MarineGEO
This week’s project is a Smithsonian-based international effort to figure out oyster reefs. At the beginning of my time here, I went out on the boat with Liam and Matt to bury nine plastic crates (“bioboxes”) at three sites along the reef, trying to make them blend in as much as a plastic crate can blend into a neighborhood of oysters. One and a half months later, we went out over the course of three days to retrieve them. This involved the usual measuring of water quality and the expected picking through the bioboxes to see what’s living there, but also laying out transects. [Transect on reef.jpg] At every point where the strings cross, my job is to call out what’s there, be it oysters (live), empty but attached shells (box), separated shells (cultch), broken shell pieces (hash), or sediment. We take fifteen transects at five-meter intervals at every site. Following each transect, I determine the tallest oyster cluster in the square, measure it, and include it in my rugosity measurement. What’s rugosity? The fiddliest, least precise measurement in the business, involving a meter-long chain draped with no tension over a surface to determine how up-and-down it is. Parts of the reef with a lot of height variation yield a short chain length and flat ones yield long.
Since this is sweaty work, we take regular dips in the channel and keep a full cooler of drinks and snacks. Once our crabby winnings from the bioboxes have sat on ice overnight, we can do my favorite part: sorting.
I can now differentiate grass species of shrimp and mud crabs, so if you need it done, you know a guy. My new favorite crab is the porcelain crab (named for their habit of losing their arms at a light breeze) because they look goofy and have pretty coloration.
Some people categorize them as invasive, but they’re harmless filter feeders who are naturally expanding their native range and their worst crime is competing for food with other species. There is an overwhelming number of different animals in the estuary.
Shrimpin’
Liam and I discovered a shrimp bag we had previously thought lost to time, so today (7/16) I had the invigorating experience of being definitively good at my task. I knew how to set up my station and go through the process of sorting and measuring. I didn’t need help or instructions. I had complete confidence in my ability to get this done. I really like the feeling. Related: having officially finished the backlog of weekly samples from the last two years, I’ve measured 4,700 shrimp. I speak their language now. Shrimple as that.