Megan is a master’s student studying phytoplankton in the NGA. Her thesis is titled “Cryptophytes in the Northern Gulf of Alaska: an analysis of distribution and regulation of mixotrophy.”
Yes, until now even the NGA LTER project website has overlooked jellyfish. Instead, our major research components focus on the primary producers and zooplankton that are the base of the food chain. Worse, at sea, jellyfish are often simply a nuisance whose tentacles drape on instruments and clog sensors. However, Heidi Mendoza-Islas, a graduate student in the NGA LTER project, studies the important role that jellyfish play in the Gulf of Alaska ecosystem. Read the article to find out more.
Lauren Frisch, Public Information Officer for the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, UAF, authored a series of four stories about our May 2018 cruise. Although these stories focus on the on-board capabilities of R/V Sikuliaq, they also include engaging descriptions of our research. Find the links to these stories below:
Sikuliaq expands ways to study Gulf of Alaska ecosystems
Studies of zooplankton such as copepods have expanded because of LTER funding and the workspace available aboard R/V Sikuliaq. For instance, CFOS researcher Russ Hopcroft isolates, identifies, photographs, and assesses live animals soon after net tows. Read full story >>
Submarine ‘airplane’ revolutionizes measurement of seawater content
CFOS’s Seth Danielson operates an Acrobat instrument, which he described as the underwater version of an airplane. The Acrobat measures temperature and salinity on fine spatial scales. As a result, LTER scientists can track freshwater from the land and investigate how it mixes with ocean water. Read full story >>
Sikuliaq improves analysis of phytoplankton’s nutrient needs
CFOS’s Ana Aguilar-Islas brings her own specialized clean sampling instruments onto Sikuliaq so she can quantify nutrients like iron that are essential to phytoplankton. Additionally, Aguilar-Islas and WWU’s Suzanne Strom performed incubation experiments to study how iron availability affects plankton growth. Read full story >>
Nutritional flexibility in ciliates and dinoflagellates stabilizes food chains in the Gulf of Alaska. WWU’s Suzanne Strom isolates cells and preserves them soon after they are collected, so she can analyse them at sea and in her onshore lab. Read full story >>
Alicia Rinaldi-Schuler, a fisheries graduate student at CFOS, volunteered for NGA LTER’s Spring 2018 cruise aboard R/V Sikuliaq. Ordinarily, Alicia studies humpback whales. However, we put her to work sampling zooplankton on the night shift. She filmed the equipment they used (bongo nets, multi-net, and methot net) and the creatures they caught (squid, jellyfish, euphasiids, and fish larvae). Her engaging video summarizes of some of the research that occurs during our cruises.
For our recent report to NSF, we compiled this list of media stories about the NGA LTER:
An April 7, 2018, news report on our collaboration with Michele Hoffman Trotter, reported by Sara Tewksbury and broadcast on Channel 11, our Fairbanks, Alaska, NBC affiliate
A March 22, 2018, interview of Michele Hoffman Trotter by Mike Nowak, broadcast on 1590 WCGO AM, a Chicago radio station, and recorded as a podcast
Gulf Watch Alaska website stories on Dr. Russ Hopcroft (April 27, 2018) and Dr. Seth Danielson (May 3, 2018):
The University of Alaska Fairbanks press release that was picked up for an article in the Alaska Business Magazine.
Education
When Michele Hoffman Trotter, Columbia College, participated in our April-May cruise, educators and home school parents were invited to enroll in her educational series, Expedition Gulf of Alaska! The learning modules were geared for grades 5-12. They were titled:
Changing Climate Changing World
Biodiversity: Our Lives Depend on It, and
Plankton to Whales: How Energy Flows in the Environment.
Enrollees received a PowerPoint presentation on the topic, teaching activities, a supplemental reading list, links to the daily video uploads, and access to a forum where students could post questions to the science team and receive answers.
Schools in Alaska (Chugiak and Seward), California (1 school), Chicago (4 schools), and Canada (1 school) participated in this pilot shipboard education program aboard the R/V Sikuliaq. Her audience also included 24 homeschooling families in California and 32 adult participants. In Michele’s outreach team, Carlee Belt served as a media and education specialist and Katherine Brennan served as the cinematographer. All together, the team provided 15 daily dispatches from the ship – videos of ship operations and sampling equipment and interviews of scientists and crew. Additionally, they collected footage for the on-going Microcosm film project that will feature the diversity and roles of microscopic life in the ocean.
Alaskan teachers were a special focus of this educational outreach. Therefore, we recruited a middle school teacher in Seward (the port the Sikuliaq departed from), a high school marine biology teacher in Chugiak, and a middle school teacher from a Fairbanks watershed-themed school. These teachers were asked to pilot at least one module and will provide feedback that will help develop virtual field trip products.
