The following post is by Nicole Waite, a UNE student and intern at GMRI:

As a college student, you may get the opportunity to travel around the world and study abroad, which is exactly what I did.

James Cook University in Townsville, Austrailia.

As a marine biology student, I left the University of New England, in Biddeford, Maine and headed 9,720 miles across the world to the most perfect place in the world to study marine biology, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia! I spent 5 months in Australia, during the spring semester of my junior year of college.

I attended James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, where I had the opportunity to take many marine biology courses. These classes were “Life History and Evolution of Coral Reefs” where I learned about all the different types of corals. In my “Marine Chemistry” class, I learned about the chemical processes that occur in the oceans and how they affect marine organisms. I also took “Evolution and Ecology of Reef Fishes” where I learned about types of fishes found living on coral reefs, how present-day fishes evolved, and the ecology of fish communities. In this class, I also had a project where I had to dissect, rot, and reassemble a fish skull.

The fish head before rotting.

Partway through the rotting process.

The finished project with the skull succesfully reassembled!

Each of these classes included a field trip to Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier Reef. On these field trips we spent 3 days on the island, snorkeling, learning about marine biology, and collecting data right on the Great Barrier Reef! How many people can say they get the opportunity to go to a tropical island for a class field trip!?

Orpheus Island, part of the Palm Island chain on the Great Barrier Reef, Austrailia.

Nicole doing some work studying coral on one of the field trips.

Coral.

A stone fish we saw while snorkling at Orpheus Island. The stone fish is one of the most poisonous fish in the world.

And while studying abroad is for school, it isn’t all work. A lot of my time in Australia was spent exploring and seeing the country! I took trips to Cairns, Sydney, Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road, and I went sailing in the Whitsunday Islands (home of Whitehaven Beach, one of the most famous beaches in the world).

Nicole feeding a kangaroo at a wildlife park in Cairns.

London Bridge, another formation along the Great Ocean Road.

Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsunday Islands.

Snorkling in the Whitsunday Islands.

While I loved every trip that I took and every place that I saw in Australia, my favorite trip was my SCUBA diving trip. I went SCUBA diving on Wheeler Reef in North Queensland (part of the Great Barrier Reef) and at the S.S. Yongala shipwreck for a weekend. While words cannot fully describe it, I’ll give you a few: unbelievable, incredible, amazing, beautiful. On Wheeler Reef we did 2 dives during the day, where we saw things like clown fish, rays, sea cucumbers, a lion fish, lots of coral, and so much more. We also did a night dive! Divers are equipped with lights so that it isn’t completely dark, but the light only allows you to see in the direction you point it. If you cover the light, you are literally in a sea of darkness. It’s an eerie feeling, but for a diver and a marine biology major, it’s exciting and so worth doing. Much different animals come out and under the sea looks like a completely different place at night time. For example, all of the coral polyps come out to feed, so the coral doesn’t look just like a hard rock, it looks all fuzzy.

Sea cucumber.

Giant clam.

Wheeler Reef.

Nicole SCUBA diving on the reef.

My favorite part of the trip was when we were at the wreck of the Yongala, which is 30 meters down from the ocean’s surface (that’s 90ft!). Because the Yongala is out in deeper waters, unlike Wheeler Reef, you are more likely to see bigger, different animals than the ones that live on the reef, and boy did we. We saw a huge bull ray (which is the same species that killed Steve Irwin), sea turtles, sea snakes, and barracudas, just to name a few. But best of all, on one of the dives we were arms-length away from two 10ft-long bull sharks that circled around us! It sounds scary, but it was exciting! We were so close we could have touched them (but that is not a good idea, as bull sharks have been known to attack humans). It really felt like a marine biologist’s dream! We were so lucky to see all of the great things that we saw on these dives! I would do the dives again in a heart beat, especially because each dive is unique and you always see something new, and it is always worth it!

Clown fish.

Sea turtle.

Bull ray.

Bull shark.

A closeup of a bull shark (so close you can see the gill slits).

