Welcome to Marine Biology
See a slideshow from our 2006 trip to North Carolina
and a movie of the first day of our 2008 trip

Read the guidelines for blog posting
And a short video guide to adding a post to the blog

Reading Assignments

And your final assignment?
Please take this online survey about or field trip to the Outer Banks.

For Friday, April 23rd - Deep Sea Biology
Check out the following websites from NOAA on:
A search for hydrothermal vents off the coast of Chile
 Deep sea bioluminescence in the Bahamas

Preparation for trip to OBX

  • Use this tide prediction site to note in your field book the times and heights of the tides at Oregon Inlet during our trip. Also note the times for sunrise and sunset each day.
  • Check out the species information developed by the class in 2008. Each of you will pick two species not on the current list during your trip and develop a similar wiki page for each.

For Wednesday, April 14th - Barrier Islands and the OBX
Chapters 1 and 2 of Hatteras Journal
Recent news on beach nourishment in Nags Head
and two stories (here and here) on the debate about closing access to OBX beaches to protect shore bird breeding sites
and one on bluefin tuna

For Monday, April 12th - Nekton
Check out the TOPP website on animal migration

For Friday, April 9th - Salt marsh animals/conservation
Bertness pages 368-373
  1. What are the conservation challenges faced by salt marsh habitats?
  2. What services do healthy salt marshes provide?

For Wednesday, April 7th - Physiology of salt marsh plants
Bertness pages 320-332, 333-337, 344-348
  1. What are the environmental challenges for salt marsh plants, and how have they adapted to these conditions?
  2. Last week we talked about vertical zonation of salt marsh plants. What kind of horizontal zonation occurs among estuarine plant species?
  3. How does the clonal form of a salt marsh plant affect its competitive edge?
  4. How has the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers by humans affected snow geese populations, and in turn, the state of arctic salt marshes?
  5. How might eutrophication change the typical vertical zonation of a salt marsh?
Silliman and Bertness 2002 - Thought questions (typed copies due in lecture)
  1. Why would trophic cascades seem more likely in habitats dominated by ephemeral, weedy algae compared to salt marshes and seagrass beds?
  2. Based on this paper and the Bertness text, what is meant by “short-form” and “tall-form” Spartina?
  3. What hypothesis is being tested by this paper, and what basic approaches are used?
  4. What are the major take-home messages from each of the three figures in this paper? (summarize each in three sentences or less). Be ready to discuss these figures in class.
  5. How does the location of greatest snail recruitment compare to the density of adult distribution? What accounts for this discrepancy?
  6. Where would Littoraria prefer to live? Why?

For Wednesday, March 31st - Introduction to salt marshes
Bertness pages 304-320
  1. Where on the Atlantic Coast do salt marshes occur, and why are they restricted to these areas?
  2. What effects do salt marsh plants have on their surroundings? How do marshes grow vertically?
  3. What are the dominant plants in an Atlantic Coast salt marsh? What zone is each found in?
  4. How does this zonation differ between New England and southern salt marshes?

For Monday, March 29th - be prepared to discuss the Chesapeake Bay
www.chesapeakebay.net
  1. What are the environmental problems in the Bay?
  2. What is being done to repair them?
  3. Is Bay restoration working?

For Friday, March 19th - Oyster reefs/Mouritsen and Poulin paper
Bertness pages 283-286
  1. What services do oyster reefs provide to soft-sediment habitats (what positive effects do they have on their environment), and what impact would their destruction have?
  2. What has led to the drastic reduction in oyster reef abundance on the Western Atlantic coast?
  3. Why would harvesting of North Carolina oysters by SCUBA be better for oyster reef sustainability than dredging?

Mouritsen and Poulin 2005 - thought questions (typed copies due in lecture)
  1. Why do the authors think that parasitism will affect the zonation patterns of tidal flat organisms in New Zealand?
  2. Use internet or book resources to determine what the terms “first and second intermediate host” and “definitive host” mean in terms of parasitism? How do these terms relate to the species in this study?
  3. What is the typical zonation patter for the macroinvertebrate species studied in this paper? Where do they normally occur in the intertidal, and how do their interactions affect this zonation pattern?
  4. How do the authors hypothesize that parasitic infection will affect this typical zonation pattern?
  5. Do the authors’ data support their hypothesis? Give two examples.
  6. What is the significance of this paper?
  7. Be ready to discuss the figures in this paper and how they relate to the authors’ hypothesis.

