Experiments widen perspective

Ocean is like glass.  The Catalina Flyer is flying.  I’ve just done my tet-a-tet with John and Dan; they coming to Catalina on the same boat I’m taking to the mainland.  The boys are back from their Halloween activities to do some more research.  Last night was very exciting.   We’ve finally gotten our cages right, but, up till last night, still no data!

I managed to talk a CSU Long Beach grad student, Stephen Trbovitch, into diving with me, so we could end our latest cage-enclosure experiment.

Early afternoon, two days ago (two days after the gale), Dan and I planted 5 sea hares in the two now sea-hare tight cages.  Couldn’t dive on them night before last, but last night Steven and I checked out the damage.  Cage 2 still had 5 sea hares.   Rats.  They had all crawled up on the ceiling.  The lobster was right next to a group of three of them, looking like he was ready to pounce.  But we ended the experiment anyway.  Caught and measured this not-so-hungry lobster and let him go.

Then, we went to Cage 1.  This cage had only 2 sea hares!  This is very cool, for the cage itself is now fully sea-hare tight.  So this is our first unequivocal evidence that lobsters will hunt down sea hares that have had time to settle down.   Again, we measured the lobster, and let him go.

So, this result means that Rob’s (see alternative hypothesis blogs) alternative that lobsters are only attacking sea hares cause we are dropping them out of the water column, is weakened.  This also means that the student’s  “handout” alternative hypothesis is weakened.  The captured lobster in Cage 1 had to first shake off the insult of being captured and constrained in a cage.  Then he had to forage for his dinner.  He found the sea hares in a way he has never before done, not even remotely resembling a gift from a diver happening by with a handout. 

So, Stephen and I set up the next replicate experiment.  We went searching for attacking lobsters, and found a monster.  Put him into cage 1, left cage 2 with no lobster as a control, and went back to the surface.  Steven went to the Halloween party.  I tested lobsters in our waterfront tanks (more on that later), and then worked on the poster for the meeting in Monterey weekend after next.  It’s coming along, but time is running out.  I foresee panic setting in this week.

Here’s the map Dan’s been working on (rough draft.  I know, the legend colors are wrong).  You can see the location (pink circles) of our 7 dives outside reserves and 14 dives inside them.  Next comes the attack data as a function of location.  Stay tuned!