The oceans connect the world. The fields of Marine Biology and Oceanography may require a scientist to travel and work in other parts of the world, aside from Maine. For example, Marine Biologists who study marine mammals (seals, whales, etc.) travel to do field work where these animals can be found (e.g. Alaska, Antarctica, South America, etc); and those who study coral reefs go to tropical latitudes where the reefs are found (e.g. Australia, the Caribbean, etc.). One day, I hope to travel to many more places around the world to study and do field work in marine biology, and to explore all the world has to offer.

Getting the chance to go abroad, to study in another country, and to travel around the world are amazing experiences. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. For me, the place I most wanted to go was Australia, for you it may be someplace else. No matter where you want to go, go!

At West Harpswell Elementary School, Ms. Giberson’s 4th and 5th grade students are getting a first hand experience with a rare Lobster. Below is Ms. Giberson’s story:

I have some exciting news that I thought you might be interested in. I think that my class has an albino lobster in our salt water tank this year. It came to us grayish-white in color with black eyes. I thought all albino animals had pink or red eyes so I have been looking up albinos on the internet. I found a site in Cape Cod about a fish market that was given an albino and I seem to be having the same experience as this fish market.

The lobster started to turn from grayish to dull light blue the longer it was in my tank. The article about the lobster in Cape Cod stated that if cooked the albino would not turn red but be white. Since I am not going to cook this lobster, I think I have another way to find out. In the past, when I had a lobster molt, I took the shell out of the tank to coat it with shellac to preserve it. What I found was that a shell out in the air will turn red in about three days, like it was cooked. If the albino lobster molts this year I’ll take part of the shell out of the water to see if the shell stays white or turns red. If it stays white, I’ll be convinced that it is an albino.

I also read that an albino lobster is very aggressive. Below you can see a video of the albino lobster attacking another lobster in the tank. While cleaning the tank, the albino lobster has attacked me and shoved the spike on top of his head into my thumb making it bleed. I’ve never had a lobster do that before. Usually they’ll just swim backwards away quickly. I do have to admit that I am not always paying attention to the animals when I am cleaning the tank with my class. This tank is taken care of by the students and I’m just there to supervise. So while I’m showing them what to do, I am frequently surprised by a nearby animal.

Ms. Giberson’s class will keep us up to date with their investigation about their albino lobster.

Follow the adventures of Second Mate Stubb (aka Nick Record), a crayfish who lives in the Seascape Ecosystem Modeling Lab at GMRI, at the crayfish’s very own blog.  Below is a sampling of crustacean musings from his first blog entry:

Greeting my dear reader. Welcome to the pages wherein the events of my modest life are to be documented. I’ve never been one to linger in introductions, so I’ll come directly to the meat of it. My name is Second Mate Stubb, and I presently reside in one of the ecosystem models here at the Seascape Modeling Laboratory.

Meet Second Mate Stubb, the crayfish blogger.

Also, incidentally, I am a crayfish. I was plucked from the wild some time ago, and through untold dangers, I have made my way to this sanctuary. The accomodations are exquisite, and my leisure time here has offered me the opportunity to document some of the more salient events of my biography.

Furthermore, I hope to engage you, esteemed reader, with some of the anecdotes from my life here, as the subject of an ecosystem model in this fine laboratory. My life here, while lacking of the thrills of the wild, is replete with provocative day-to-day events and musings.

So I humbly invite you to peruse the pages of my life, even as I compose them.

Nicholas Record, a research associate at GMRI, has been working on recording time lapse video of the ocean in front of the lab. He is doing this work to better understand the small-scale currents in the harbor, but sometimes he captures beautiful video.  The time lapse sunrise he captured this morning is truly stunning.

Sunrise at GMRI from Science Translator on Vimeo.

In 1947, Twentieth Century Fox produced a documentary called “Lobstertown” about the remote fishing village of Corea, Maine. GMRI has interviewed Curt Brown, a lobster fisherman and researcher, about how lobstering has changed, and not changed, from then to now.

Lobstering in Maine: Then And Now. from Science Translator on Vimeo.

Meet one of GMRI’s research scientists, Andy Pershing.  We interviewed Andy a few weeks ago about his research and what got him interested in studying science.

Click on the video below to learn more about Andy.

