November 2013 Seaword

Seaw rds The Marine Option Program Newsletter

November 2013

20 It’s the invasion

that “could very well become the most disastrous marine invasion in history.”

INVASION IN THE CARIBBEAN GET TO KNOW THESE FACES IT’S BIG, BLUE, AND IN TROUBLE

m o r f r Lette r o t i d the E

This month, Seawords is giv Priya Rashid. You can read cob Vandor in our online co issue on Martian oceans an

Last January, Dr. Mark Hixon came the Hsiao Endowed Chai Hawai‘i at Mānoa. On page 16 and research on the lionfish in

While there are no Pacific red lion no lionfish induced problems here, as the Blueline snapper (Hawaiian and the peacock grouper (Hawaiia

The biology department at Univ at Mānoa is also welcoming two ate Professors, Amy Moran and You can read an interview with them by our Associate Editor, J on page 22.

s for our new in is giving thank , Seawords her last article This month can read Rashid. You of collection Editor, Priya Assistant r in our online Jacob Vando er issue on on Martian the Octob s in this issue new article issues or her s. ocean saving our Oregon State oceans and Nixon from ry, Dr. Mark e Biology Last Janua Chair of Marin Endowed is became the 20 there . On page University i‘i of Mānoa lionfish sity of Hawa ch on the at the Univer and resear es his lab that featur an article ean. the Caribb at Mānoa of Hawai‘i invasion in sity Univer at l non-spousa y depar tment The biolog Professors, Associate ing two new read an interis also welcom . You can Peter Marko Moran and Editor, James hires Amy Associate them by our the two of view with patient last page 22. for being you Stone, on thank it issue and enjoy this hard to get I hope you d especially rds worke and a half staff at Seawo d a week month, the October arrive ontime after to come out late.

I hope you enjoy t you for being pati staff at Seawo hard to get it after October half late.

for reading! r Thank you Lam, Edito --Kathryn

Thank you

--Kath Editor

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ving thanks for our new Assistant Editor, her last article in the October issue on Jaollection of issues or her new articles in this d saving our oceans.

from Oregon State University beir of Marine Biology at the University of 6 there is an article that features his lab nvasion in the Caribbean.

nfish in Hawai‘i and as such there is , we do have other fish invaders such n name, Ta‘ape or Lutjanus kasmira) an name, Roi or Cephalopholis argus)

versity of Hawai‘i o new Associd Peter Marko. h the two of James Stone,

this issue and thank ient last month, the ords worked especially t to come out ontime r arrived a week and a

u for reading!

hryn Lam, r

Seawords Volume XXVII, Number 11, November 2013 Editor: Kathryn Lam Associate Editor: James Stone Assistant Editor: Priya Rashid Dr. Cynthia Hunter (éminence grise) Seawords- Marine Option Program University of Hawai‘i, College of Natural Sciences 2450 Campus Road, Dean Hall 105A Honolulu, HI 96822-2219 Telephone: (808) 956-8433, Fax: (808) 956-2417 E-mail: <seawords@hawaii.edu> Website: <www.hawaii.edu/mop> Seawords is a monthly newsletter of the Marine Option Program at the University of Hawai‘i. Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Marine Option Program or of the University of Hawai‘i Suggestions and submissions are welcome. Submissions may include articles, photographs, art work, or anything that may be of interest to the marine community in Hawai‘i and around the world.

All photos are taken by MOP unless otherwise credited.

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NOVEMBER 2013 Volume XXVII, Number 11 Contents Page 2: Letter from the Editor Page 4: Table of Contents Page 5: As seen on the cover Flashback Page 6: Student Perspective: SOEST Open House Page 8: Research ahoy!

Page 12: International Focus: Martian marine biologists?

Page 13: Ocean Updates: NOAA shutdown Page 14: Ocean Art: Page 16: Invasion in the Caribbean Page 20: Critter of the Month Page 22: Get to know these faces Page 24: Generation Blue Page 26: Gabe Cohen Page 28: Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s big, blue, and in trouble Page 30: Hanauma Bay Calendar of Events Page 33: October MOP Calendar of Events

About the Photography in this Issue -Cover photo: Mark Albins, Oregon State University Ph.D. student -Letter to the Editor Photo: MOP -Table of Contents Photo: John Coney UHH MOP Coordinator Emeritus -Back Photo by: UHM MOP -All uncredited photos by: MOP

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As seen on the cover...

Invasion in the Caribbean

By Kathryn Lam, Editor

A look into research in the lab of Dr. Mark Hixon, Hsiao Endowed Chair of Marine Biology at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

pg 16 Get to know these faces

By James Stone, Associate Editor

Moran and Marko join UH Mānoa Biology Department.

pg 22 It’s big, blue, and in trouble

By Priya Rashid, Assistant Editor

New research aims to change the concept of “too big to fail”

pg 28 FLASHBACK: 1992 UHM MOP Coordinator, Jeff Kuwabara when he was a young MOPer posing with late Senator Daniel Inouye.

