Angelica (Gellie) Tambornino (Messiah '10) writes,
"Marine Ecology started on Monday with our professor, Dave Lundquist, who has lived here in Kaikoura for the last 2 years studying Dusky dolphins. With no time to waste, we had a quick lecture on Monday morning and then headed out into the field (peninsula). Dave split us into three groups and each of us were assigned a portion of the beach to observe and record. Beginning our explorations at low tide made it easy to venture out pretty far and still be standing on dry rock, which we definitely took advantage of... In addition to recording our initial observations, each group also had the task of finding a few limpets – snail-like creatures that don't move much – and marking them with a white-out pen on their shell and on the rock next to them. This way we could return to the same limpets on subsequent days and see if they had moved at all.
Alas, our second trip on Tuesday, which was again at low tide, revealed no apparent limpet movement (at least in my group. I think other groups had some more active limpets). On this day we also had to start far out from the shore, placing a “quadrat” (aka a square of PVC piping) down every ten meters (that's about 33 feet for you USA'ans) and record what we saw inside of it. Using our handy Kaikoura marine life identification guidebook, we recorded about 13 quadrats of intertidal marine life that you don't see upon first glance. Each group saw different interesting things, including starfish, jellyfish, and hermit crabs.
Day three = snorkeling! Although the day was overcast, we all geared up with wetsuits (or “ninja penguin” suits), snorkels and masks, and got ready to see some good ol' marine life in action. Dave took us out to a small wharf, we buddied up, and dove right in (not literally). Although the visibility in the water was pretty low, and we saw an awful lot of bull kelp, a few in our company caught glimpses of good stuff: jellyfish, stingrays, paua, and a seal, to name a few.
On day four we returned to our beach sites to catch high tide...and catch it we did (although some would argue that the high tide really caught us). We checked up on our limpets and were overjoyed to find that some had moved as much as .6 centimeters! Amazing! (Or you may find it more amazing that we could be so entertained by the barely-measurable movements of a few stubborn creatures). A couple groups even had limpets that were completely gone, which was kind of sad since we didn't even get to say goodbye, but for scientific purposes it was interesting. We also repeated the quadrat process to see what changed in our quadrats from low to high tide. The water was about 3 feet deep, and some people wore wetsuits so they could observe the quadrats more closely. As we went further away from shore, the waves brought immediate regret to those of us who had chosen to forego the wetsuits. It became a ridiculous yet hilarious battle to stay standing, keep notebooks out of the water, and write down our observations all amidst the crashing waves. But we stayed strong – all in the name of science, I suppose.
That night around 9pm, we went to the beach in the dark (with headlamps) to see what was different at night. However, we were plagued by fierce winds and sideways rain, so if any living creatures had been unfortunate enough to be out in the open in such conditions, it would've surely gotten blown or rained away before we found it. But we did happen upon some fish and crayfish carcasses, and at least 13 different varieties of seaweed...
Day five wrapped it up as we compiled everything we had learned into exams, journals, written reports and group presentations. I think we all learned a lot from this jam-packed week, and it was nice to finish it off with some creative and entertaining presentations, which took the form of a few skits, a bit of improv, and a tv game-show. Well done, fellow classmates. "
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