Cephalopodcast

The Florida Marine Science Educators Association celebrates its 40th year anniversary. Don’t miss the 2008 Annual Conference: A Wonder-Water Discovery

I’ll be giving a presentation tomorrow during the Florida Marine Science Educators Association 2008 Annual Conference. Presentation materials will be posted here.

Presentation description:

From the depths of the oceans to the tops of the waves, scientist, teachers and students are using blogs, podcasts and other new media to raise awareness of ocean issues. Unlike static Web-based content, this new media revolution allows for real-time conversations and discovery. This session explores the emerging environment of ocean blogging and shows how you can get on board.  Case studies of building understanding through new media at the intersection of science, education, and conservation will be examined. Join us for a lively and interactive session and explore the new virtual frontier of ocean education.

I’ll be heading up to St. Petersburg sometime tomorrow to the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute*. They are having their annual open house, called MarineQuest, and their should be a lot of events and activities for anyone interested in marine biology.

I also got my little Belkin TuneTalk working again, so I hope to record a little sound-seeing tour along the way to share later.

MARINEQUEST 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
100 Eighth Avenue Southeast
St. Petersburg, Florida [Map and Directions]

• MarineQuest 2008

*What is now the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute used to be called the Florida Marine Research Institute when it was part of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. But back in 1999, an amendment to the state’s constitution merged the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission, the Marine Fisheries Commission and other elements, forming the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Florida Surf Clams (aka, Coquina, Donax variabilis), © Jason Robertshaw

What the Shell Is That? is my series on beachcombing and tidal life. Living on the west coast of Florida, it is mostly about shells, but can also be about other flotsam, fauna and even flora.

Note:
This is a bonus, double-feature entry. You get the WSIT #5 and Cephalovlog #4 combined in one.

Florida Surf Clams (aka, Coquina, Donax variabilis)

Date: 6 April 2008
Location: Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A.
All along the surf.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Veneroida
Family: Donacidae
Genus: Donax
Coquina Clams (Donax variablis)

Report:
Surf clams, also called Coquina, are bean-sized (2 cm), colorful bivalves that make their living in one of the most challenging habitats, the surf zone. They are filter feeders, extending their siphons into the water as it washes over them. As the wave pulls back out, they are often exposed at the surface and have to quickly put their muscular foot down to scoot back beneath the sand. It seems like a very energetically expensive way to make a living and it’s surprising they get enough nutrients from just filtering bacteria and algae out of the water (but still further proof that even the tiniest mollusks are tough enough to whip any echinoderm’s hiney).

The clams, in turn, are an important food source for shorebirds. People seem to like them too, but personally I have never eaten them before. The shells of these animals also accumulate over time and mix with other sediment to form a consolidate material called Coquina rock. It is used as a building material throughout Florida.

Something else that was remarkable, and requires more investigation, was the presences of hundreds of small marine worms. You can see a close up in the video about half way through. These worms would suddenly appear in the hundreds, wriggling after a wave wash, only to disappear instantaneously beneath the sand.

Cephalovlog #4: 60 Second Surf

I borrowed the Sanyo Xacti E1 from work for a field test. This little camera is immersible to 5 meters. I did not need to send it that far down to video these little guys, as they are in the wash zone of the beach. Video was edited in iMovie and scored in Garageband. Note, this is not time-lapse footage. The clams really do dig that fast.

Donax me

References

• Ruppert, Edward and Richard Fox. Seashore Animals of the Southeast. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. pp. 158.
• Witherington, E., Blair and Dawn Witherington. Florida’s Living Beaches. City: Pineapple Press (FL), 2007. pp. 109.

Additional Links

• YouTube: Cephalovlog #5
• Wikipedia: Donax
• Wikipedia: Coquina rock
• SeashellGuide.com: Coquina: Catching “Butterflies”
• FL Fish and Wildlife Research Institute: Coquina Clams

Parchment tube from Chaetopterus mixed with thousands of dead urchins, © Jason Robertshaw

What the Shell Is That? is my semi-irregular series on beachcombing and tidal life. Living on the west coast of Florida, it is mostly about shells, but can also be about other flotsam, fauna and even flora.

