the zone was by far my favorite environment to explore. It was still an intertidal zone, but the difference here was that much of the land was muddy. There many water and air sockets scattered alongside the terrain. Essentially we were exploring the bay at low tide, which was a large vast exposed area of muddy intertidal zones. It was very surprising to see the amount of life, and how they are able to survive under extreme conditions. We found a lot of snails, octopus, crustaceans, and my favorite, sand dollars. The challenges of many intertidal area are desiccation, or water loss, which causes many organism to station in small tide polls if available until the tide is high again. The temperature changes can be extreme, the salinity changes, there is interrupted feeding, limited space, and oxygen availability and build up of CO2 is limited at low tide. Regardless, the organisms of this terrain...

  On our third day we went to a rocky intertidal zone. It was really cool driving there. The view was spectacular where we park, which was on the side of a clif, and there were stairways which lead downwards towards the coast. This place was by far the most interesting zone in the sense of diverse and abundance of the organisms. We found everything from Sponges (phylum porifera) Cnidarians (phylum Cnidaria), there was a long of Sean anemones which look liked a tripohbias nightmare, Flatworms (phylum Platyhelmithes), Molluscs (phylum mollusca), and Arthropods (phylum Arthropoda) to name a few. There was also a huge tide pool towards the top of the rocky zone, and it was so refreshing. The water in the pool was also crystal clear, but I am sure it was teaming with life under those rocks. 

On our second day of the trip we woke up pretty early and went down to the intertidal zones down the hill from Cedo. An intertidal zone is the area between low and high tide, sometimes called the littoral zone. Here we were exploring the area to observe the organism of the intertidal zone. The organisms are know as Epifauna, organisms that live on the surface of the substrate, Infauna, organisms that live in the substrate, and Meiofauna, organisms so small that they live between the grains of the soft substrate. During this exploration we found a couple different types of crabs, sea stars, octopus, shrimp and snails.

     Two of the most memorable watersports we took part in during our trip were kayaking and the boat trip. The day we went kayaking, just the drive alone up to the estuary was an adventure, our vans got stuck in the sand on the wrong road for a solid 20 minutes, but once we got to the right spot we headed out and began the tour. David from CEDO was our guide and he told us a lot about the importance of estuaries in the environment. We spent a while on the water under the hot sun, but it made swimming in the bay after the kayaking so much more enjoyable. The day we went out on the boat to Bird Island was an early morning, we met the crew at the docks and headed out for a slow but steady three-hour ride to the island. When we finally arrived, we were greeted by hundreds of sea lions who seemed to never get tired of barking. Four of us were scuba diving while the rest were snorkeling and kayaking at the surface. Visibility was a struggle at the bottom, especially when sea...

Today we visited Isla San Jorge, which is also known as Bird Island, it sits between Caborca and Puerto Peñasco. It is considered a very important location for migratory birds and it is considered a very important asset to marine biology. This island is home to one of the most dense populations of Sea Lions. The younger sea lions came very close to the group even as we snorkeled close to our boat. They are very friendly and very very curious about humans. Now I know why they called them the puppies of the sea.   Along the way to another side of the island we had the opportunity to come across a whale shark. A very rare opportunity, even in Puerto Peñasco. It was such a beautiful and majestic creature. I am so happy I got the chance to experience seeing one in the ocean. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience!

 Nothing is more fun than taking a boat out to go snorkeling, except if you come across a whale shark.  I was  hoping to see more, but this was even better.  The sea lions on the island were as curious as was explained and the island was covered with many birds, most of which were boobies.  I think they said there were blue footed boobies and brown boobies out on the island.  Boy did the island smell!  Between sea lions and bird poop that covered and made it look white, it definitely is a stinky island.  I think the divers had a better time seeing things under the water, even though the visible was low. --Laura

 Today we were nest monitoring osprey. Osprey are beautiful black and white seahawks that only end up having one or two chick that survive. We checked the GPS coordinates, if the nest was active, collect any feather or eggs, and if the were any chicks or juveniles. --Laura

  This morning we went to observe 5 different nesting sites done by Osprey. The observations were based on eggs, chicks, juvenile, adult osprey along with other characteristics surrounding the nest. Thanks to David Cedos Biologist I learned: Osprey are generally monogamous and often mate for life. Males select a nesting site as a pair find items for the nest, but the female arranges the nest. Osprey male will kill one out of three chicks because of the lack of food (survival skills). The chicks will also try to kill each other for the same reason food. At the end they will be one chick who will survive unless theirs enough food for all chicks.  They have long wings and small tails.   They take turns looking after their chicks, when one parent flies away for a long period of time the one who stays behind calls out for their return. During this activity in one of the nest site David collected feathers and egg shells.  Taking notes what nest it was found and time to be ...

