Nanwalek students take stock of their beaches
Filed under: Census of Marine Life,Discovery,News & Resources
(Click to enlarge image) The potential loss of marine biodiversity has recently spurred an increasing number of studies to identify their importance in ecosystem functioning. Nanwalek Middle School students spent three days of intense census-taking at their coastal village with PhD candidate Tania Spurkland and teacher Derek Bynagle. They counted 24 taxa of sea weed and 18 types of invertebrates – a biodiversity indicator for this “high energy” beach. Called the Natural Geography in Shore Areas project, the study was part of a Census of Marine Life project with 128 sampling sites along the shores of 51 countries
2010 sea census tallies beach life on diverse southern Kachemak Bay shoreline
(From Homer Tribune / by Naomi Klouda) –Thanks to an international effort to take a census of beach creatures, students at Nanwalek can now recount how many kinds of kelp wash up on their beach with each passing tide. They also now have a pretty good idea of just what kinds of creatures inhabit their shoreline.
Nanwalek Middle School students participated in a beach project to get a tally on sponges, clams, hermit crabs, urchins and kelp that live in the intertidal region of the Nanwalek coast.
University of Alaska Fairbanks doctorate student Tania Spurkland conducted the study with the students for three days in May.
“The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico points to the importance of doing these studies before some kind of a catastrophe comes in that has detrimental effects,” Spurkland said. “It could wipe out species you didn’t even know were there to begin with.”
The monitoring program is part of the Natural Geography in Shore Areas project. NaGISA is a Census of Marine Life project with 128 sampling sites along the shores of 51 countries. And sites include — poignantly enough at this point in environmental history — a town in Florida in line to suffer oil-spill impact.
The effort will produce the world’s first near-shore global census.
Students used standardized sampling techniques established by NaGISA, and their data will now be entered into the NaGISA worldwide database. The students were trained in sampling techniques at the NOAA Kasitsna Bay Laboratory in September, and the plan is to conduct the monitoring program every year.
“This time, we focused on a middle school project,” Spurkland said. “Last year, we worked with Seldovia High School students to do a marine ecological study.”
The project inventoried four different intertidal zones, with the lowest zone one meter below the low tide mark. Students set out 30 meters of long tape next to shore, then combed through five random sample areas. They sifted through the “over story” composed of seaweed, and students were able to count 25 “taxa” or kinds of algae and the “under story” of 18 taxa of invertebrates.
“The idea is to look underneath the kelp and move it to the side” Spurkland explained. “Then, we looked at the whole area that is one square meter and did a count for the amount of area that is covered.” Rather than counting individual barnacles and mussels, students made estimates. However, nearly every other kind of individual marine life was counted and recorded.
The study took place over three days on minus tides during the last week of school. Nanwalek’s rugged coastline sees frequent stormy tidal activity. Its shoreline of finely polished bedrock means organisms there need to be hardy enough to withstand the high energy.
Elders in Nanwalek talk about changing subsistence activities, in part due to climate change, and partly due to suspected Cook Inlet pollution — including lasting signs of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. This inventory is to help understand what changes occur in the future.
“The students were very involved; they felt this is an important knowledge for the area,” teacher Dereck Bynagle said. “The subsistence culture has been fairly strong, though it has waned with changes in species.”
Student John Romanoff said he felt he had learned a lot about the marine environment, including being impressed that kelp grows rapidly in the spring.
“They can grow two inches a day,” Romanoff said. “I didn’t know that all that sea life was there on the beach. I hadn’t noticed it before.”
A $10,000 Alaska Science and Learning Center grant funded the work, paying for clothing and equipment used to do the monitoring, as well as the travel money to learn beach-counting techniques at the Kasitsna Bay Laboratory. The funding helped pay for hip boots, long underwear, wool socks and other warm gear students wore to tackle the cold, wet work on the beach.
There remains a lot more to be done, Spurkland said. Next year will include another round of monitoring projects.
“We want other school groups to help monitor beaches close to them,” Spurkland said. “What’s unique about these schools is that the shores are in their front yards.”