The picture was a part of a story run in the October 1992 Seawords about how military cutbacks might boost ocean research and development.

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Honolulu Fishing & Seafood Festival:

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STUDENT PERSPECTIVE An annual event, the Honolulu Fishing and Seafood Festival is held at the Fishing Village on Pier 38. It originally started in 2005 as a fundraiser event for the Pacific Islands Fisheries Group and has grown to attract over 20,000 people each year.

UHM MOP had a booth that offered brochures and other information about the program as well as coloring pages of different fish in Hawai‘i for the “young and young at heart” to color.

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Research aho

A tour of the RV Kilo Moana and a summary of a few

By Co-Editor, Kathryn Lam

T

he University of Hawai‘i’s RV Kilo Moana, a “small waterplane area twin hull” vessel or SWATH, is owned by the United States Navy as are most university research vessels, according to the Kilo Moana’s captain, F. Gray Drewry.

SWATH vessels, invented by Canadian Frederick G. Creed and first fully built in the Netherlands, are catamaran-like in design. The design is such that most of the vessel’s displacement is under the waves in the form of twin hulls that remain submerged. This concept is similar to the idea of a ship that sails on two submarines and gives SWATH vessels less of a hull to counter-act with wave motion making the vessel more stable on water.

The RV Kilo Moana and crew are generally out at sea for 240 days a year. The closest site they sail to, Station Aloha, is about 70 miles north of O‘ahu. It takes about less than a day to sail there however, as they stay at the station for several days, the shortest trip the vessel, crew, and scientists take will end up being around seven days.

According to Drewry, though, they try to eat healthy and have use of a large walk-in freezer.

The crew consists of 20 including on-board medics and there are generally up to 27 scientists on-board as well.

The scientists will bring their own gear including CTD (conductivity, temperature and density) sensors that are programmed to open and close at certain depths for a range of samples. The RV Kilo Moana is equipped with refrigerators in the gear storage area for samples that the scientists may take while on the research cruise. It takes at least a full day to load up the ship with all the equipment for both the scientists and crew.

Kreuger and Drewry point out that both scientific and shipboard technology continue to improve. Now with a press of a button, by satellite, the location of the ship 8|

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can be pinpointed and a signal sent out to all ships in the area with the information.

The crew and scientists must work together seamlessly.

Krueger says that she prefers to work on research vessels as they generally have “a nice group of people on board.” Krueger reported two interesting events from her last trip on the RV Kilo Moana. The first was the perfect pickup. Drewry managed to steer the vessel and position it perfectly so that the CTD they were picking up popped out right under the hull making it quite easy to pull it aboard. The second was while the scientists were looking for one of their Seagliders, autonomous research drones that are self-propelled and come to the surface on their own when done with their job.

Just as they were about to give up, a person spotted the Seaglider, glowing, on the perimeter of the mile radius where it should be. “If it wasn’t glowing,” said Krueger.

“It wouldn’t have been found.”

While some might choose to get a four year college degree at the Maritime Academy, that isn’t what Krueger did. “When I was 19, I got on a boat to Alaska, took tests whenever I could and worked my way up. If there are no outside obligations or attachments it’s a good thing for young people to do,” Krueger said while talking about how to start a career on ships. Working one’s way up in the ranks like Krueger did is one way and a person who does so garners a lot of experience.

MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) Center in partnership with University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) and the United States Coast Guard and the Ocean Exploration Trust offers a 2-12 week long internship as a working member of a ship research crew. Interns are offered a $500 per week stipend and can find out what life is like aboard a research vessel. According to their website, MATE internships focus on technology and the scien

oy!

w internships to pique interest tific support of marine research rather than academic research.

Another potential research vessel opportunity for UH MOP students is with the Oceanography Department with the Hawaiian Ocean Time-series (HOT). Since October 1988, scientists in the UH Oceanography Department have been making repeated hydrography, chemistry, and biology observations at a station north of O‘ahu in the water column. UH students can come aboard for five day long research cruises, long enough to find out if this type of job is for them or not.

These kinds of opportunities, like experience for ship crewmates, is a necessity for the science world. There is a saying at MOP, “don’t let school stand in the way of your education,” meaning that students shouldn’t let their classes stop them from experiencing exciting opportunities to broaden their minds and make them eligible for future jobs. 

Above: One of the portable labs on board the vessel. The scientists always bring all of their own gear and lab supplies for their trips. This one in particular is for remote control vehicles (ROVs).

Left: Krueger shows off the engineering and emergency generator space.

Below: A MOP student asks Krueger a question about the vessel’s internet which comes from the white receiver on the left side of the picture.

If you are interested in applying for one of the internships mentioned in the article, here are the websites for the two organizations: www.marinetech.aorg http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/contact.html

Photos by: Kathryn Lam, Editor; Nikki Gutlay, UHM MOP Student Coordinator; and Jeff Kuwabara, UHM MOP Coordinator

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The Kilo Moana was built with funding from the Navy and the National Science Foundation; it costs $30,000 a day just to run as it uses sixty gallons of gas an hour when it is sitting in port like in this picture.

