Everything is awesome

It's been a busy 10 days out on the Glasgow University Marine and Freshwater Biology field course based on Millport, Isle of Cumbrae! The trip kicked off with a 3 day Environmental Impact Assessment module led by the adorable Peter and Azra Meadows. The task involved working as a group to assess the current ecological status of the sea floor around Hunterston Power Station in light of a (historically accurate but pretend) proposal to build a new coal-fired power station on the site.

Map of our beam trawl transects and sediment grab points

Being 27 students strong, it was admittedly a bit tension-filled trying to make decisions on how we we go about sampling but we got there in the end :) Four sample sites were decided on with a beam trawl and a sediment grab planned for each, with groups going out on the R.V. Actinia to see how it's done. The skippers Duncan and Tom were brilliantly knowledgeable about the area and the sampling techniques and had some great stories to tell.

While one group was out on the boat, everyone else was involved in the processing of the catches and data collection. It was a marine biology conveyor belt with sorting, identifying, counting, sifting, and weighing all going on at once. Of course it isn't all cuddling crabs and stroking starfish (!), we had some serious stats and report writing to do, as well as fit in lectures and briefings on what was coming up the next day - saying we were tired just doesn't cut it!

Our beam trawl haul!

Peter and Azra kindly provided a glut of wine on the Friday night so we all had a chance to cut loose for a time before the report was due in and the zoologist hoarde arrived the next day!

The Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems course kicked into gear on Sunday morning, when we headed out to Farland Point to collect some rocky shore specimens, and Kames Bay in Millport itself to dig for sandy shore beasties. At the rocky shore we took representative species from each zone - the Sublittoral (below the water line), eulittoral (between the kelp of the sublittoral and the furthest reach of the barnacles, and the littoral fringe (above the barnacles to the black lichen). We found a few shore crabs, common mussles, chitons, isopods, amphipods and anemones, as well a lots of different types of alga or seaweed.

At the sandy beach the fauna was dominated by some of my favourites - polychaete worms! The largest among the ones we found were estuary ragworms, which undulate from side to side with the wave of movement coming from the tail to the head. This means their heads are constantly waggling from side to side - they look hilarious.

Nephyts caeca - a polychaete worm

 Monday saw us back out on the Actinia to collect some plankton samples and measure light availability below the surface of the water. On Tuesday we were briefed about a scientific video we had to make, testing our skills in presenting a scientific paper in a fun an engaging way - the results of our efforts were screened on Friday afternoon and I had no voice left from laughing so much. You can watch the masterpiece that is CSI: Millport below, let us know what you think!

We also had a chance to check out our plankton samples under the microscope. Plankton are tiny organisms, and can be photosynthetic plants (phytoplankton) or larval forms of sea life (zooplankton) that are carried by the ocean currents. We found diatoms with surfaces made of sillica, dinoflagellates, tiny polychaete worms and crustacean larvae wriggling around in a tiny drop of sea water, a world within a world.

Gammarid and polychaete worm larvae under the microscope

Squat lobster and a dragonet fish

Wednesday saw us in the lab for some microbiology work on two water samples to see if E. coli and other colliform bacteria would grow on agar plates. Our results were very different from previous years success as we hardly had any colonies growing overnight at all. I must admit that microbiology is probably wasted on me, I like my study subjects to be visible ;) In the afternoon though our groups choose different rockpools and we collected hermit crabs from a .25m quadrat, painting their shells with colourful nailpolish before releasing them back to their pool. We would return the next day to see if they went for a wander to see their neighbours or not. That afternoon we also did a 75 minute study on oyster catchers, watching one bird to see how much time it spent watching for predators and feeding. Thankfully the weather was great if a bit chilly and we were rewarded with a lovely sunset before we headed home for tea. Wednesday was also St Paddy's and after the fieldwork was done we headed to the pub to celebrate - what we didn't expect was the pub running out of Guinness minutes after we arrived!

Looks like I should have used some of the polish myself

On our penultimate day we went to check our rockpools and try to find our painted hermit crab pals. Our group found 2 out of 5 that had been painted and about 15 other unpainted crabs which had moved into the area. The two that we found had moved out of their shells - maybe they didn't like the lavender colour?!  We also conducted a quadrat hurling rocky shore survey where we flung the wire square over our heads and counted how many periwinkles, mussels and limpets were within the boundary. In the evening the tutors held a fun but competitive review quiz, complete with table wine. Our team came joint second with 31.5 points out of 40 which wasn't too shabby!

Friday came after what seemed like months of work, dry ham sandwiches, hangovers, copious cups of tea and no sleep. There was a last minute rush to finish some group videos and then experience the enjoyment of everyone's hard work in a dark and stuffy lecture theater while the moon covered the sun behind the clouds outside. I may have almost lost track of all the things we learned but I had an absolutely fantastic time which I will never forget!