Yesterday we had a brief lecture on ecology. Ecology is the study of how and why organisms interact with one another and their environment.  We learned that o rganisms must adapt to both biotic and abiotic factors of their communities.      - Abiotic factors: lack of sunlight, too much sunlight, evaporation, currents, UV radiation, etc.      - Biotic factors: fouling, parasites, predators, competition for food, etc. Each species in a community has its own ecological niche, or special role. And p opulation growth depends on limiting resources, like oxygen or CO2, food and nutrients, space (habitat), and physical factors. The largest population size that can be supported by the available resources is called carrying capacity .  We also learned about the major marine environments:      - Benthic: sessile organisms that live on the bottom      - Pelagic: organisms that live in the water column A gorgonian attached to a...

  For Your   Information Or Fireworms Yare super Inot the move This is a PSA that I feel strongly about! If you go tide-pooling at any beach, watch out for these guys (pictured in red worm). Sometimes called a bristleworm, these friends will shoot out little bristles like a porcupine mixed with a desert tarantula’s leg hair mixed with a worm. They look soft, but those white marks on the edge are razor sharp and will lodge themself in the flesh of whoever winds up being their unlucky victim. Then, the excess of the “hair” breaks off, leaving the residue in the skin. The skin generally becomes extremely irritated, in some cases developing a rash. Because the hairs are small and clear, it’s difficult to pull them out with tweezers, and unsanitary to pull them out with tape. The best thing to do is to wear gloves and water shoes and stay away. The second best thing to clean the area well, rinse in hot water for 15 minutes, wash in vinegar, and to wait.  Fortunately, there’s s...

 One of our assignments for this course included studying a phylum of invertebrates and creating a presentation on them. My group studied Echinodermata and I covered the ecology of such- how they interact within and with their environment. I figured I’d share some of the things I learned on this blogpost! As a general rule, echinodermata are sessile, deposit-feeders, and have a vascular system that allows them to suction onto more solid objects. (there are several other identifying factors, but those are a few that directly affect the environments they choose to live in). Ecology covers interspecies community interactions, and I loved learning about the doubly positive symbiotic  relationships sea anemones (an echinoderm) share with hermit crabs. Being sessile, it is hard for anemones to quickly escape predators, so sometimes they will attach themselves to a hermit crab shell. They feed off the deposits of organic matter in the water low to the ground as the crab moves along, ...

 First tide of the day was at 8:18am -1.3m, organism living in the area of La Choya Bay were exposed during this time. It’s mudflats bottoms exposed thousands of mud snails, I felt horrible stepping on them. Other organism I saw saw were fiddler crabs, a shrimp, sand dollar and an octopus. LA Choya Bay is also known for it’s muddy soft bottom. A black layer in the sediments where the oxygen has been completely depleted and hydrogen sulfide is produced by anaerobic bacteria causing a horrible smell. Despite the horrible smell the findings were amazing.  Nubia Alarcon  

Today we explored the intertidal mudflat/sand flat at Cholla Bay.  At first glance, you might not think there is a lot of life, besides bacteria in the mud flat area, but there are small pools of life.  And Mollusca everywhere!  At the mudflat under the surface is anoxic, hydrogen sulfide being produced by bacteria decomposing the organic material makes it black looking and very smelly.  I was impressed by the oyster shells embedded in the rocks along the mudflat area. We saw a few swimming crabs like the blue crab, hermit crabs, and moon snails.  As we reached the sand flats, there were clam shells that had Phitch's octopus inside with their eggs.  Those octopuses were very strong for their size, extending their arms and trying to close the shell they occupied back up. I didn't see any live sand dollars, but I found out they were probably there under the sand or mud since that is where they go during a low tide.  Apparently, you can find them because ...