Here, MOP students listen while Krueger talks about how the scientists and crew receive their data. Their back-up and old internet provider can be seen in the photo on the far right.

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This is gyros.

the wheelhouse where the captain manuevers the ship in and out of port. Here, there are also gps and If the power fails then there is a magnetic compass to help get back on track.

MOP students climb the stairs to see the wheelhouse (above).

The large white sphere behind Krugerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head is the old internet provider.

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international

Martian marine bio

New evidence of oceans on Mars is found

By Priya Rashid, Assistant Editor

W

hen NASA’s rover, Curiosity, rolled into what appeared to be an ancient riverbed earlier this year, scientists around the world waited for the proverbial “smoking gun” that would prove that ancient life once existed on Mars. But as the search for extra-terrestrial life Ralf I. Kaiser, the leader of the continues, sub-specialties W.M. Keck Research Laboin Martian sciences like ratory in Astrochemistry at Martian marine biology the University of Hawai ‘i at may not be so farfetched.

Mānoa.

They actually might be our best chance at finding truth in the great beyond.

As the desire to colonize “the fourth rock from Sun” grows, scientists from varied backgrounds are being called on to answer space’s mysteries. Dr. Ralf Kaiser leads the W.M. Keck Research Laboratory in Astrochemistry at University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and has degrees in both chemistry and physics. Kaiser’s team works on synthesis of compounds in space, which is crucial in “understanding how life began.”

As Kaiser explains it, “interdisciplinary cooperation is our future.” As the exploration of Mars continues, oceanographers, biologists, archaeologists, and geologists will play a crucial role in mapping Mars’ history. The team has seen dissent among members of these fields, arguing whether astrochemistry is a subdivision in itself, but it is clear that the demand of 12|

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interdisciplinary students and researchers is growing.

This year, over 100,000 people applied to Mars One Corporation to colonize Mars in 2022. The only catch is it’s a one way trip.

When asked about “water on Mars”, the team laughed.

“Every year the media says we have found water.” But life? Now that would be something spectacular. NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has discovered water in the finegrained soil and debris on Mars’ surface. The incredible misconception is that this is the key to extra-terrestrial life. It is key to human life. With these discoveries, colonization of Mars takes a huge stride forward. The water is molecularly bound within the soil with 2% of the soil by weight being water. Laurie Leshin is the lead author of a series of five papers NASA has published detailing the experiments performed on Mars. Leshin told the Guardian “we tend to think of Mars as this dry place – to find water fairly easy to get out the soil at the surface was exciting to me.”

But though the rewards are huge the risks are even deadlier. Mars, named after the Ancient Roman god of war, is proving to be difficult to tame. According to NASA’s publication on Basic Mars Facts, Curiosity also found the chemical perchlorate, a toxin that inhibits thyroid function, on Mars’ surface. Many elements with low boiling points such as sulfur, chlorine, phosphorous, and silicon are readily found on the surface. The atmosphere is 1/150 the pressure of Earth’s. Because of Mars’ lowered atmospheric pressure, very little liquid water is present.

From these extremes will come extreme innovation.

Engineers will have to find ways to efficiently harvest water trapped in Martian soil. With an atmosphere

focus:

ologists?

that is 95% carbon dioxide, botanists and biologists will have to create biospheres that can handle Mar’s “thin air” which holds little heat. It is difficult to imagine vast expanses of agriculture or children swimming in a Martian ocean, but scientists are getting closer. The challenges are endless but so are the possibilities. 

Ocean Updates

By James Stone, Associate Editor

Sea ice in the Arctic makes a recovery

I

n comparison to the record low levels of 2012, this year 50 percent more of the ice in the Arctic Ocean survived the summer melt season. This is the greatest increase through the course of a year since scientists have been tracking Arctic ice via satellite since 1978.

Though, this is an improvement from years prior, scientists are quick to point out that though the ice hasn’t completely melted, it is mushy and slushy and far from the thick ice of the past.

This improvement is a comeback in a sense, but in many ways it was not a surprise. “I’m not at all surprised there was a jump upward—we’ve never set two record lows in a row,” said Walt Meir a scientist at NASA. Meir does add however that this surprise is significant. “I would say I’m a little surprised the jump is as big as it is.”

Coming back from a record low will look stark in comparison, but improvement should be noted and greeted with open arms. As of years late, new lows have been set in summer sea ice melting, but followed by years of recovery and again by lows. We will see if history will continue to repeat itself.

