Dinoflagellate Ceratium with star-shaped Acantharians in the background (Photo: Angelicque White)

During a Pacific Ocean research cruise, Angel White peers into her microscope. The ship rides gentle swells and sways side to side. In her field of view, organisms the size of dust motes rise and fall through their own watery world. “It can be disorienting and enthralling at the same time. The microbes are dying as I look at them, and it doesn’t always make for the best photos,” she says.

White studies plankton, the microorganisms that power the marine food chain, pump oxygen into the atmosphere and regulate global chemical cycles. In the course of her research, she has recorded an astonishing diversity of living shapes, forms, colors and patterns: spiny Radiolarians, fat copepods, football-shaped ostracods and coiled threads of Trichodesmium that coalesce into filamentous balls. Under fluorescent light, her photos reveal organisms within organisms, glowing constellations that rival images from the best space telescopes.

White’s science is strictly down to Earth. The assistant professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences aims to reveal how plankton consume and release nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus and how, in turn, these abundant organisms respond to variations in temperature and water chemistry. Her tools run the gamut from high-tech instruments to old-school nets towed behind a ship. In the lab, her camera has become invaluable in her exploration of a world that is largely invisible to the naked eye.

Three isopods clutch one another (Photo: Angelicque White)

“Photography is a wonderful outlet for creativity and discovery,” she adds. “Plankton show an amazing array of different adaptations to their environment. If you concentrate them in a drop of ocean water and look through the microscope, you will see organisms feeding, swimming, gliding, tumbling and floating. There are blues and reds, jaws and antennae — whole alien worlds.”

Call to Artists

In 2012, 35 Oregon artists took up a call from The Arts Center of Corvallis for works based on White’s plankton images. Submissions came from painters, fabric and glass artists, sculptors, potters and an expert in the ancient Japanese art of stencil dyeing. They comprised a show, The Art of Plankton, Form Follows Function.

The range of art gave White a new view of a world that she has explored through her research. “I’ve been fortunate over the years to look through a microscope and be thrilled with the familiar and the mysterious,” she says. “And now to have a whole range of creative people re-envision what I saw the first time is very cool. The natural world can be astonishingly beautiful.

“The general view is that scientists pick it apart and explain it through cold and methodical equations. It is easy to get lost in the details and lose a sense of wonder. This collaboration — merging the perspectives and talents of artists with science — is refreshing. It reminds me what it was like that first time at sea, the first time I realized that, ‘oh no, really, the ocean teems with life, glorious tiny life.’ That sense of discovery is what I felt talking to the artists.”

Drifters 1, Leah Wilson, Eugene

Leviathan, Rakar West, Eugene

Parum Aqua Flora, Sidnee Snell, Corvallis

Emiliana Coccolithophore, Ella Rhoades, Corvallis

Drifters, Sara McCormick, Portland

Blue Button, Sandra Schock-Houtman, Corvallis

Tondos, Jenny Gray, Corvallis

Benthos, Jerri Bartholomew, Corvallis

The Collection, Chi Meredith, Corvallis

A section from a 53-year-old splitnose rockfish (Sebastes diplopra) otolith shows annual growth rings. (Photo courtesy of Bryan Black)

Fish bones aren’t exactly the most prized portion of the catch of the day. Encountering a nearly translucent sliver in a grilled fillet is at best an annoyance and at worst a choking hazard. But for one Oregon State University researcher, certain fish bones are immensely valuable.

Bryan Black, an associate professor at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, is using the otoliths – or ear bones – of Pacific rockfish to reveal the effects of climate change at sea and on land. By measuring the tiny growth increments in fish otoliths, Black has learned that marine and forest ecosystems are joined at the hip. When exposed to the same climate conditions, they respond in synchronous but different ways. Winter climate, he has also found, may have far greater effects on these systems than researchers had previously guessed.