Parchment Tube Worms (Chaetopterus sp.)

Date: 12 March 2008
Location: Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A.
All along the wrack line.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Annelida
Class: Polychaeta
Order: Spionida
Family: Chaetopteridae

Parchment Tube Worm (Chaetopterus sp.)

Report:
We had some storms roll through recently that managed to dislodge quite a number of benthic invertebrates. All kinds of critters were washed up on the beach, some in the thousands. There were worms, sea urchins, sea shells and seaweeds of all different kinds and colors. It was good pickings for the beachcombers but even better pickings for the shore birds.

One of the castoffs that piled up in the wrack line were the casings from parchment tube worm (Chaetopterus veriopedatus). Normally these worms burrow into the sand with either end of the tube poking out (see illustration here). The worm itself has several highly modified, bell-like paddles that they beat inside the tube to maintain water circulation. One of the neatest aquarium exhibits I’ve seen was a live Chaetopterus placed inside some clear vinyl tubing. It was thereby possible to watch the rhythmic beating of its paddles. Here’s a photo of a similar set-up.

Another critter that my wife found was one that has long been on my life-list but is so obscure I did not recognize it at the time (hence the poor picture). It was a Polyonyx sp., or a commensal porcelain crab that lives almost exclusively in the tubes of parchment worms. It is rare to find them anywhere else and this one presumably was dislodged from one of the many casings on the beach. You might note how it’s claw seems oddly bent. It wasn’t broken but appeared to be shaped that way.

There were also casings from another type of worm called the decorator or plumed worm (family Onuphidae). You may have heard about the recent debunking of bug eyespots as being mimicry. Well there is a similar amazing story underwater with these creatures. Recent research from Sarah K. Berke and Sarah A. Woodin (University of South Carolina) suggests that the Onuphid’s tube decoration may not be for camouflage after all.

References

• Ruppert, Edward and Richard Fox. Seashore Animals of the Southeast. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. 203.
• Williams, Winston. Florida’s Fabulous Seashells. City: World Publications (Tampa, FL), 1988. pp. 39
• Witherington, E., Blair and Dawn Witherington. Florida’s Living Beaches. City: Pineapple Press (FL), 2007. pp. 125.

Additional Links

• Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory: Chaetopterus variopedatus (Tube Worm). Includes nice pics of the worm and Polyonyx.
• Polychaet Diverstiy and Feeding: Chaetopterus
• Science Musings: Red fish, blue fish…
• Google Docs: A Study of the Life History and Habits of Chaetopterus Variopedatus, By Howard Edward Enders (Published 1906)
• Biological Bulletin Online: Tube Decoration May Not Be Cryptic for Diopatra cuprea (Polychaeta: Onuphidae) Berke and Woodin Biol Bull.2008; 214: 50-56
• National Geographic: Hawai’i’s Unearthly Worms
• ScienceDaily: Zoologists Challenge Longstanding Theory That ‘Eyespots’ Mimic The Eyes Of Predators’ Enemies

Dr. Clyde Roper, world-renowned teuthologist will be giving a presentation at Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, FL this coming Monday.

Giant Squid: Who’s Chasing Whom?

Mote’s 2008 Special Lecture Series continues next week with the lecture “Who’s Chasing Whom? The Quest for the World’s Largest Calamari, the Giant Squid,” by Dr. Clyde Roper, Zoologist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. On Monday, Jan. 28, Dr. Roper will trace the historical legends and concepts based on the giant squid and present results of his deep-sea expeditions in search of the squid with National Geographic and the Discovery Channel in addition to subsequent attempts by colleagues.

Dr. Roper, an Adjunct Scientist at Mote, has had a long-standing relationship with the organization and was instrumental in obtaining the giant squid specimen that is on permanent exhibit at Mote Aquarium.

The Special Lecture Series will continue every Monday until March 10 and all lectures will take place at 7 p.m. in Mote’s Immersion Cinema located at 1600 Ken Thompson Pkwy., Sarasota. Log onto www.mote.org/news for more information and brief speaker bios.

A photo of Dr. Roper and specimens jars is available for media to download.