Lake in Tanzania turns animals into stone

D

ue to a very rare chemical makeup, Lake Natron in Tanzania turns any animal that touches it to stone. The lake’s pH is consistently at 9 to 10.5 and photographer Nick Brandt has taken this rare phenomena and incorporated it into his art. Brandt has photographed these frozen creatures in his new book, Across the Ravaged Land. Brandt says,

“It appears that the extreme reflective nature of the lake’s surface confuses them, and like birds crashing into plate glass windows, they crash into the lake. The water has an extremely high soda and salt content, so high that it would strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds. The soda and salt causes the creatures to calcify, perfectly preserved as they dry.”

Brandt found the deceased animals and repositioned them in life-like positions for his artistic purposes. The results are incredible.

Dr. David Harper, a professor at the University of Leicester has studied the wildlife at Lake Natron and says, “It’s a lethal equation: the regional environment plus the composition and characteristics of the lake equals certain death for winged animals that accidentally come in contact with it.”  NOVEMBER 2013

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ART

by Christina Curto Photo of the artist by UHM MOP student Rebecca Weible

b y r o ist ng: h le diti t t i A l oto e ph

in eh

d

E

very day we come across a piece that was once used for photo manipulation or editing back in the 1860’s. The portrait of Abraham Lincoln that was the basis for the five dollar bill was also used with one of John C. Calhoun by taking Lincoln’s head and putting it on Calhoun’s body.

Before computers, photos were manipulated manually by retouching with ink, paint, double-exposure, piecing photos or negatives together in darkrooms, or scratching Polaroids.

Often times photomanipulation done in the dark room is regarded as traditional art rather than a job skill as results were harder to create than with digital manipulation.

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Invasion in the Caribbean 16|

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A look into research in the lab of Dr. Mark Hixon, Hsiao Endowed Chair of Marine Biology at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

By Kathryn Lam, Editor

The Pacific red lionfish (Pterois volitans).

Photo: Jens Petersen NOVEMBER 2013

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A

ll it took was one too many pet lionfish to spread Pacific red lionfish throughout coral reefs in the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the rest of the tropical and subtropical western Atlantic. Dr. Mark Hixon, then of Oregon State University, was in the Bahamas conducting long term research on the ecology of coral reef fish when the lionfish began to appear. They were insatiable, eating the native coral reef fish that Hixon and his lab had been studying.

“In 2005, the first lionfish showed up, and we didn’t pay much attention to it,” Hixon said in an interview with National Public Radio in 2009. “The next year, we saw a few more. Then in 2007 there was a population explosion. There were so many lionfish around that they were eating the fish we were studying, and we had to start studying the lionfish.

There was nothing else to do.”

The beautiful, brightly colored lionfish is a popular aquarium pet. However, aquarium enthusiasts plucked the fish out of their native home in the tropical western Pacific and brought them to the mainland of the United States. This transportation of lionfish might have been okay if it had not been for one problem. When people moved or didn’t want their lionfish anymore they would release them into the ocean, thus jeopardizing not only the local reef fish but also local commerce. The lionfish were first noticed in 1985 off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and then started to spread along the East Coast of the United States and throughout the Caribbean, hitting the Bahamas the hardest. In 2008,

Hixon and his Ph. D. student Mark Albins co-authored a study that found that a single lionfish can reduce 80% of the native fish population on a small coral patch reef in just five weeks.

In January 2013, Hixon started as the Endowed Chair of Dr. Mark Hixon is the Marine Biology at the Hsiao Endowed Chair of University of Hawai‘i Marine Biology at the Uniat Mānoa. Albins versity of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. echoed a statement He is one of the top specialists on reef ecology and an on the lab’s webpage expert on coastal marine in his paper that the fish. invasion could “prove to be one of the most damaging marine invasions to date.” In addition to studying the invading lionfish, Hixon’s lab is also researching native lionfish in the Pacific in order to better understand them and learn what keeps their populations “in check.” Parasites might be one answer as native reef fishes in the Caribbean have many parasites, whereas the invading lionfish have almost none.

“If you consider parasites a sort of a tax that fish have to pay, a lot of their energy gets diverted into [fighting] parasites, and so a fish that doesn’t have those [parasites] can develop more of its energy into its own growth and reproduction,” said zoologist Dr. Paul Sikkel of Hixon’s team (and Hixon’s former PhD student) in the same interview with NPR. Hixon’s lab, funded by the National Science Foundation, is now studying the invasion and trying to figure out what else, besides parasites, are aiding the lionfish in their takeover of the reefs. The lab mainly focuses on the ecological effects of lionfish on coral reef ecosystems in the Atlantic.

Hixon’s PhD student Mark Albins capturing lionfish between two dip nets in the Bahamas. Photo: Robbie Lamb

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By decimating the fish that eat algae on reefs, invasive lionfish may indirectly allow the algae to grow uncontrollably. The algae covers coral heads and the coral begin to die off. When the corals, the foundation of coral reefs, die the reef and its teams of colorful fish go away- it’s all connected. “Why should the

public care?,” Hixon asked at a TED Youth conference in San Diego in 2011. Well, in tropical areas such as the Bahamas, coral reefs provide food, medicine, and tourism to the people living there. Without reefs, people would lose their jobs. Importantly to everyone, coral reefs organisms are now one of the best sources of new drugs for fighting cancer.