As a dendrochronologist, or tree-ring analyst, working in Pennsylvania, Black came to Hatfield in 2003 when he saw a job advertisement calling for someone who could apply growth increment science to fish otoliths. These bones grow outward from a core, forming annual growth increments similar to those of trees. Though Black had not been trained in marine science, he was enthusiastic to learn how forestry techniques could be applied to ocean ecosystems.

“It was quite a learning curve to begin with,” Black says. “Coming from understanding forests and forest ecology and learning to apply that to marine ecosystems took a lot of learning about marine ecology, but it was exciting at the same time.”

Otolith Library

Once Black mastered the marine knowledge he needed and began studying growth increments on rockfish otoliths, he discovered a connection between ocean, climate and forest that would prove essential to understanding a broader climate story. As with trees, larger growth increments in otoliths indicate a more favorable growing season. After analyzing increments in a collection of otoliths catalogued over the last several decades, Black found that rockfish growth was correlated with climate. During years when rockfish flourished, he discovered, winter climate was characterized by persistent high-pressure weather systems between Hawaii and the West Coast. (see graphs and map below)

A core taken by Bryan Black from this large Douglas-fir near Cape Perpetua will be dated and its rings compared with those of other trees as well as geoducks – the Northwest’s largest bivalve. Such comparisons allow scientists to study climate change in new ways. (Photo courtesy of Bryan Black)

“After developing these growth chronologies I found that they were very sensitive to what happened in the winter months,” Black says. “Climate in the winter seemed to be determining how well these fish grew throughout the year, and I think that’s because if you get favorable climate in the winter you get an early start to the growing season.”

The high-pressure systems that Black noted were encouraging winter upwelling along the coast, a process in which wind drives nutrient-rich water toward the ocean surface, effectively jump-starting the growing season. What made this connection to winter climate particularly interesting, he says, is how it also shows up in tree rings. Black combined the rockfish and climate data with tree-ring chronologies. As the data came together, he realized that rockfish and trees along the West Coast were reacting to the same forces but with opposite results. While the high-pressure systems created favorable conditions for rockfish, the systems blocked moisture flow to the forest, causing drought and producing poor growing seasons for trees.

500-Year Record

Once Black had established the relationship between trees, rockfish and winter climate, he began to expand his data, joining knowledge of marine and terrestrial systems to better understand both. He used networks of tree-ring chronologies, many of which extended for more than 500 years, to illustrate conditions of the past and provide context for understanding modern climate patterns.

“You can use the trees to tell us how this winter pattern has varied over the past several centuries, which is much longer than any instrumental record can provide,” Black says. “It’s really underscoring the importance of these distinct seasonal patterns and that, especially for this winter pattern, the marine and terrestrial systems are both affected. We’re using these chronologies to tell us about this history.”

By learning how climate has varied in the past and understanding its effect on growing seasons, Black hopes to determine how ecosystems have been affected by climate variation as well as by human presence, and how they might respond in the future. In addition to increasing our understanding of the sensitive relationships between climate and terrestrial and marine systems, he says further knowledge would have practical value for fisheries to predict expectations for growing seasons and set catch limits.

“Before you can forecast any effects of climate change, you have to understand how climate affects these systems right now,” Black says. “That’s where I come in, to try to tie these climate and ecosystem patterns to the environment and human influence where possible.”

Global Network

This magnified slice of a geoduck shell clearly shows incremental growth rings used by scientists to analyze sea surface temperatures. (Photo courtesy of Bryan Black)

Now, Black is sharing his methods with other researchers. Together, he and his colleagues are applying tree ring chronology methods to study the growth increments in the otoliths of different fishes as well as other species, such as bivalves, which have growth increments in their shells. By collaborating with researchers around the world, from Alaska to Europe and Australia, they hope to establish chronologies for diverse marine systems and compare them across broad regions. The goal is to learn about the effects of climate patterns on global marine and terrestrial systems.

“There is a huge network of tree ring chronologies that has been developed all over the world and it is a leading indicator of forest responses to climate and climate change,” Black says. “I think the same could be done in marine systems as these chronologies are developed. I find it very exciting to contribute something that is of practical and ecological importance to understanding how these systems function.”