Members of the media interested in attending any lectures should contact Jamie Tacy at 941-388-4441, ext. 228 or jtacy@mote.org.

• Previously: Cephalopodcast #6, an interview with Dr. Clyde Roper
• 2008 Mote Special Lecture Series lineup, and additional details.

lionfish, by jon hanson

Common names: Lionfish, lion fish, zebrafish, firefish, turkeyfish, red lionfish, butterfly cod, ornate butterfly-cod, peacock lionfish, red firefish, scorpion volitans

Happy Turkey Day for those in the States. Ben Franklin famously suggested that the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) would make a more fitting symbol for the United States than the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Many derisively scoff at the notion, but if you read this account of his recommendation, especially in light of current events, it’s rather telling we chose the latter bird instead.

But there is another turkey out there that I wanted to mention today. This one won’t end up on too many dinner plates, probably because it’s a venomous fish. more commonly known as the lionfish in the United States, Pterois volitans is also called the Turkeyfish in many other parts of the world. Normally found in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, it has recently been found in increasing numbers off the east coast of the U.S. It is a common and spectacular staple of the live reef fish trade and authorities suspect specimens released from aquariums were the original source of the invasive population.

The Turkeyfish is in the Scorpionfish family and is a predator of smaller fish. Authorities fear that as its range expands into new areas, it will have a disruptive effect on the ecology of these environments.

More Turkeyfish Day links appear over at the Invasive Species Weblog.

• NOAA: Lionfish Invasion Teacher’s Guide
• EISF: Lionfish Invasive Species Education & Outreach
• Invasive Lionfish Species Confirmed in Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary
• Wikipedia: Lionfish

I have not gone out to the beach as much as I had hoped when I first started What the Shell. But not too far from the horse conch, we found this little fellow.

Stone Crab (Menippe sp.)

The one pictured below is probably a juvenile M. mercenaria, the Florida Stone Crab. That’s based on the range; I haven’t found anything definitive yet.

2 September 2007
New Pass, Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A.
Found crawling on a dead quahog shell.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Brachyura
Superfamily: Xanthoidea
Family: Menippidae
Stone Crab (Menippe sp.)

Gortoning Myself

I am probably Gortoning myself with this one, but stone crab season begins today in Florida.

Only legal-sized claws (2 ¾ inches) are harvested in the stone crab fishery; crabs are returned to the water alive to generate new claws. Approximately 13 percent of commercially harvested claws are regenerated. The fishing season is open October 15 through May 15 each year, but the harvest of egg-bearing female crabs is prohibited at all times.

Most of the sources on stone crabs note that this is a “sustainable fishery,” owing to the notion that the crabs will regrow their claws. The rate of regrowth varies, taking anywhere from one to three molts before the new claw approaches the same size as the one removed. The molting rate depends on the initial size, sex and environmental conditions of the animal, among other things.

Duress of the Dungeness*

You can file this under duh, but Mark recently noted some new research that indicates crabs with claws removed have increased stress levels which could affect survival rate. As picked up by ScienceDaily:

Professor Bob Elwood, from the School of Biological Sciences studied crabs’ reaction to declawing. Crabs felt increased stress and had a lower survival rate after the removal of one claw.

Professor Elwood said: “We found a strong stress response within ten minutes of taking off one claw and this stress remained after 24 hours. The stress response was greater if the crab was declawed rather than being induced to cast off a claw. So, the stress is not due specifically to claw loss but to the manner of the claw loss.

I don’t imagine most folks will pay much mind to this news. But personally, I’ve cut back tremendously on the amount of meat I consume, mostly for ethical and environmental reasons. And this research doesn’t incline me make an exception for crustaceans, no matter how deliciously sustainable they may be.

Sources

• Blogfish: Removing claws is harmful to crabs
• ScienceDaily: Declawing Crabs May Lead To Their Death, which is a rehash of the original press release from Queen’s University, Belfast.
• NOAA FishWatch fact sheet: Gulf and Florida Stone Crabs (Menippe adina and Menippe mercenaria)
• The 2006 Stock Assessment Update for the Stone Crab, Menippe spp., Fishery in Florida
• A Proposed Evolutionary History of Stone Crabs
• Observations of the Stone Crab Commercial Fishery. From the 2006 season, with a couple of nice vignettes by Florida Wildlife Commission field crew members.
• Creative Loafing, Sarasota: ‘Tis the Season, Sandy claws are coming to town. Brian works in an jab at vegetarians in both the print and podcast versions.