For now, the best way to control the lionfish invasion is for divers to remove them using spears and hand nets. “We are not very optimistic at this point that eradication is possible, because the lionfish population has grown so rapidly, but also they live down to several hundred feet depth, which means they’re below the depths over which most scuba divers can have access to them,” said Hixon in a 2008 interview with the Associated Press.

Instead, other methods will have to be implemented to help keep lionfish populations down. Hixon has suggested that keeping marine reserve areas might be one way to have a natural control of lionfish by supporting large predatory fish native to the Atlantic.

However, since lionfish are camouflaged in shape and color and equipped with venomous spines, native predators seem to mostly ignore them. So far, humans have come up with two ways to encourage divers to curb the lionfish population.

Hixon says.

If the lionfish population is not curbed and controlled then coral reefs won’t be the only things at stake. Coral reefs provide many things to the health of the ocean and land. They form natural breakwaters and help prevent shore erosion. As Hixon puts it, coral reefs are the tropical rainforests of the ocean. Without them thousands of species of marine plants and animals would no longer have a sanctuary.  Above: Hixon face-to-face with invasive lionfish.

Photo by: Carl Safina Below: Hixon’s PhD student Mark Albins surveying lionfish on a seagrass bed in the Bahamas. Lionfish can live anywhere, the only thing that detours them is cold water. Photo by: Tim Pusac Background: Invasive Pacific red lionfish (Pterois volitans) on a coral reef in the Bahamas. Photo: Mark Albins

The first are lionfish derbies run by REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation), an environmental group. There are cash prizes for the biggest catch going up to $1,000. The derbies seem to be having an effect with an over 60% decline in the populations on the reef in the Bahamas after one derby. However, just derbies aren’t enough, while they may take out a huge portion of lionfish at a time, the lionfish population will replenish themselves.

The second way is teaching people how to eat lionfish.

While lionfish is already a delicacy in some countries, the areas in the Atlantic where the lionfish has been invading people have not yet developed a taste for lionfish. Lionfish cookbooks have been made in order to encourage the consumption of lionfish which would then lead to more fishing of the invasive species. In Mexico and other places that lionfish are frequenting, commercial fishermen are starting to target the invasive species and send them to high-end restaurants in the United States where they are sold as a conservation dish. “Save a reef, eat a lionfish,” NOVEMBER 2013 |19

Critter of the Month Seawords features marine critters seen and photographed

by MOP students. Send your critters to seawords@hawaii. edu to be featured and be sent an issue of Seawords in color and a MOP sticker. (Come in after we contact you to claim your prizes).

This month’s critter photo is

by UHM MOP alum and friend, Keoki Stender.

Hawaiian turkeyfish Scientific name: Pterois sphex

The Hawaiian turkeyfish are close relatives of Pterois volitans, an invasive species of concern in the Caribbean and Atlantic featured in the article “Invasion in the Caribbean” on page 16.

It can grow to be 21 cm which is equivalent to a little over 8 inches.

A nocturnal feeder, the turkeyfish eats crustaceans and hides in caves during the day.

Turkeyfish are thought to be very dangerous.

The Hawaiian turkeyfish ranges from white to pink in color with dark brown bars across it.

There are 28 species of scorpionfish in Hawa‘i.

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To submit photography, send an email with photographs attached to seawords@hawaii.edu

Get to know these Faces Moran and Marko join UH Mānoa Biology Department Interview by James Stone, Associate Editor

Q

: Where were you two working before joining the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Biology Department?

A

NSWER:

A.M.: Before coming to UH Mānoa we were both professors in the department of Biological Sciences at Clemson University in South Carolina for eight years. We moved to Clemson from UNC Chapel Hill, where we had faculty positions in the Marine Sciences department. Before that we had postdoctoral positions at the University of Southern California (me) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (Peter) and the University of Washington, Friday Harbor Labs (both).

Q A

: Can you explain your new jobs in the Biology department? What are your roles?

NSWER:

P.M.: We were hired to strengthen the graduate and undergraduate programs in Marine Biology because both of these programs are growing rapidly in terms of student enrollment. Right now we’re co-teaching BIOL 404, the capstone course for the undergraduate Marine Biology major; in the spring I will teach Marine Ecology and Evolution (BIOL 301) and Amy will teach a graduate course in her specialty, larval biology. We are also developing research projects and collaborations with other faculty at HIMB and the Kewalo marine laboratory, as well as serving on

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department committees, working with the Marine Biology PhD program, and supervising graduate students in both the Marine Biology and Zoology programs.

Q

:What has been your research focus leading up to this point in your career?

A

NSWER:

Amy Moran, one of the new Associate Professors of Biology was born in Massachusetts, United States of America.

