RI intertidalling

This weekend was the first weekend of the semester that I wasn't in Nahant, which was a bit of a relief. I really love being in Nahant and doing research there, but constantly traveling and doing homework on the train/in the lab is a little tiring. Nevertheless, I still got to go out into the field over part of the weekend to help set up an algal transplant experiment in Little Compton, RI.

Field site in Little Compton. I love how you can see the diversity of reds, greens and browns from a distance here.

Intertidal cormorants!

 Kylla's been setting up reciprocal transplants of Fucus vesiculosus (which Wikipedia says is the 'bladder wrack' - I don't know the common names for any algae!) from the low and high limits of its intertidal range, at sites spanning ~500 m of New England coastline to figure out if low and high zone Fucus show different survival rates and nutrient uptake, and if the patterns vary geographically. This weekend we set up the transplant for one 'south of the Cape' site in RI.

This means abducting the algae and re-attaching them either to the same tide height or the other end of their range over the course of 2 days' fieldwork. We have (bright! coloured!) cable ties around the algae to act as anchors into the z-spar on the rock. There are also temperature loggers deployed at the low and high tide height to monitor temperatures experienced by the transplanted Fucus.

 

Scuba Smurf helped out too. Here he is with the numbered setup and Fucus transplanted to the high zone!

Scuba Smurf with the little PVC hut that holds the temperature logger. 

Yay for interspecific variation!!

Something missing

My brain works in funny ways. Yesterday, out of the blue, it occurred to me that I haven't seen or heard a kingfisher in a really long time, and I started missing them. When I lived next to the Sungei Serangoon in Singapore, I used to be able to sit at my window with a pair of binoculars and watch several different species of kingfisher in action (along with herons, egrets, white-bellied sea eagle and Brahminy kite).

The very common white-throated kingfisher. Picture by Manjith Kainikara, used under a CC license.

Kingfishers are found almost globally but are very species-poor in the New World. I definitely haven't come across the single (?) species from North America. Even South America with its insanely diverse birdlife only has 5 or 6 species, and unlike the finches, none of them ever made it out to the land of the tortoises.

The Galapagos islands are full of amazing birdlife, and the seabirds are particularly spectacular. But when little things like this nag at me, I remember that my home is where there are kingfishers and bird's nest ferns*.


*I spent a good part of my first year in New England missing heavily epiphytised trees, particularly the ones with big bird's nest ferns between the branches (e.g. this one)

Cross-system exchange?

Intertidal finches eating intertidal algae. I am intrigued.

Grazing finch.

This one has Ulva ("sea lettuce") in its beak.