Mollusk Muzik #5 OR data analysis be damned!

Unfortunately no actual video for this one. I was going to make a slideshow of PNW marine snails to watch while playing this song, but I found something better! Check out Kevin Lee's website of really beautiful pictures of PNW gastropods. In the top-right corner, there's even a "slideshow" feature. (It's abalone heavy toward the beginning, if you want to skip ahead to snails, they get going around page 5). You can play this song in the background as you let the slideshow auto-advance, and drink your mid-morning coffee...at least, that's how I'm spending my Friday morning - data analysis be damned!

Swear and Shake

"Humming to a Sea Snail"

Album: Maple Ridge

SCAD (Scientific Conference Affective Disorder)

I was at a conference this weekend. I sat through a million and a half talks this weekend.  I sat through a million and a half talks about marine biology this weekend(1).  I sat through a million and a half talks about marine biology in MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA this weekend.

And not a single one mentioned this...

Thanks, Ryan, for keeping me abreast of the latest. 

Of course, conferences are great ways to get excited about all the cool work that's going on in your discipline - but they are freaking long, even when they're short, and there are all these other people there - saying stuff!   But I really feel like I should at least find a few of the fun things I heard about to share with those of you who weren't able to make it.

Here are some highlights:

1. Mangroves are actually invasive in Hawai'i (2).  It's really somehow disarming when you find out a species that is normally of conservation concern in one (or many) place is targeted for eradication in another. Ecology is all about context, people.
2. Concrete reef balls OR BUST! Last Christmas, a family friend gave me the awesomest gift of a donation to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, supporting oyster restoration via concrete reef balls. Robert Dunn(3) gave a talk suggesting that the use of non-calcium carbonate based substrates for making oyster reefs (like concrete) might help reduce the colonization by a boring (4) sponge. The sponge is attracted to calcium carbonate, because it eats its way through oyster shells (which are made of calcium carbonate), which is obviously bad news for oysters. 
3. Arts and crafts are alive and well in marine ecology.  I get the greatest pleasure at seeing the creativity and ingenuity applied to ecological experiments, maybe because that's one of my favorite things about doing it. Wandering around the Home Depot, or JoAnn Fabric, looking for inspriation and trying to explain to the well-intentioned, but out-of-their-depths, customer service folks what you are trying to accomplish with the goods available for purchase at their store (5).  This weekend I saw a robot attack shark, an eelgrass bed made of yarn and polypropylene tape, a toy octopus attacking a real hermit crab. 

Lowlights:

1. We might have been outdanced by The Filipino Nurses Association, which was sharing the conference facility. At least their party started earlier, and they were better dressed.
2. The irony of going to Monterey for a marine ecology conference and spending literally 96 times as much time in a conference room with my butt in a chair than I spent in the amazing local marine environment. I realize I am largely to blame for this.  It is a choice.
3. Absolutely nobody really agrees with anyone else on ecological modelling.

Also did you know that, in places outside of Seattle, it's sometimes sunny and warm?! EVEN in November?!  I know, CRAZY! But look (figure 1), I have proof!

Figure 1.  On arrival in the bay area, I realized I had been deceived by
Seattle's plummeting descent into the dark abyss of winter (6).  It turns out
 the sun DOES still actually rise - at least in California.

References and Miscellany:
(1) Ok, fine, this might be an exaggeration. I did go for a walk on the beach one day. Also I saw a talk on efforts to conserve the California Condor, which can't, strictly speaking, be included in that number if it' s not marine. I was particularly excited to see this talk because it's one of the rare ones at this conference that isn't about benthic marine ecology. 
(2) Megsie Siple, now at SAFS
(3) For whom I can't find any direct links, sorry.
(4) Zzzzz....Right, not that kind of boring.  "Boring" meaning making holes, people! Sponges are not uninteresting, did you not just see the video I posted?!
(5) "You want to do what with orange sparkly tulle?"  But seriously, thank you to all the folks who have patiently attempted to help me.
(6) It's surprising to me that Natalie Dee isn't from Seattle. She nails it.

Holy Undiscovered Charismatic Marine Megafuana, Batman!

Did you guys see this?!

I know! Nuts! There exist species of whales that haven't even been seen before!? SRSLY?! Good GOD!