A.M.: I work with marine invertebrates, and most of my research has focused on early life history stages (eggs, embryos, and larvae). These are a vitally important and vulnerable part of the life cycle but we know much less about them than we do about adults. I’m also interested in how marine invertebrates (particularly larvae) function under physiological stress from extreme or changing Peter Marko, the other temperature, pH, and oxygen new Associate Professor environments. of Biology was born in P.M.: My research is in the fields of biogeography,

Alberta (Canada).

evolution, and conservation. A lot of what I have done has focused on understanding the process of speciation in the sea, but I am also interested in how demographic and selective factors shape patterns of genetic variation in populations and how genetic data can be used to understand the evolutionary histories and demographic trajectories of marine populations and species.

Q A

:What is your favorite part about your job?

NSWER:

A.M.: I love working with organisms, particularly in their natural environments; prior to moving to Hawai‘i I traveled a lot to work with marine organisms, which I enjoyed, but it’s fantastic to have them right here.

I also enjoy teaching and many of the trappings of academic life. The other thing that really appeals to me is the variety of roles I get to play, as a researcher, teacher, collaborator, etc.

P.M.: I was also drawn to my work by the organisms.

Much of my work depends on travelling and searching for them in remote places, which I particularly enjoy.

Like Amy, I am going to take advantage of being in Hawai‘i and try to do things a little closer to home.

A

NSWER:

A.M.: Being here in Hawai‘i gives us pretty much unlimited access to marine organisms and field sites so that we can do long term multigenerational experiments, as well as explore how laboratorymanipulated (=stressed) animals perform under field conditions . Teaching to the Marine Biology majors and graduate students is exciting because they’re so interested in the marine realm. It’s also fantastic to have so many great colleagues in all kinds of fields.

Q A

: Any closing thoughts? Plans for new research?

Projects?

NSWER:

A.M.: Lots of plans! Anyone interested in doing research, please check out our websites and contact one of us! 

If you are interested in contacting either Amy Moran or Peter Marko please visit the following websites: manoa.hawaii.edu/biology/?q=profile/amy-moran manoa.hawaii.edu/biology/?q=profile/peter-marko

Q A

: What brought you to the field of Biology?

NSWER:

A.M.: My original plan after graduating from college was to pursue a career in music, but taking a series of marine biology summer courses at the Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories in Washington State changed my mind. The thing that really hooked me on invertebrate biology was the huge variety in the ways that organisms are put together and solve life’s major problems.

P.M.: I used to always watch a show (25 years ago) on TV called Oceans Alive, and was always interested in marine biology as a kid. But I never really considered a career in marine science until I got to college and was randomly paired with a marine biology advisor who got me working in his lab during the summer.

Q

:What type of things are you looking forward to being a new part of the UH Mānoa faculty?

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GENERATION

BL UE

THE OCEAN SPANS OVER 70 PERCENT OF OUR WORLD.

It is responsible for regulating temperature, food production, sustaining numerous mari for inspiration among multiple other things. The ocean gives us so much and it is tim and take actions to make the ocean ecosystem healthy again. Almost every action tha in some way. Our everyday choices can be tailored to support a healthy ocean. Here ar acts that will keep the ocean blue.

Actions for the Ocean Kathryn Lam, Editor

Be an ocean-friendly pet owner.

Reading the labels on pet foods, picking up after your pets, and not flushing cat litter down the toilet are among the things that can make you an environmentally-friendly pet owner. In addition, releasing any aquarium fish into bodies of water such as oceans or streams can introduce non-native species to habitats where they might have a damaging impact. Please return unwanted pets to the pet store.

Photo: Creatiive commons liscence

Refrain from exploiting marine life.

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Buying items such as coral jewelry, articles made from tortoise shell, and any shark product may contribute to the destruction of fragile marine populations and, in some places, may be against the law.

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ine species, and is a source me for us to return the favor at we take affects the ocean re some examples of green

Choose wisely.

Many marine species are suffering from overharvesting while others contain high levels of mercury or PCBs that are harmful to humans.

Do your research before you buy in order to keep yourself and your oceans healthy!

Websites like montereybayaquarium.org have lists of which fish are “good” to eat, and which are not, while websites like the New England Aquarium’s have “ocean-friendly” recipe ideas.

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What did you do last summer?

UHM MOP student Gabe Cohen worked aboard a NOAA research vessel and the Huki Pono charter vessel

By Kathryn Lam, Editor

A

lthough the excited chatter of asking what friends and classmates did over the summer is long gone, for some students their summer activites had long term effects. For UHM MOP student Gabe Cohen who not only went to Japan but also participated in two research vessel cruises with NOAA, this is the case.

Cohen is a fourth-year geography student at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Over the summer he was a student employee at the Pacific Island Benthis Habitat Mapping Center (PIBHMC). Supported by annual grants from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, PIBHMC studies the delineation of coral reef ecosystem benthic habitats in the U.S. Pacific Islands.

PIBHMC uses acoustic and optical techniques to take shallow-water maps that other groups have developed and extend them to deeper waters where other methods like satellites and diver-based techniques are not practical.