A story from GMRI’s Curt Brown:

After doing a number of trials with a video camera in a lobster trap during the day we decided to try it at night. To do this we placed the camera inside the trap as usual and added an underwater SCUBA diving light. Once the camera was rolling and the light was on we set the trap in about 20 feet of water. When we hauled the trap the next day it was empty so we figured nothing had crawled or swam in the trap. This was certainly not the case…check out the video to see all the activity in a lobster trap at night!

Spooky looking vampire squid lurk in the deep-sea a half mile below the surface. No sunlight penetrates into their dark realm, and there’s so little oxygen in the waters they call home that few other animals can even live there.

But in spite of their name and their weird looks, vampire squids aren’t monsters at all. They grow to only about a foot long, and, like many deep sea animals, have weak, jelly like bodies best suited for drifting rather than swimming after prey. They don’t even drink blood; they’re called “vampires” for their black coloration and the cape-like webbing of skin between their eight arms.

Even calling them “squid” is misleading; these creatures belong to their own order of cephalopods distinguished by having long sensory threads that trail from their bodies and which allow them to find tastytreats like prawns, jellies and small, shrimp-like copepods in pitch-black darkness.

They also have some special tricks to escape from predators like deep-sea
fishes and deep-diving whales and sea  lions. Octopus and squids living in shallow waters often escape under the cover of  a cloud of black ink. But that won’t work down deep-what good’s black ink if you can’t see anything anyhow? Instead, vampire squid shoot off undersea fireworks in the form of a cloud of glowing, blue bioluminescent mucus. Like having someone pop off a flash in your eyes at nighttime, the display startles would-be predators, giving the squid time to make its getaway.  They also respond to threats by using a “pumpkin posture,” folding their caped  arms back over their body, which  body makes them  look bigger, and  raising their glowing  arm tips above them acts as a distraction.  Vampire squid can grow back their arm tips, so losing them is a lot better than  being eaten whole!

Scientists are trying to figure out ways to predict the future…of lobster populations at least. A great way to do that is to find out how many babies there are now. The Lobster Conservancy has been counting young lobsters at “nurseries” around the state, which are popular places for young lobsters, for over 16 years. These numbers can be combined with catch data of adult lobsters to help predict where the population of lobsters is headed.

Every month, around the full moon, there are very high and very low tides. At the astronomical low tides, volunteers from the Lobster Conservancy head to their sampling sites to look for baby lobsters.

This month, I headed out with the volunteers at Lowell’s Cove on Bailey Island in Harpswell to see what the process of catching baby lobsters is like. It was dark by the time the tide was out far enough for us to begin sampling. Since it’s October in Maine, it was quite chilly and we were bundled up against the wind. Once the tide went out far enough, we set out our first quadrat, which is a 1 meter square of PVC pipe, and flipped over all the rocks we could. Under the rocks, sometimes we would find lobsters!

We only had time to work through two quadrats before the tide turned and started to come back in. We had caught 11 baby lobsters, ranging in size from 1 centimeter to about 5 inches! Then we measured and described each lobster.

To keep track of the lobsters, each lobster caught is tagged. The tags are about the size of a splinter and go right into the tip of the leg of the lobster. If the lobster has been caught before, the volunteers will be able to read the tag and find out how long the lobster has been out there since it was caught before.

None of the lobsters we found had been caught before! Sometimes, when the tide is just right, the volunteers might find 60 or 70 small lobsters. Through this sampling, we are learning more and more about an extremely important species here in the Gulf of Maine.

Curt Brown reports on the amazing video he took by placing an underwater camera in one of his lobster traps:

While I was out lobstering off the coast of Cape Elizabeth the other day I decided to put an underwater camera in one of my traps to see if I could catch a lobster on camera. I set the trap in about fifteen feet of water and continued on hauling my other traps.

After a couple hours I returned to the trap with the video camera in it and hauled it back and sure enough there was a lobster in it! The lobster in this video was a female lobster with eggs so I had to throw her back. Now she can tell all her lobster friends that she is a movie star. When I got back to the dock in the afternoon the first thing I did was watch the video. I thought it was really cool actually seeing a lobster come in a trap.