Today I spent a day of my Spring Break commuting down to the University of Washington in Seattle so that I could meet with Ben Fitzhugh and Jody Bourgeois to discuss plans for the summer and to attend the weekly Kuril Biocomplexity Project (KBP) Seminar. Hans Nesse and Eli Gurarie, graduate students in the Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management program at UW, gave this week's Seminar to report on their progress modeling the populations of Stellar Sea Lions in the Kuril Islands. More on that later.
Summer Plans
To get to Seattle today, I drove to Mount Vernon, parked my car at the Skagit Transfer Center, took the bus to Everett, got on a commuter train to the King Street Station south of downtown Seattle and took a bus to the University District. It may have taken me 3.5 hours, but it only cost me $5.25 (which is cheaper than gas at $3/gallon!)
Before the Seminar, I met with Ben to talk about logistics for this summer. At the moment, we might have a ship for the summer… The ship that we had last year, Gipanis, has already been contracted by the Russian government and is unavailable. Apparently a new ship has been located, but not secured yet and it is more expensive than last year. This means that we might have to shorten the field season from 45 days to 30 days. Additionally, some of the members of our group, including Matt Walsh, Jody Bourgeois and Bre MacInnes might be heading to the Kurils in June with some of the Russian scientists to do some work with them on two of the southern central islands – Urup and Simushir. This would be very beneficial because then we would be able to focus on the northern central islands and still gather data at sites on these islands that we don't want to miss. The site on Simushir, called Dushnaya, is a location that was studied briefly last summer and where Jody expects that a tsunami created by the 8.3 magnitude earthquake that happened in November would have come ashore. So she and Bre would like to go back there and see if they can measure its extent and effects. There was also a magnitude 8.1-magnitude earthquake in the same area in January of this year.
Dushnaya Bay - August 2006
Dushnaya Bay
A photo of Dushnaya Bay on Simushir Island taken in August of 2006. How much will this beach be changed by tsunamis when scientists return in 2007? (Photo by Mike Etnier)
To get to more information about the Kuril Island earthquakes click below to go to the USGS earthquake hazards program website.
KBP Seminar
The Seminar presentation by Eli and Hans was an update on their work modeling sea lion populations with computer models. The models can take into considerations the reproductive, mortality and migration rates as well as harvest levels of sea lions to try to show what will happen to their populations at various rookeries (breeding areas) from year to year. While it did include quite a bit of explaining the complicated equations that were used in the models, they both did a good job of describing them and these details were kept in perspective with the conveying the big ideas and were interspersed with amusing anecdotes about sea lions. Basically, since the models are created by scientists, however, who input the impacts of the various parameters and variables as well as determine what those various rates and starting levels will be – the models usually tell the us what we ask them to (or we manipulate the model until it does!). So there is a tradeoff between simplifying the complex system that is the real world in order for it to be modeled and making the model so simple that is doesn't give us any good information.
Steller Sea Lions Sleeping
Sleeping Stellar Sea Lions
Steller sea lions lying on rocks
Steller Sea Lion Pup
Stellar Sea Lion Pup
Steller Sea Lion pup with milk on face
Summer Research Questions!
After Seminar, I had lunch with Bre and Jody and we brainstormed a couple of good ideas about ways to involve students (mine and maybe yours!) or the public with the work this summer. They can be virtual scientists! We came up with two intriguing questions that students/readers can create their own hypotheses about beforehand. Then, throughout the summer, as we collect relevant information, I will periodically provide evidence and data and as part of my normal journal postings that can be used to form some conclusions to the questions. I am very excited about these questions! I will post another journal entry with more of the details that are necessary to formulate hypotheses soon, but for now I will just tease you with the questions!
Question 1:
How do the physical characteristics of a beach, such as composition (sand, gravel, cobbles, etc), size (length and breadth) and/or its location (Sea of Okhotsk side, Pacific side, Northern/Central/Southern Kuril Islands) and the size of the island affect how much a beach changes from year to year?
Question 2:
What was the extent of the tsunami(s) created by the earthquakes off the coast of Simushir? That is, how far north and south and how far inland can evidence of the tsunami(s) be detected?
Stay tuned for more details on how to formulate your hypothesis and what sort of data you can expect to answer it!
Ms Nikula