As Vancouver closes in on the winter season, temperatures are dropping in the air and in the water. Noses begin to run, scarves are being wrapped, and school terms begin to get hectic! So – like any other sane human – I embarked on an expedition to find some plumose anemones in the rain and wind; with a cold, I tried to forget about the massive pile of coursework beckoning me back home. My final term project was officially underway.

The adventure began in Deep Cove – close to home. Scouring the docks of the marina, I began to notice a lack of diversity this close to the shore. I decided to ask the marina manager as to whether or not they had ever seen anemones around there. His reply? He had never seen any on these docks and thought it could be due to the extremely high amounts of runoff from the mountains, making it a slightly less appealing habitat for the anemones – something I didn’t even consider! Barnacles and mussels have shells they can close up in to physically avoid low salinity conditions. Unfortunately for the little anemones, their slimy column doesn’t help in preventing water loss. So, on I went to next location.

Caulfield Park was next on the agenda; with a little known dock and relatively rocky shores it seemed like the perfect place to find all my squishy little friends. The rain continued to pour down. As I peered over the edge of the dock I only found mussels – tons and tons of mussels. After searching the rocky banks and tidal pools, I still came up empty handed. The extreme quantities of mussels could be due to a lack of sea stars, a keystone species, in the area, the effect of which is discussed by Amrit in a previous blog post found here. As a keystone species, sea stars disproportionately regulate the populations of mussels in a given area. Without the sea stars to consume all the mussels, the populations exploded in size! So as my sniffling and coughing continued, I thought I would try one more location on the North Shore.

West Vancouver Yacht Club was the last stop. With very little optimism, I was able to meander the docks searching for the anemones. The club manager informed me that he has only ever seen two anemones in the area and that they were only accessible during low tide. I thought I would give it a shot and low and behold, he was right. I gave up for the day and came home with a worse cold then I had started with.

Fast forward a few days later, armed with a box of tissues and a friend with longer arms then I do, and I’m back leaning over the docks at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club in Coal Harbour. Twenty minutes in and no anemones found, I was getting discouraged, until I hear my friend yell “I THINK I FOUND ONE!” We were off to the races then. We kept saying, “okay we only need to find ten” and then we changed to, “it would be great if we found 15,” and then it was, “I can’t believe we found 20!” One anemone after another was popped off the dock and into ice cream buckets with rocks for transportation to the lab. Since the anemones tend to live in low intertidal regions, they can be transported out of water covered with wet paper towels to prevent extreme water losses. Within an hour and a half, 20 anemones had been found and my project had been saved. I was able to poke and prod, and to feed my plumose anemones to my hearts content. No anemones were harmed in this process; all were fed well and are currently thriving in our lab sea table. Now if only I could take them home as my new pets…

Additional information on solving the mystery of the sea star disappearance can be found on the Vancouver Aquarium’s Aqua Blog here.

Additional pictures, information, and identification tips on plumose anemones can be found here.

If you’re an avid scuba diver and want to see giant plumose anemones up close, a plumose garden is located at Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver. This Youtube video shows a sneak peak at its beauty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoG_F2r-IsM – t=174

A late October afternoon in Bamfield could not have brought more beautiful weather for us. Just kidding! Hurricane remnants were sweeping up the west coast delivering buckets of rain. So when the weather gets you soaked, the only option is to hit the high seas!

Late afternoon hit and the Alta research vessel arrived back at the dock delivering the first group back to land. The stragglers who missed the first boat took the second trip of the afternoon. As we clambered on, we were warned by our Captain that heading to Boulder Island to see the California Sea Lion colony may be a bit rocky so we should batten down the hatches. Always listen to your captain because he was right. After what felt like hours, we finally reached the islands only to see hundreds of sea lions playing in the wash, basking on rocks, and barking at each other.

Making our way back seemed calmer and quicker. We made a pit stop near the mouth of Bamfield Inlet for a quick dredge of the bottom – we pulled up treasures even Ariel would be jealous of!