Figure A shows the relationship among wintertime sea level pressure off the coast of western North America, tree growth in central and southern California, and sea level measured at San Francisco (an especially long instrumental record in comparison to sea level pressure). B shows the full history of wintertime sea level pressure from tree-ring data, including 95% confidence intervals (gray shading). The reconstruction extends back in time to 1507 AD, providing a 500-year record of wintertime climate variability important to marine and terrestrial ecosystems. (Graphs courtesy of Bryan Black)

The map shows correlations between winter sea level pressure off the coast of western North America and 1) northerly winds, where positive correlations indicate flow from the north, 2) winter precipitation on land, and 3) tree-ring chronologies in western North America (note: the larger the tree symbol, the stronger the correlation with winter sea level pressure). In summary, high pressure off the West Coast of North America means more north winds, which favor marine productivity as well as drought on land, which reduces tree growth. (Map courtesy of Bryan Black)

"We're trying to use the natural geological archive to test how the ice sheet works," says marine geologist Joseph Stoner, whose research team is collecting evidence of past geologic and climatic changes in Greenland. (Photo: Karl Maasdam)

Why should the residents of Seattle, San Francisco, New York City and Boston worry about warming in Greenland, an ice-laden island in the North Atlantic? Because if all the water locked in the massive Greenland Ice Sheet flowed into the oceans, low-lying coastal cities worldwide would be inundated.

“The Greenland Ice Sheet could contribute up to seven meters of global sea-level rise if it were to melt,” says OSU marine geologist Joseph Stoner. “We don’t know if it’s going to melt, but that’s how much water is in the ice sheet. Therefore, we need to better understand the processes at work.”

In search of that understanding, Stoner and researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are studying sediments flowing seaward in streams and rivers on the island’s southern tip. Those sediments — remnants of bedrock pulverized over eons by grinding glaciers and rushing rivers — hold clues to the ice sheet’s history across geologic time, he explains. Scientists know that the 680,000-cubic-mile chunk of snow, compressed from white to crystalline blue over many millennia, is receding. Satellite images from the past several decades show significant shrinkage. What isn’t known is the speed of melting or the extent that melting might take in coming years. By studying Greenland’s past with support from the National Science Foundation through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Stoner and his colleagues hope to bring its future into clearer focus.

“The key to understanding the Greenland Ice Sheet is to use the natural record of past variability as a sort of manual to what it could do in the future,” says Stoner, an associate professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. “We’re trying to use the natural geological archive to test how the ice sheet works.”

To recreate the ice sheet’s prehistoric behavior, he and his graduate students will collect sediment samples this summer, some dating back to Earth’s infancy when the atmosphere was a soup of greenhouse gases. Tracing the origins of these silts and sands should tell the researchers where the island was exposed during “interglacial” periods — warm stretches between ice ages — and where it lay buried beneath tons of frozen snow during colder periods.

The “markers” that will reveal these ancient patterns are both chemical and magnetic, Stoner says. He explains that isotopes of lead, strontium and neodymium serve as chemical hieroglyphics, telling stories about the ages and origins of the sediments that contain them. And the magnetic properties of those sediments lend additional details to the geologic record.

To read the magnetic profiles of marine and terrestrial sediments, Stoner’s lab recently acquired a new-generation instrument: a super-conducting magnetometer for measuring the magnetic properties and composition of rocks. Instead of using liquid helium as a coolant like old-style cryogenic magnetometers do, this one compresses helium gas till it reaches 3.5 degrees Kelvin, “just a little above absolute zero,” Stoner says. “It works through super-conductivity, which only happens at extremely cold temperatures.”

Stoner’s findings could cause scientists to rethink Greenland’s role in climate-change scenarios.

“When I first got into this field, people thought ice sheets behaved really slowly,” he says. “But the geologic evidence is telling us ‘no.’ We just didn’t understand the process by which ice sheets behave quickly. It’s a reminder that just because you don’t understand the process, it doesn’t mean something’s not happening.”

