New England Coast *Invaded* By Scientists!

I just got back from an 8-day trip surveying docks and rocky intertidal sites in Rhode Island (5 sites), Massachusetts (9 sites), New Hampshire (3 sites), and Maine (3 sites) for marine invasive species. The typical field day started at 7:30am and ended around 3:30pm, during which we visited 3 docks (or 1 intertidal site and 2 docks) and collected specimens. Then we brought the specimens back to the lab and sorted through them until about 8:30pm or so. Long, but fun days. My job in the field was to take water quality measurements (dissolved oxygen, salinity, and temperature) and later in the trip I also helped a fellow scientist, Niels, with amphipod and isopod collection. (Both are the "shrimpies" that you see swimming around in the water with you, often hanging onto algae. Amphipods are compressed side-side [laterally] and isopods are compressed top-bottom [dorso-ventrally].) In the lab, my job was to identify polychaete worms. By the end I had ID'ed 15 different (native) species in 9 different families! There weren't any newsworthy invasive finds on this trip, which is a good thing.

UPDATE (August 19)! There was a newsworthy find, apparently. I spoke too soon. A European shrimp, the "Rock Pool Prawn" (Palaemon elegans) was found in Salem. This species is a predator of small crustaceans in its native habitat back in England. Although the impacts here aren't known, its presence could result in a depletion of the local herbivorous invertebrate population, which would then result in an overgrowth of algae.

What follows are some photos from the trip. As you will see, the long days were worth it, because we did get to go to some really beautiful places. If you're interested in looking for marine invasives right here at home (in our own beautiful places) I conduct surveys in July and August around the South Shore - join me! (They're not nearly as intense, I assure you.)

My typical dock setup, with two water quality meters, a bucket with a Secchi disk to measure water clarity, and my trusty backpack (w/ trusty sunscreen)

Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI (looking away from the fort and towards the bridge)

Popes Island Marina, New Bedford, MA - Not our cleanest site, but it looks pretty here!

Everyone busy on the docks at Mass Maritime Academy, Buzzards Bay, MA (we later got to see the training ship "Kennedy" come back to port after time in dry dock!)

The lab at Brown University where we worked for three nights (and scientists like Jim Carlton, in the foreground)

Brewers Marine, Plymouth, MA (the only South Shore site!)

Rowe's Wharf, Boston, MA

Rocky shore, Rye, NH

UNH Coastal Marine Lab, Newcastle, NH - there were lots of herring swimming around here, being attacked by stripers from below and terns from above

My station in the Harris lab at UNH, complete with three identification keys and a dissecting scope

Samples are brought back in big plastic bags (often with smaller "Whirlpak" bags inside) which are kept in coolers until we're ready to go through them

Winter Island, Salem, MA (and a lot of slippery rockweed)

Dyer Cove, Cape Elizabeth, ME

We ate at this clam shack at our last site in South Freeport, ME - a tasty conclusion to the week