The Final Days in British Columbia

A belated post this might be, but I felt it necessary to share with our readers the last days of the 2010 expedition to the north.

After a week in Alaska, the strangest thing about British Columbia was that the sun actually set. Granted, it set fairly late, around 9:00 PM, but there was still definite night and day.
For the end of our trip to British Columbia, Team Animal Behavior was on the BC mainland. Instead of a motel, we stayed with one of Susan's old friends, Norma, a sweet lady who had a great many stories to tell and who is very used to stickleback research.
(It seems that everyone up north is. We would be working at lakes and people would drive by us and ask "Are you the stickle folks?")

Our primary goal on the mainland was to investigate Hotel Lake. Lily and gang had scouted it out earlier in the summer to try and find courting and parental males, but the lake was empty then.Unfortunately, when Dianne, Lily and I explored the lake, we had similar bad luck. There were fry everywhere, clouds and clouds of them, but very few adults, and even fewer breeding ones.We tried twice, and laid out traps, all met with minimal success.

A view of Hotel Lake from the shore. Stickleback fry congregated near the shorelines.

Another day saw us trekking to the well-hidden Ambrose Lake. To get there, we had to drive up rocky trails and hike through thick forests and over muddy ground. The lake, however, was beautiful, and there were plenty of parental stickleback.



The parental fish in this lake were very brightly colored. Even the females, usually drab or silvery, were shades of bright gold and copper. Unfortunately, if the captured fish spent about twenty minutes in a bucket, they lost their coloration. Our collection, then, looked less impressive when preserved then they did in the water.

A courting male in Ambrose Lake.

Our last day was spent preserving all the stickleback we'd caught so they could be shipped back to Massachusetts. Working with that many dead fish and that much formaline is unpleasant, but with three of us working on it, the job didn't last long.

The trip back to the east coast required a long car drive back to Seattle and early flights. And then, we were all back in Worcester, where there were dishes upon dishes of stickleback eggs that needed attending to and fry that needed feeding.

-Josh

Being a Journey Across the Border

The Canadian border, that is.

Team Animal Behavior departed for British Columbia on Tuesday night. The flights landed in Seattle at 5:30 AM, but there was no rest even then. The car had to be picked up (a monstrous Jeep, the only thing that could fit all the luggage) and it was a three-hour drive over the border to the ferry which would take us to Vancouver Island. Well, needless to say we were all very tired, but there were fish to collect and lakes to explore, so we could not be stopped! The following day saw us traveling to Sproat Lake to collect females for color observations.
On the way, though, we had a chance to stop at the Cathedral Forest.

It's an amazing place. The trees are immense and almost everything is smothered in drooping moss. The ground is covered in large ferns and the whole place feels primeval, like something time forgot. I like to think of it as Jurassic Park, minus the dinosaurs.

The trees are quite big. This one was over 500 ft tall.

Sproat Lake was very nice, despite being cold. The females there are very pretty. There was one that was gold and iridescent. Unfortunately, we came a bit early in the mating season to see much. About all we could see were some very eager males, some who would court with anything that moved.

Today was an early start so we could do Crystal Lake before access to it was shut off. The lake is in the middle of a partly clear-cut forest, but it's still lovely, and we were much more successful today than anticipated (35 captured males. Susan is tireless).

Tomorrow is another early start to catch an early ferry off the island. Hoo boy.

-Joshua

Being an Expedition to Seward

Yesterday was an early start for the animal behavior group. We had a two and a half hour drive to Seward and Resurrection Bay planned to catch some fish! Along the way, we stopped many times to take pictures of beautiful Cook Inlet and the mountains.
As we drove it began to get colder. We must have been getting higher into the mountains, because there was snow everywhere. Snow. In June.

It was a strange thing to see, but this is why they call it the Great White North!

When we finally arrived in Seward we had to do a bit of off-road driving to get to the lakes. Ponds, more like. We were looking at a large group of ponds in the middle of a large muddy field filled with knee-high grass. My boots and pants were covered in mud and pollen after walking around. The scenery was great though, even though we had to listen to the sounds of seagulls and crows screaming at each other.

After lunch we got to work. Traps were laid to catch fish for our crosses and the equipment to measure color was set up. Lily manned the color station while the rest of us patrolled the edges of the pond, nets in hand, searching for courting and parental males. When the sun came out from behind the clouds, this was an easy task; the pond was shallow and the water clear, and in the sunlight we could see straight to the bottom. The males were brightly-colored and most were guarding nests built into the muskeg-y bottom. Watching them was a fascinating experience. Reading about courtship behavior is one thing. It's quite another to see it in action, to watch the males chase off rival males, to see the males and females dance about each other, to observe how diligently the males guard their nests and just-hatched fry. Watching multiples males and multiple interactions on a large scale was somewhat dizzying, but gave me a new appreciation for the stickleback mating process.