*Forgive me the poetic license, I know they are different species. This also concludes my Blog Action Day report.

I am starting another new feature here on the Cephaloblog, one that I hope will become a regular edition. I am calling it, What the Shell is That?

My inspiration comes from the weekly blog arcs of folks like PZ Myers (Friday Cephalopod), Peter and Craig (Friday Deep-Sea Picture), Rick MacPherson (Monday Moray) and Martin Brummell (Friday Fish), to name just a few.

The focus of What the Shell will be on things I find at the beach. Living on the southwest coast of Florida, that means mostly molluscs, especially bivalve (clam) and gastropod (snail) shells. But it could also be skate eggs, algae or nurdles. Anything in the intertidal is fair game, and not just dead things on the beach either.

Note, I am not a professional malacologist or a competent conchologist. Just a curious beachcomber looking to get outside more to search the surf and share with you. I am not interested in collecting live shells, just taking pictures and leaving only footprints/bubbles. I hope to post one entry each weekend, the day depending on when I can hit the beach.

Florida Horse Conch (Triplofusus gigantea)

The official state shell of Florida is neither a horse (obviously) nor a true conch (not so obviously) nor is it limited to just Florida. True conchs are in the family Strombidae, but horse conchs, along with the tulip shells, are in the spindle shell family Fasciolariidae. Up until recently this particular animal was known as Pleuroploca gigantea. I am still not certain what prompted the change in taxonomy.

I suspect it is called a horse conch because it is the largest snail in North America. These animals grow up to two feet long and are voracious predators of other marine snails.

The individual pictured above was a juvenile, approximately 3 inches long (7.5 cm) found half-way in the water on a piece of drift wood.

Some questions I am still seeking the answers to:

• Why is the horse conch orange? How does it get this distinctive color.
• As an adult, why does it have such a flakey periostracum?
• Why is the horse conch so large?
• Why the change from Pleuroploca to Triplofusus?

References

• Rehder, Harald and James Carmichael. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Seashells. New York: Knopf, 1981. pp. 575.
• Ruppert, Edward and Richard Fox. Seashore Animals of the Southeast. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. 116.
• Williams, Winston. Florida’s Fabulous Seashells. City: World Publications (Tampa, FL), 1988. pp. 54-55
• Witherington, E., Blair and Dawn Witherington. Florida’s Living Beaches. City: Pineapple Press (FL), 2007. pp. 73.

Additional Links

• More photos: What The Shell
• Whitney Laboratory of Marine Bioscience: Horse Conch (Pleuroploca gigantea)
• Spindle Shells, Scallops, an excerpt from Florida’s Seashells by Blair & Dawn Witherington (pdf)

UPDATE: bobsonguam now informs me that Pleuroploca papillosa is being considered.

Last summer we started noticing upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopeia sp.) appearing in abundance in Sarasota Bay, Florida. These are typically saucer-sized animals that are content to pulse upside-down (hence the name) on the bay bottom, exposing their frilly, weed-like tentacles to the sun. They aren’t supposed to have much of a sting, but apparently some people do get an allergic reaction to touching them.

These creatures have a symbiotic relationship with the algae that packs their tentacles. It is similar to the relationship between reef-forming, stony corals and their algae partners. These partners are called zooxanthellae (zoe-zan-thelly), or as we like to tell the kids, they are the green jelly in the belly of the corals. Not strictly accurate, but catchier than saying the dinoflagellate symbionts in the endoderm of hermatypic cnidarians. The algae photosynthesizes, producing oxygen and sugars that the animals use. In return, the animals give the algae a protective matrix to grow in, carbon dioxide and other waste products that act like fertilizers.

Typically you find these jellies further south in Florida and it’s unsual to see them this far north. This story just recently got some mainstream press coverage and by coincidence the inkspot blog posted some beautiful pictures and video of upside-down jellies nearly the same day.