Jack Barth is a leader in ocean monitoring. (Photo: Jim Folts)

Ocean science is confronted with many unknowns about the intricate interplay of physics, chemistry and biology in Earth’s vast oceans. In this era of climatic flux, better understanding of sensitive ocean systems has taken on new urgency.

OSU oceanographers Jack Barthand Murray Levine are refining and testing an innovative sensing system designed to track trends in temperature, current velocity, salinity, nitrates, dissolved oxygen, suspended particle load and chlorophyll concentration. Known as CAPABLE (Coastal Autonomous Profiling and Boundary Layer System), the gear, which is moored to the seafloor, must hold up to battering from ferocious seas as it collects data and monitors coastal oceans in real time. The project, supported by $884,252 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, includes mechanical and software upgrades along with four field tests over two years.

Learn more about OSU’s ARRA-funded research in human health, climate change, the oceans and education here.

The Oregon coast is both laboratory and teaching arena for Jane Lubchenco (Photo: Kelly James)

The nomination of Oregon State University marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reflects OSU’s growing leadership in federal environmental science programs. If confirmed, Lubchenco will be the second OSU scientist to head NOAA. Former OSU president John Byrne served as NOAA Administrator from 1981 to 1984. The agency’s $4 billion budget supports research and monitoring of fisheries, weather and marine and coastal resources.

Also serving in national agency leadership roles are five professors in OSU’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (COAS):

• Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA
• Timothy J. Cowles, program director for the Ocean Observatories Initiative, the National Science Foundation’s signature research project on climate change
• Kelly Falkner, director of NSF’s Antarctic Ocean and Climate Sciences program
• Jim McManus, associate program director of the chemical oceanography program at the National Science Foundation
• Mark Abbott, COAS dean and member of the National Science Board (and co-chair of Oregon’s Global Warming Commission)

OSU scientists also chair federal government committees that guide programs in such areas as marine reserves, social science research, public health, biomedicine and forest resources.

Kelly Benoit-Bird was recognized in 2010 with a MacArthur "genius" award for her groundbreaking work in ocean ecology.

It was like a scene from a grade-B horror film. On a gently rocking vessel in the warm waters of the Sea of Cortez, a young oceanographer earnestly watches her computer screen while colleagues lower a cable into the water.

Instruments aboard the ship, the Pacific Storm, ping sound waves toward the cable. The oceanographer’s eyes flicker across the screen to make sure the signal is clear. Tethered to the cable is a 5-pound Humboldt squid, and the sound waves, set at 38 kilohertz, bounce off the squid. An image shows up on the screen.

The oceanographer raises her fist in triumph. It marks the first time scientists had clearly picked up a strong sonar signal for squid, which lack the bones and swim bladders that give away other marine creatures.

Suddenly a second image appears, darting up from below. The acoustic signal tracks it from the depths toward the cable — and the tethered squid. It is another squid, larger than the first, and it attacks the tethered animal. The oceanographer screams.

Fade to black.

Julie Brinck, a retired registered nurse from Florence, Oregon, said: “Entering the lagoon gave me sort of a ‘lost world’ sensation. I felt like a traveler who had gotten through the travails of an impossible journey to finally enter this eternally tranquil place. The sight of whale spouts on a still sea was magical — giant creatures doing exactly what nature intended them to do. I came away with a sense of peace.”

Jean Amundson, a retired administrative officer from Newport, Oregon, said: “The sheer numbers of whales in the lagoon amazed me. So did the many, many frolicking baby sea lions investigating the ship and the skiffs at Cedros Island.”

Amundson’s husband, a retired physicist, observed: “For humans, ‘home’ can be a moveable place. But for other species, there’s no suitcase, no moving van. It’s up to us to preserve the lagoons of Baja, those immovable homes of the great gray whales. Our planet’s life zone is unbelievably complex and interconnected. What we do to protect the environment for one species has a direct effect on all species, our fellow travelers on spaceship Earth.”