During our day we had a visitor! A woman walking her dogs saw us gathering specimens and asked about the threespine stickleback. She was treated to the full explanation of our purpose and the evolutionary significance of the fish. She seemed quite interested. It's nice to know that locals want to learn more about the work we do here.And her dogs were very friendly.

There's also nothing quite like cold pizza for lunch during field work. Mmm-mmm.

-Joshua

Alicia and Colin – Going Rogue. Sort of.

After our fifth day in Alaska we are still not used to the lack of darkness! Our typical Alaskan day starts at eight in the morning, the sun just rising from its laze on the horizon; it never fully sets! Our first full day was extremely busy, with setting and collecting traps from ten different lakes. Fortunately, the last lake of the day, Echo Lake, made up for the “redonculousness” of the hard day’s work with the set of rope swings we found on the shore. Of course our next most logical course of action was to come back the next day for a quick swim.

Later in the week we discovered what the Alaskan natives call “muskeg”, the swampy marshes that surround the massive amount of lakes in the region. Colin discovered that the muskeg is a force to be reckoned with; he fell into Finger Lake after his first few steps in the muskeg. Luckily he was wearing waders and didn’t get too wet.

Yesterday happened to be Matt “Dr. Wund”’s over-the-hill birthday which we celebrated with a colorful hamburger and fries cake. (He isn’t actually over the hill…yet).

Earlier in the day we managed to collect and set traps at a multitude of other lakes, leaving us tired and in need of some late afternoon fun. We were strolling through a Sportsman’s Warehouse in search of a raincoat for Alicia when Dani noticed some neon orange fisherman’s pants, after which she said to us “hold my stuff I’m going to try this on and you’re going to take pictures”. Needless to say we ended with another good day.

Our next project involves dissecting male stickleback to make crosses for the Clark lab in home base Worcester. We had a successful learning day today and plan to spend all of tomorrow fertilizing about 80 clutches to be shipped home in the next few days.

The "Sunshine" Coast

Dianne and I arrived up in Alaska a few days ago, after two weeks with Justin and Shannon in British Colombia. It was absolutely beautiful there, despite rather dismal weather (Sunshine Coast? I think not.) It did put a damper on our fieldwork. Here are a few highlights from the trip:

We hiked the Skookumchuck Narrows trail, in Egmont. The hike was a bit longer than any of us expected, mostly because none of us could convert from kilometers to miles. We had both sunshine and rain, and more notably hail. It wasn’t exactly golf ball-sized, but it did make us run back under the trees for shelter. Only a few moments later, we saw a rainbow. We even caught a glimpse of a sea lion in the inlet, but I think our oohs and ahhs scared him off.

Our trip was early in the season, and many of the lakes we went into didn’t have a lot of stickleback activity. On one of our rare nice days, we went out to Ambrose Lake. It was secluded, and there was a short hike in. We got the lab’s first collection of fish from this lake. I unfortunately lost one of my fins in the water, and Justin bravely swam to retrieve it for me.

Justin and Shannon spent a few days observing fry behavior in Garden Bay Lake. Dianne and I went in search of female stickleback for observations in Hotel Lake. Unfortunately, there was not a stickleback to be found! We’re hoping to see more activity when we return to BC in a week, with Susan and Josh.

Being a Tale of Success

A successful day for Team Animal Behavior! This was especially exciting after a washout yesterday. Our primary objective was to dive in Willow Lake to gather courting and parental males and observe color patterns on them. But with the wind and clouds yesterday, no such luck, and we were forced to return early and wait for better weather.

Today, however...today was sunny and warm, just the sort of weather needed for this work. It was an early start for us in order to get to Willow Lake at a decent hour. Once there, Susan and Dianne suited up while Lily prepared the equipment in the rear of the car. For the next three hours Susan and Dianne patrolled the shallows for males, and Lily and I performed the tests on the fish, which culminated in dropping them in antacids and stringing them up with needle and thread. Those three hours alternated between Susan and Dianne catching more fish than we knew what to do with and us waiting for more fish to be caught, which left time to enjoy the sun on the lakeside.


A future trip would be nice, considering most of the eggs had just been laid. However, I'd still count this as a win, based on how yesterday went!

The next stop was a brief trip to South Rolly Lake in search of pike. The hopes were to confirm that pike were in the lake so that the lake could be used for future research projects. Susan and Dianne were (understandably) tired from three hours in the water so it fell to Lily and I to do the exploring.
Well, as Lily had already spent time in the waters of British Columbia, she knew what she was doing. Me, not so much. The dry suit I used was leaky and rather too large. I could feel the water creeping in as I searched for the elusive pike. The quest was in vain, though I encountered large numbers of stickleback.

When I returned to dry land some twenty minutes later and removed the drysuit, I was utterly soaked. For all the good it did, I might as well have jumped in without it. So a quick return back to home base was in order to get me into something warm and dry.
On the way back, we saw a female moose grazing at the roadside (no pictures; we were going too fast. But take my word for it!)

Here's hoping the good weather holds out for us. Tomorrow is Cheney Lake: the search for more males!

-Joshua

On Stickleback & Socializing

As a certain mustache-ioed lab member recently put it:
"The problem with Alaska is there are too many Alaskans!"

Miguel & I have been trapping for stickleback in the Mat-Su Valley for a week now and what strikes us is the far-reaching and very recent development in this, the greater Anchorage area. In particular the "sleepy" hamlet & hometown of Sarah Palin, Wasilla is bustling with a major highway and boasts a number of large chain stores such as Target, Super Walmart, Lowe's and Sportsman's Warehouse. As we drive this stretch of road everyday we were regaled by Mr. Mustache about the good ole days before there were any stoplights to slow us on our way to the 70+ lakes we hope to trap at in the next 4 weeks. The lakes themselves are particularly juicy targets for suburbia's encroachment. It is rare to trap at a lake (most are pond-sized) with any less than 3 or 4 houses and many have entire subdivisions catering to a lake lifestyle. We drove by a private community that was strictly for pilots of float planes. The infrastructure to support these communities is staggering. Miles upon miles of winding road systems and the gravel excavation pits from whence they came. Downed timber and trash litter the sides of the road and "For Sale" signs are just about as common as "No Trespassing/Private Property" here in the land of libertarians.

So what does all of this mean for two rogue stickleback collectors? It means that in order to collect at these lakes we often do it on private property and that means befriending the locals. On a typical day we pull up to any number of properties to inquire if we may set our traps for collecting. Most people are more than happy to allow us on their land and, in fact, often wish to learn more about the "minnows" they find off of their dock. We often find ourselves teaching the very young and the not so young that stickleback are indicators of lake health, that the beautiful birds they enjoy must feed their young something and if you let northern pike invade there will be no fish to support the birds. These impromptu opportunities to educate the locals is lovely and sometimes they even teach us a thing or two! Today a homeowner recounted observing a stickleback turn on his side & shimmy in the sun. He was quite pleased to see that this important behavior went right into the notes. Often these kind folks invite us to stay or gift us salmon fillets. In addition to humans, we often get "help" from the fuzzy family members of these properties. Today a standard poodle knocked aside our traps and a few days ago, we met monty, a three month old fearless pup who led us right down the long muskeg trail to where we might trap and bounced alongside us through the whole process. We even had a particularly curious kitty who was drawn in by the smell of fish.

Of course, the story of increasing anthropogenic inputs influencing lake productivity and the resulting behavioral and life history shifts is one that our lab continues to investigate. It seems clear that this story is commonplace across these lakes as more folks choose to live the lake lifestyle. Trapping on these beautiful lakes, across variable degrees of development, will bolster our understanding of such patterns. And in the process we will meet many a friendly Alaskan and maybe, just maybe, take home a fillet or two.

-daniella

Zombie Fish!

One of the most fascinating aspects of threespine stickleback biology I have learned about while here in Alaska is the parasitism of our wild-caught fish by Schistocephalus solidus. As I mentioned before, Dr. David Heins of Tulane University studies this parasite in an effort to understand how it affects the reproductive traits of threespine stickleback.

Fish 4 of 131 in trap 10 at Seymour Lake. (What? We take thorough notes.)

A fish with the parasite is fairly easy to spot. Schisto is essentially a long white tapeworm that uses the stickleback as its second intermediate host (its first being the copepod that is ingested by the fish and the third being the fish-eating bird where it will reproduce). Infected fish often appear as the poor fellow above with bulging stomachs and chins a the worm bascially shoves all of the fish's organs out of the way for it to grow. Eventually, the fish begins to lose color...

Zombie fish! Lauren caught this one with her bare hands at Beverly Lake.

The worm turns the fish white and changes its behavior so that it moves more slowly and tends to spend more time up near the surface of the water. This mind-control trick makes the infected fish much easier to be picked up by a bird; not only is the stickleback more conspicuous as a white spot in the dark water, but it's convenient to scoop up without a struggle.

Pretty gruesome, right? Just goes to show that when we're complaining about things going wrong with our field season, well, things could always be worse!

- Rachel

I'm Leaving On A... Float Plane?

Much like Jeff last year, I got to go with Matt on his annual float plane trip with Scott Christy, a local pilot and very good friend to stickleback researchers in Alaska.

You know how I mentioned before that seeing that eagle snatch the dying grebe from the triumphant loon was the coolest thing I had seen in Alaska so far?

Sporting the latest fashion in hip waders - Rachel stands in front of Scott's float plane. It is lovingly referred to as "the baby."

Oh, I lied big time. This was definitely the best day I have had in Alaska. Despite all our recent poor luck, today went off without a hitch. Number one, Scott is a fascinating individual with many stories to tell - both about his own Renassiance-man-like-life, and about his many travels in search of our little fish. But also, on our trip, I got to see the landscape as I've only glimpsed briefly from the tiny windows of the jet planes that take me to and from Anchorage at the beginning and the end of the summer.

Skinny Spruce Lake from the air. Completely surrounded by marshland that gets flooded periodically as the ocean is not that far away.

Before we took off, Scott wanted to know if Matt was a one cookie or two cookie kind of guy. One cookie guys want their dessert now (i.e. we could've flown out to a pretty cool spot and seen lots of interesting things but probably not catch very many fish), but two cookie guys will hold out and wait a little while in order to earn that second cookie (we fly back to a lake previously collected and try a few others). Matt assured us he is certainly a two cookie guy, so Scott guided us out of Anhorage and across the Susitna Rivers.

Flying in a float plane was a novel experience for me. The smallest plane I'd ever been in previously sat at least 50 people. Scott's plane seats three fairly comfortably. You feel every shift in altitude and every turn, no matter how gentle or steep. Sitting in the back seat on the way out, I had windows on either side of me and was in a near-constant state of staring from one side ot the other, drinking in the landscape below, curious to know if this was how birds felt looking down on the world.

Yes, that's a fairly amazing view.

We had a very successful two-cookie trip. Although we did not catch any fish at the second unnamed lake we landed at - though we did enjoy a tasty lunch in the sunshine despite my picking up 14 new mosquito bites (they like me, what can I say?) - we caught oodles and oodles of fish at Skinny Spruce Lake. (Actually, this is also an unnamed lake, but Scott and Matt named it themselves for, you guessed it, a rather skinny spruce tree in plain sight.)

Scott and Rachel collecting fish at Skinny Spruce Lake.

Scott and Rachel in the cockpit.

And then Scott let me fly the plane on the way back! No lie, he had me take the wheel for awhile and keep our nose on the horizon. It was a fairly singular moment in my life. I am convinced that I need to get my life on track now so I can have the time and money to earn my pilot's liscense because that was one of the coolest things I have ever done.

All in all, a wildly successful day. This helps to make up for all the trouble we've had so far.

- Rachel

String of Bad Luck - But We Push On!

Time flies... I've been up here in the Great North for six weeks now, but it feels more like the blink of eye. On June 17th, Matt Wund, our lab's postdoctoral research fellow flew up to our neck of the woods from the Evolution Society's annual meeting which was held in Moscow, Idaho this year. He and Sophie Valena were there presenting work on an ongoing project concerning ancestral plasticity of the threespine stickleback (you can read more about this fascinating project by following the links to Matt or Sophie's biography). Lauren then left very early on the morning of the 19th after a marathon session of packing up our 2009 fish collection to be sent back to the lab in Massachusetts.

We were back to being another fearsome foursome, though it more often felt like two dynamic duos. Kat and Jeff continued to visit their lakes in order to observe male stickleback in their natural habitats while Matt took me on to help him in our makeshift lab creating crosses (also known as making stickleback babies). And while Kat and Jeff seemed to be having decent luck getting the data they needed, Matt and I descended rather quickly into an unfortunate state of field season chaos.

I've experienced minor setbacks in the field before. Many have been detailed here in this blog. But nothing prepared me for the utter frustration of 1) not being able to get the reproductive fish we needed for making the appropriate crosses, 2) having half of our already-caught fish die in one night, or 3) Matt's ability to curse like a sailor. (Oh, he actually wasn't all that terrible. But when things are going wrong, one tends to exaggerate the negativity to make the story sound even more horrific.)

But, of course, there's nothing that can completely dampen our spirits. I mean, I survived our mid-May camping trip on the Kenai last year, didn't I? And I've heard worse field stories from Matt's graduate days... So, we went back to our study lakes as many days in a row as we had to in order to get the fish we needed. We paid close attention to our live fish at the UAA lab in an attempt to prevent any more catastrophes at home. And we made very sure to listen to a lot of U2 to keep our morale from flagging.

It also helps when we see adorable fox cubs and their mother gamboling around on the side of the road just waiting for us to take thier picture.

- Rachel