PIBHMC had attained a SeaBED Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, or AUV, a robot that iss programmed to take visual and acoustic data for the purpose of conducting various research including but not limited to the investigation of shallow water coral habitat to fishery-independent habitat data collection.AUVs are able to do many things that traditional survey techniques can’t and are ideal for surveying areas such as the bottomfish habitat in the Main Hawaiian Islands.

Over the course of the two cruises, Cohen tested and deploid the AUV first, aboard the Sette, from July 27th to August 10th, was for the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) Coral Reef Ecological Division (CRED) to find out what the best method to survey 26|

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Hawai‘i’s bottomfish fisheries would be. The data to come would be the first fisheries-independent data.

The second cruise on the Huki Pono charter vessel tested the AUV’s programmed behaviors and abilities as well as a new set of cameras.

Q A

: Why marine geography?

Q

:What is Sea Scouts?

: Since high school I’ve wanted to be working on the ocean.

I was a member of Sea Gabe Cohen is a fourth-year Scouts. After high school geography and MOP student at the University of Hawai‘i at I did a semester sailing Mānoa. He spent the sumacross the Atlantic. I’ve mer in Japan and aboard two always been interested in how the world works vessels in Hawai‘i conducting research. and I’ve always liked knowing everything about places and I like the way geography makes you think. It combines natural and social sciences and it can be tailored into whatever you want it to be. You’re very unrestricted. I like a lot of what you do is very technical and practical and I’m able to focus on studying the ocean in a different and fascinating way than a marine biology student. I get to eat from whichever knowledge pie I want to.

A Q A

: Sea Scouts is an all volunteer organisation that is affiliated with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America- but Sea Scouts is co-ed. :What’d you do there?

: Well it was only for high school students. There were a lot of different things. My unit would go sailing every weekend and do various different projects like working on the boats. About once a month we’’d go on a weekend long cruise. The goal was to teach high school students who had never been on boats before to learn how to sail and for the most part it was successful.We’d also do one or two big cruises in the summer for one or two weeks each. There were also regional rigottas with other Sea Scouts. My junior and senior year I was the bosun- or the person in charge like a team captain, so I got to play captain a lot.

Q A

: So what is fisheries-independent data?

: Fisheries-independent data is the counting of fish on our own with our robot instead of replying on what fishermen catch. This had not been done on the bottomfish in Hawai‘i before. Then we got to eat the fish we had, it was delicious, I ate so much data!

Q A Q A Q A

: What were the results? Were they very different?

: I don’t have that information. It was experimenting to see which method works best. : What was it that you were testing for exactly?

: To see if the robot could siwm along imaginary contor lines. Basically, for example, to see if the robot could stay at 30 feet but keep going. : What is living on a research ship like?

: Pretty good, I guess. We had mission plans every day that would change right before we did them. So we’d spend the whole day changing plans and usually we’d get one AUV dive and it would go for three to four hours, sometimes longer- sometimes it would stay down for six hours.

Being at sea is always a lot of fun.

The food was really good and the ship had two movie rooms so movies were always playing.

Q

: What were your duties?

A

: During the day I was always The AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) “Lemondrop” lashed down on the on call for launch and deck of the Huki Pono. recovery for Photo by: Gabe Cohen the AUVs and at night I was working with the acoustics team.

Q A

: Anything interesting happen?

Q A

: How do you see [this] affecting your career?

: Well, we had to get the sonar system calibrated but the equipment used to do that wasn’t accessible so we had to figure out a different way to do that with fishing line. Because of differing currents, we couldn’t just send out pieces of the fishing line and measure the distance that way because the current could pull the line horizontal. We were trying a bunch of different things and I had an idea. I wanted to rate the tension of the line on a scale from one to five so we could measure the current that way and be able to stabilze what we had. It wasn’t very scientific so they didn’t want to do it at first but we tried it and it worked.

: I ask myself that every day. I want to work outside on boats at sea. I’m not an inside worker I’ve discovered- all my future career goals are on boats, either research vessels or teaching. I want to go on adventures and explore for a living. 

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“F Foor m For most mo ostt off history, ost history hiistory, ry, rry y, man y man n has h s had h ha to fi fight g ght gh h nature natur n natu na ure to t iin n this tth his h is ce is century ntury ntury tur ury he he is is beg begi be begi g in nnin nn nning n niin ning ng g to t realize rrea re ali liz lliizee th tha att, t iin n order order rd der too ssurvive der survive, urviv vive he h must mus prot protect pro ecct iit. t. t.””

Pearson Scott Foresman under public domain

~Jacques-Yves Cousteau

The Ocean may be big but it isn’t

It’s

big, bl

deep

tr

New research aims to chan

By Priya Rashid, Assistant Ed

T

he ocean is physically the biggest thing in our world. It is shocking that something so big can be so vulnerable. Maybe that is just a testament to how destructive humans can be. Scientist and explorer, Sylvia Earle explains that people must challenge the notion that Oceans, like many Wall Street banks, are “too big to fail.” At 78, Earle lives and breathes for the world’s oceans with a resume including National Geographic Society Explorer in Residence, Former Chief Scientist of NOAA, over 100 publications and research discoveries, and the nick name “Her Deepness.” Scientists like Sylvia Earl and groups such as Global Ocean Commission are here to set the record straight.