Giant snails and huge sea cucumbers to the tiniest sea stars and hermit crabs was only a part of what we dredged. Even a flounder was picked up and swam around. While it was extremely enjoyable discovering benthic creatures, the lack of feeling in my hands made it a little difficult to want to sort through the bottom of the ocean and get them wet all over again. All the tiny creatures were passed down to my end of the tub as I squealed with delight over how cute they were. My favourite invertebrate was a little blood star smaller than the tip of my finger!

But! Do not fret; all of these critters were put back in the ocean to carry on with their day. The Pacific Northwest is an amazing place for observing great oceanic diversity in a small area. One quick dredge brought up around eight different phyla of invertebrates.

On a side note, dredging usually has a negative connotation towards ocean conservation, but the dredging that was done that afternoon was at such a small scale that next to no animals were harmed in the process. Large scale industrial dredging can seriously disrupt entire ecosystems, not just in the locations that are being dredged but also in the dumping zones and surrounding areas. Should you be interested in learning a bit more about dredging and the current global issues facing the topic, take a look at these websites and news articles:

Dredging in the Great Barrier Reef:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140131-great-barrier-reef-dredge-unesco-science-coal-australia/

Burrard Inlet Environmental Action Plan:

http://www.bieapfremp.org/fremp/managementplan/actionareas_navigation.html

If you’re interested in the Bamfield Marine Science Centre where our adventure took place, you can find more information here:

http://www.bms.bc.ca/

Who would have known that the dilapidated docks flanking our local shores where home to numerous invertebrate species? Not only do these shores house these species, but their communities are thriving as we speak. As we build up and out into the ocean’s intertidal regions, these species continue to flourish on all our man-made structures. Viewing a whole community of species co-inhabiting the underside of the rock is easy – all it takes is a quick look down.

The expansive high traffic boat zones tend to be quite susceptible to invasive species – especially with million dollar yachts motoring into the harbours. Some of these are loaded with little critters stuck to the hull, which deposit themselves into the area once the boats are moored. If the conditions are right –I’d prefer sunny and warm with plenty of food –these invasive species can take over –just like us northerners flocking to Hawaii and Mexico. Due to the known tunicate colony, Botryllus schlosseri, which has invaded the docks of the Coal Harbour we decided to go on a field trip to determine their impact on the native species in the area.

Our expedition to the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club in Coal Harbour took place on a classic Vancouver autumn day, overcast and grey. As everyone was in such a hurry to load up the vans and get to the docks, we forgot the buckets for collections and the tape measures back in the lab. Not a problem for us! We all brought out our inner “MacGyver” and found sticks to measure out a metre using an 8.5″x11″ standard notebook. We also took some of the dog poo bags from in the park to put our collections in for transport  back to the lab. After a bit of a disorganized start we finally got on track and hit the docks for observations!

The large group split up into pairs and randomly chose shaded or lit 1-metre area with an objective of determining species richness in the presence or absence of non-native tunicate colonies. The number of species observed was marked down according to the presence of the colonial orange blobs and in conjunction with whether or not they were hidden from the sun.

In addition to observing numerous species, a few were collected and brought back with us to the lab. Two opalescent nudibranchs were collected along with an unknown nudibranch individual. Possible new discovery?! An anemone, some hydras, and mussels were also collected.

Since very few tunicates were collectively seen, our results didn’t show any relationships between the number of tunicate colonies and species richness. Further, there wasn’t much of a relationship between number of species in light or dark habitats. Further exploration on other docks may be needed to increase our data for a more significant statistical analysis –back to the docks we go!

If our experiments at the docks have spiked your interested in how invasive marine species get around and how the Canadian government is dealing with them you can go to the following links for more information.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada:

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/publications/article/2011/01-05-11-eng.html

Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network:

http://www.caisn.ca/en/index.php

“Mussel-infested Boat” News Article:

http://www.pentictonwesternnews.com/news/278730061.html

Just remember that prevention is easier than the clean up!