For Wednesday, March 17th
Hatteras Journal chapter 3 - Bounded by Sea
Bertness pages 267-283
  1. What factors lead to reduced zonation in soft-sediment habitats compared to rocky habitats?
  2. Under what conditions does space competition lead to spatial segregation of soft-sediment organisms? What is an example? What type of competition is more important in soft-sediment habitats?
  3. Has Sally Woodin’s trophic group amensilism hypothesis held up to testing over the years? Why or why not?
  4. How has experimental caging been used to determine the effects of predators on soft-sediment habitats? What types of controls are necessary to make sure that these experiments do not produce artifacts from the cage itself?
  5. What are the “indirect effects” of predation on soft-sediment organisms? How do predator effects skip trophic levels?
  6. How does “siphon nipping” by fishes affect the predatory effects of blue crabs on the bivalve Macoma?

For Monday, March 15th - Tidal flat organisms
Bertness pages 246-267
This reading was assigned before spring break. Look over the types of organisms, feeding styles, and particular genera found in soft-sediment habitats.

For Wednesday, March 3rd - Zonation in rocky intertidal, final thoughts, and soft-sediment intro
Bertness figures 5.46, 5.47, 5.49, pages 241-246
  1. Be ready to discuss the figures listed above
  2. How does life in a soft-sediment intertidal habitat differ from that of the rocky intertidal?
  3. What are some of the major physical factors affecting life in soft-sediment habitats?

For Monday, March 1st - Disturbance and ecosystem engineering/Rocky shores
Bertness pages 159-203 (algae pages were already read for lab)
  1. Be ready to discuss figure 4.26. Why does stress play such an important role in determining the relative importance of biotic interactions?
  2. How does stress and disturbance affect species diversity?
  3. What strategy does Postelsia use to grow in mussel dominated areas?
  4. What are some different factors that affect the success of species during secondary succession?
  5. What is an ecosystem engineer?
  6. Review the types of algae
  7. How does the mechanism of seaweed reproduction sometimes make it difficult to determine the total number of algal species in a habitat?
  8. What are the major feeding strategies used by rocky shore species? What important genera use each strategy?

For Wednesday, Feb 24th - Quiz review

For Monday, Feb 22nd - Positive interactions, predation and their interaction
Bertness pages 142-159
Thought question:
  1. On Friday we mentioned that both biotic and abiotic stresses help produce zonation in marine intertidal communities. Which of these stresses tends to limit shoreward growth of populations, and which limits seaward growth?
  2. How does your answer to question 1 apply to Joseph Connell’s work with acorn barnacles? What factors contributes to the zonation of Chthamalus and Semibalanus?
  3. What is a positive interaction between species, and how can they extend the habitat range for a population?
  4. Robert Paine’s research on mussel and seastar interactions in the 1960’s pioneered our understanding of the importance of predation on intertidal ecology. What did Paine find out, and why did he call the seastar Pisaster a keystone species on the Pacific coast?

For Friday, Feb 19th - Process and Pattern in Shoreline Communities
Bertness pages 18-24, 130-142
No thought questions for today

For Wednesday, Feb 17th - Larval recruitment continued
Bertness pages 123-128
Read Johnson and Geller 2006 - This paper examines the settlement of mussels (Mytilus) on the coast of California
Printed answers to these thought questions to be handed in on Wednesday in lecture
  1. Based on Bertness, how does larval recruitment level affect the stability of population sizes in barnacles?
  2. Why are the effects of predation and disturbance on community structure dependent on the level of larval recruitment?
  3. What was known about the biology and ecology of the three Mytilus species prior to the Johnson and Geller study?
  4. According to the introduction of this paper, what are three possible controls on the distribution of adults from these mussel species?
  5. What approach did the authors take to determine how larval ecology and settlement affect adult distributions?
  6. Briefly explain how table 1, and each of the three figures, relate to the hypothesis of the paper. For each table or figure, explain how the data help the authors determine the controls on adult distributions.
  7. What does appear to control the adult distribution of these mussels? Are the controls the same for each species?
For Monday, Feb 15th - Larval recruitment
Read the Introduction of Moran and Manahan (2006)
This is a good review of the feeding requirements and energy physiology of planktotrophic larvae
Bertness pages 100-122
Thought questions
  1. What types of food do planktonic larvae eat, and what happens when food levels are low?
  2. How can larval behavior influence horizontal movement in the ocean even when the larva is planktonic?
  3. Why does Point Conception in California produce a biogeographical barrier to species with planktonic larvae, but not to those with direct developing larvae?
  4. Is the distribution of marine species primarily due to the differential mortality of larvae that settle widely, or due to larvae choosing to settle in specific habitats?
  5. What is the difference between random larval settlement and passive larval deposition?
  6. How would you describe the current view of the controls on larval settlement? How was this view tested by the Butman et al. study presented in figure 3.41
  7. What is a “point of no return” for marine larvae?