Earle, who was Time “Hero of the Planet” was one of the people who attended the Rio de Janeiro +20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development last year. Representing National

28|

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Geographic, Earle explained “the aim of Rio+20 talks was not to put the high seas under UN jurisdiction, but to establish a framework for international governance.” Little was formally done and many left disappointed as large powers sought to protect fishing and industry standards over environmental health. These types of choices signify a greater issue, a disregard for our ocean and an ignorance that the ocean cannot “fail.”

O

ne of the biggest concerns is the misconception that the ocean can repair itself.

That once something is out of sight, it must be out of the system. Without any integrated approach to protecting the ocean environment many misdeeds and often illegal activities go unnoticed. The Global Ocean Commission key mandate is to “examine key threats, challenges, and changes to the ocean in the 21st century, and identify priority issues.” The Global Ocean

ssurvive; u urvive; urv rrvive rvi vive viv v iv ivee; e;

invincible;

lue, and in rouble.

nge the concept of “too big to fail”

ditor Commission published the findings of its most recent opinion survey. The survey included 13 countries from different continents with all levels of development represented. 74 percent participants agreed that “it is essential that an international organization is charged with ensuring adequate protection in high seas waters.” These waters are those outside of national jurisdictions and make up over two-thirds of our ocean. The survey also showed that most people believe that over 25% of the high seas is under protection by a legally binding entity. The real number is less than 1% is under mandated protection.

The ocean, it seems, is losing a battle most people don’t even know we are fighting. The idea that the ocean is static and sturdy thing, much “too big to fail” must be challenged.

Cristina Narbona, Counselor, Nuclear Security Council of Spain and member of the Global

Ocean Commission explains “the "environment vs economy" paradigm needs urgently to be dismantled. If we do not take into account ecological concerns, humanity will increasingly be confronted with natural resource depletion, extreme weather events and pollution. The economic cost is high.”

Luckily, our ocean sized misconceptions are easily cured. Teaching people about the ocean as a living and dynamic part of world is one of the first steps. According to Narbona, people believe that that conservation tools applied on land (national parks, the Natura 2000 Network, biosphere reserves) have been successfully transposed to the international ocean.” It hasn’t happened yet. But the answer belongs to us. As Jacques Cousteau said in solving anything it is “Education. Education. Education.” 

NOVEMBER 2013

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Calendar of Events at UH Sea Grantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hanauma Bay Education Program Marine Science in East O`ahu ***Presentations take place in the theater of the Hanauma Bay Education Center, beginning at 6:30 p.m. every Thursday evening. Events are free and open to the public with no charge for parking after 5:30pm***

November Events UH Sea Grant Supported Graduate Student Research

NOVEMBER 7, 2013 Representations of Wai as Mo`o Donna Camvel, PhD Student, Specializing in Indigenous Politics, UHM NOVEMBER 14, 2013 Coconut Island: Development of Feasibility Study for Water Sustainability Lelemia Irvine, PhD Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UHM NOVEMBER 21, 2013 Predicting Microbial Pollution Patterns in Hilo Bay Caree Weisz, MS Student, Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science, UH Hilo Cleaning up with Kalo: How Lo`i Restoration Affects Water Quality Jenny Fung, MS Student, Biology Department, UHM Poop in Paradise: Detecting Anthropogenic Pollution in Hawaiian Coastal Waters Daniel Amato, PhD Student, Botany Department, UHM The Other Way Around: How Coral Reefs Influence Global Climate Gerianne Terlouw, MS Student, Oceanography Department, UHM NOVEMBER 24, 2013 Coral Reef Landscapes by Dr. Andre Seale, Affiliate Research Faculty, Hawaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;i Institute of Marine Biology NOVEMBER 28, 2013 No Program Observance of Thanksgiving Day Holiday: The Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve will remain open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information or questions please contact: Hanauma Bay Education Program 100 Hanauma Bay Rd. Honolulu, HI 96825 Phone: (808) 397-5840 Email: hanauma@hawaii.edu http://hbep.seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/

Due to space constraints, Flashback has been moved to page 5.

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November

MOP & Community Events

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From December 1986

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Tour of Hawai‘i Undersea Research Lab (HURL) and Snorkel 12:30-4pm (@ Makai Pier)

From December 2003

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Veteran’s Day (No Classes)

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Learn to Surf 8am-11pm Location TBA Cost: $22

From June 1985

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Thanksgiving Day (No Classes)

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University of Hawai`i at Mﾄ］oa

2450 Campus Road, Dean Hall

Address Service Requested

Thank you for reading!