It’s interesting to note that this article by Karla C. Garcia states that the upside-down jellies tend to expel their zooxanthellae under stressful conditions, like extreme water temperatures and changes in salilnity. In coral reefs, this process is commonly referred to as bleaching. Presumably the conditions in Sarasota Bay have change now in favor of recruitment by Cassiopeia larvae and their algae. Sarasota Bay has also been affected by several seasons of serious red tide outbreaks. It is interesting to speculate if this may have influenced the natural predators of the planktonic larvae.

And here’s the obligatory disclaimer. These animals are not fish, of course, and some people object to calling them jellyfish. They are an ancient lineage of animals that predate any finny creatures with backbones. Instead, simply call them sea jellies and you should be okay.

• Herald Tribune: Strange jellyfish move into Sarasota Bay
• inkspot: jellicles
• A Symbiotic Lifestyle: C. xamachana and Zooxanthellae

Sticking a tentative tentacle into the world of video podcasting. This first one is something of a test.

60 Second Sunset, Siesta Key, Sarasota, FL

Click To Play

Shot on 07/28/2007 with my peewee Canon ZR500. Edited with iMovie and scored in Garageband. Inspired by this series 60 Seconds in the Life of the Galapagos Islands over at Ironic Sans.

• Cephalopodcast on YouTube
• Cephalopodcast on Revver
• Cephalopodcast on Blip.tv

BTW, my buddy SB just coined a new word tonight. I was asking him about youth culture and the balkanization of all these social networking sites. He said that geeks go to blip.tv and the “general public & yutes go YT [YouTube].” So there you have it:

yutes |yoōts|
noun
1. [informal] plural for young adults.
2. [slang] YouTube enthusiasts (often obsessive youths).

youts
British spelling of yutes

Tomorrow I will be participating in the second cephalopod conference organized by the TONMO.com community, TONMOCON II.

Conference-goers will enjoy a full day of back-to-back presentations and panel discussions on various subjects pertaining to cephalopods, including octopus and cuttlefish care, cephalopods in art, cephalopod study in marine biology, and much more. Dr. Steve O’Shea is the featured speaker, covering “Giant Squids, Whales, Sex and Conservation.”

There is the possibility of a live webcast/Skypecast/Talkshoecast of the event. Or at the very least, audio recordings of the sessions will be made and posted. More details and the agenda are available here.

Today is the 85th birthday of Dr. Eugenie Clark. Better know as the Shark Lady, Genie is also the founder of Mote Marine Laboratory. The local paper has a retrospective of her career.

The “Shark Lady” has been diving into waters around the world and making landmark contributions to marine science for some 50 years.

But whether she was discovering a hermaphrodite belted sandfish near New Pass, riding on the backs of whale sharks in Mexico or teaching the emperor of Japan to snorkel off the coast of Miami, Clark has always returned to a small waterfront laboratory in Sarasota.

It is where a young mother with a doctorate in zoology and no idea how to hunt a shark got her start. Clark is now permanently back at Mote Marine Laboratory, which will host an 85th birthday party for its director emerita and senior scientist this evening.

• Wikipedia: Eugenie Clark
• Mote Magazine biography
• Press Release: Birthday Bash at Mote for Genie, 5/4/2007
• Read about her recent research on the odd behavior of Pholidichthys leucotaenia, the convict fish
• Amazon: Shark Lady: True Adventures of Eugenie Clark
• Amazon: Fish Watching With Eugenie Clark

(more…)

I don’t talk too much about my day job (seatrek.org) here on my personal site*, but I get to do some pretty neat things and work with some really great people. And today, CBS’ The Early Show did a segment on virtual fieldtrips that featured us. You can’t see me (I’m the one behind the camera) but you can see our studios at Mote Marine Laboratory.

Virtual Field Trips Take Off
Thanks to virtual field trips, students can visit far-away places without ever leaving the classroom. Susan McGinnis reports that the idea is catching on in many schools.

• Watch the video.

If you have any questions about videoconferencing or would like to schedule a program, let us know.