I was jonesing for some real information, so here, I found the journal article and you can get it for free - including a drawing (all the pictures in the media are of the species of beaked whale that it was originally confused for, so I didn't even bother to put it in here).

It's at Te Papa! So is this!

Mollusk Muzik #4 OR Marine Amphibians

Given that we're being inclusive of all Mollusks, octopuses (not "octopi" though "octopodes" is technically acceptable even if it makes you sound like a pedant) are fair game and so this one was unavoidable.  And while this version doesn't quite have the orchestration that the original does, the video is much more fun.  They must have had a great time making the muppets for this one.

The Muppets/ The Beatles (Ringo Starr)

Octopus' Garden

Abbey Road

Mollusk Muzik # 3 OR Where a Snail Has To Be

There is a number, somewhere between 10 and 30, that I can no longer remember.  It's how many They Might Be Giants concerts I've been to. Yup. Every single one was worth it and a blast.  

They Might Be Giants

"Snail Shell"

Album: John Henry

Species species of the Week week # 6 OR Goodyear Mollusks

Previously on Species species of the Week week: The tautonomical diet of the Blue Dragon!  Up first on the Menu menu: 

Janthina janthina

Figure 1. The Violet or Purple Snail, a prey item of the non-tautonomical
Blue Dragon nudibranch. I propose the new common name: Baggins Snail

If we accept the premise that snails are like Hobbits - you know, pretty much homebodies (insert rimshot here for the best snail pun ever!), and not overly predisposed to doing anything too hastily - Janthina janthina (Figure 1) is the Bilbo Baggins of snails. J. janthina is not content to trail unambitiously along the ground, or leaves, or rocks, or mud, or whatever. This snail FLIES! And it does this by making its own blimp (Figure 2). True they do so underwater, but to a regular old humdrum sea snail confined haul their shells across the substrate, this must look like magic.

Figure 2. Witness: the Goodyear snail. J. janthina (Baggins Snail)
constructing its own dirigible. Credit where credit is due.

The snail uses mucus to trap air from the surface into bubbles, making a raft that keeps them afloat. The raft is driven around by wind and surface currents, and the snail goes on undirected, upside-down walkabouts on the surface of the ocean - so, blimp might not be as apt as hot-air balloon, really.

How did the snail learn to fly then? It turns out this is kind of a cool story (1). The bubble raft is an adapted form of the egg mass. Lots of snails lay their eggs in mucus-y masses. So the theory goes that some ancestor of this snail ended making egg masses with air trapped in them, which was good for the baby snails since they got dispersed, and ultimately the snails themselves started floating and now both sexes have the bubble-making-skillz, which are no longer directly related to making eggs. There are other adaptations that make them good at a sea-faring life, too (Figure 3). The shell is flat and thin(2) - which keeps it from sinking fast, and it's counter-shaded (dark on top, light on bottom) to make it harder to for predators to see.

Figure 3. Janthina janthina is well adapted to a flying lifestyle.  

Why is it good to be in the pleuston(3)? Because it's delicious! J. janthina float along waiting to bump into delicious tautonomical prey: Velella velella

OMG! IT'S A TAUTONOMICAL FOOD CHAIN!!!

And that topic will be covered ... Next time, on Species species of the Week week.

References and miscellany:

(1) Churchill et al. (2011) Current Biology Vol 21 (19): R802-R803.

(2) Most land snails have super thin shells, because shells are heavy to carry on land. But marine snails often have thick shells, because it's easier to carry thick shells under water, and there's some nasty crabs out there that would like nothing better than escargot.

(3) Wait, what's the pleuston, again?  Well it's like the neuston, only for the big guys.

Mollusk Muzik # 2 OR Even Mollusks Have Weddings

It turns out I was kind of serious about Mollusk Muzik series.  Relevant songs have started popping into in my head recently. This whole thing kind of reminds me of that sketch they would do on Whose Line Is It Anyway? Whatever, I sort of liked that show.  

So here's Molluk Muzik #2 (+ Bonus B-side at the end of the post).

Two out of the three title characters here are mollusks, and the other is one of my favorites:

Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie

Joanna Newsom

Album: Milk-Eyed Mender

(Or if you prefer to be completely charmed by a live performance)

Ms. Newsom also makes my favorite mollusk reference ever in Inflammatory Writ: