Day 39 – The Graduates of UAF

Before you invest the time to read this all…..I wanted to tell you why I took so much time to write these profiles. I have been really impressed with what I have been learning and I have a great respect for the passion and dedication this whole team demonstrates. I feel they deserve a voice to make a few peeps about what they do and why they are doing it. I guess I want to report on the ecology of this cruise! Enjoy.

Since the last two posts have referenced Nathan Stewart and his work, it is important to note that this is not purely a profile on Nate! Although
he is very photogenic, a good storyteller and conducting fascinating work, there are three graduate students who are also heading up projects
under the leadership of Brenda and Matt(the doctors). Each of them has their own photogenic moments to speak of. I hope they just read this and shivered, wondering which photos I am about to publish – heehee. They are all equally passionate and dedicated to their work. Brenda, Matt,
Nathan, Terry, Martin and Renato are like a scientific six pack all working on inter-related topics that weave into an Aleutian Island habitat
study. Those are definitely my words, not their direct quote.

Terril Efird

Terry is the fish guy. His work is comparing the fish community in kelp forests vs. barrens. He is taking fish counts and conducting a habitat
survey. To do this, he lays transect tapes that are 50 meters long and 2 meters wide on each side. He swims and counts the numbers of fish in the different species he identifies, while taking notes on a clipboard and hoping that his pencil continues to work on the never-tear paper while
underwater. Another diver swims above him and counts the fish above Terry in the same square area.

He is doing this for the interior and edge of the kelp forests and in the barren. In addition to the fishees – yes, I meant to type the extra e,
I like how it sounds – , Terry is counting types of algae and even counting cracks and crevices. In his own nutshell, Terry is collecting data to
understand why we find the fish we find, where we find them.

Being the supportive friend and ambitious student that he is, Terry has accompanied Nate to Bay of Islands in Adak, AK to assist in Nate’s
research project. As he enters the hunting cabin they will be staying in, I think he would prefer to sleep in his dry suit, bobbing in the water.
It looks like he is walking into an oven for caribou. Good luck, Terry!

Martin Schuster

Martin is the invertebrate man. He is working on two projects. First, he is looking at the kelp bed holdfasts where you can find hundreds of
species of arthropods/sea bugs, snails, worms and clams, oh my. Even after the urchins have decimated the kelp, these species stay in the
barrens. Martin is working to narrow down who can survive.

The second area of his work is studying phlorotannin which is a chemical in kelp and, in theory, it deters urchins from eating the kelp. So,
Martin is conducting feeding experiments in which he is presenting kelp from apparent “protected” forests to starving little urchins in the
barrens and seeing what their rate of consumption is. Here is a shot of a feeding stake just after it is placed on the ocean floor.

Urchins are living in barrens on next to nothing for food, yet they survive with extremely low metabolic rates and teeny stomachs and tiny gonads. They seem to be so hungry that they are mowing down the kelp with high concentrations of phlorotannin. As you can see, they are just clambering for a feast.

All of this falls under the optimal defense theory – adapt or die. I must stop here because I don’t want to be a spoiler and take any thunder
away from Martin’s thesis defense! Stay tuned…..Here is a shot of Martin praying he does a good job.

Renato Borras

Renato is the kelp dude. I can’t believe I just typed “dude”, but I really didn’t want to just call them all guys. Renato’s work looks at the
nutritional value of kelp. You can imagine how much I really like him because he is 100%, all about the food. It is not uncommon to find him
snacking on a piece of his dried kelp. Working with a little oven, Renato is drying his specimens as he collects kelp from Alaska all the way to
Chile.

Outside of this project, Renato has been successful in making kelp more sustainable. In his country of Chile, harvesting kelp is a big business.
It is harvested for alginate, which is used in making all kinds of products such as beer, yogurt and dental impressions. It was great to hear
about a success story in which Renato could support the industry in his country and help protect the ocean habitats. Nice job. He is also the companion of Adeo, the soon to be world famous puppet!

In addition to the six-pack, there are two more divers on board, Jason McDaniel and Cory Oldham. Both are undergraduates and came on the trip to assist. When I asked them why they volunteered, they both said, “Are you kidding me, an all expenses trip to get to dive in the Aleutian!” I
don’t think either of them hesitated and they get up every morning and go out in the water with gusto. They dive and they eat. And, they eat and they dive.

Jason is on the left and Cory is on the right.

Kwang Young Kim

Kwang is all about the water and is working with Matt Edwards and is on sabbatical from his university in Korea. Kwang is working intensively with new, state-of-the-art equipment, studying carbon dioxide. Apparently, his work is so complicated that they didn’t even try and explain it to me! Below is a shot of one of their devices which measures photosynthesis rates in kelp in real-time, like taking the heartbeat of a plant.

Tagged as: Aleutian Islands, kelp, Martin Schuster, Renato Borras, Terril Efird, University of Alaska Fairbanks, urchins