For Friday, Feb 12th - Surviving the larval stage
Bertness pages 98-112
  1. Be ready to discuss figures 3.14, 3.15 and 3.16.
  2. What are the ecological and evolutionary ramifications of different marine reproductive strategies?
  3. What types of challenges can lead to high mortality in planktonic larvae?
For Friday, Feb 5th
Finish thought questions from Wednesday
Exam review

For Wednesday, Feb 3rd - Reproduction and Recruitment
Bertness pages 86-99
  1. Mark Bertness seems to like the term “decoupled”. What does he mean when he says that the growth and success of local populations is often “decoupled” from larval recruitment? What is meant by the term recruitment in this situation? What is the most important factor determining the size and location of populations?
  2. What are the challenges of external fertilization, and what are some strategies species use to increase fertilization success?
  3. What are the pros and cons of direct development? Likewise, what are the pros and cons of having a planktotrophic or lecithotrophic larva?
  4. Be ready to discuss figures 3.14, 3.15 and 3.16.

For Monday, Feb 1st - Foraging Behavior
Bertness pages 67-70
Thought questions
  1. How do the data in figure 2.34 demonstrate the principles of optimal foraging theory?
  2. How does the sexually dimorphic cheliped (claw) in fiddler crabs affect the foraging choices of males and females?
Read Burke and Montevecchi 2009 and bring printed responses to these thought questions

For Friday, Jan 29th
Bertness pages 53-67
Thought Questions
  1. What is the difference between the ecological and evolutionary effects of top-down forces?
  2. Why would lack of "redundancy in trophic roles" make it easier to study top-down than bottom-up control in intertidal communities?
  3. What are some examples of top-down controls that have been studied?
  4. Figure 2.18 illustrates some of the complex relationships that can occur between different trophic levels. For example, bottom-up forces can increase the strength of top-down control by leading to greater numbers of consumers. What is meant by "flow-driven, bottom up forces", and how can they decouple the connection between bottom-up and top-down effects?
  5. Look over the four different feeding strategies described in this chapter. Try to determine the phylum of each type of animal mentioned in this section.
  6. Which of these feeding types would be prone to the "decoupling" effects asked about in question 4?
  7. Be ready to discuss the data presented in figure 2.31 on optimal foraging in the green crab.

For Jan 22nd
Bertness pages 36-53
Thought Questions
  1. Know the meanings for the following terms: littoral, benthic, euphotic, upwelling, trophic dynamics, eutrophication, oligotrophic
  2. What are the different groups of autotrophs found in nearshore areas?
  3. What is compensation depth, and why is it shallower in nearshore areas compared to the open ocean?
  4. How does water depth affect photosynthesis? How do autotrophs adapt to photosynthesis at different depths and water conditions?
  5. According to page 47, how do light levels, nutrient levels and stratification of the water column affect the primary production of phytoplankton?
  6. What is meant by “bottom-up control” of marine communities? Be ready to discuss one example.

For Jan 20th
Hatteras Journal Ch. 8 - Hurricane
Be ready to discuss your lab exercise on chlorophyl levels
Some reading and videos on ocean currents and the Great Ocean Conveyer Belt

For Jan 15th
Bertness pages 1-8
NY Times article on ocean currents

Web sites
Sea surface temperatures
National Data Buoy Center
SeaWiFS