What are the conditions like at night compared to daytime?
Working the night-tide is a visceral experience. As the sun slowly sets and your eyes adjust to the limited scope that your headlamp provides, a new practice of fieldwork emerges. You listen for the pulse of the waves in case one sweeps up closer than is safe. You scan the horizon with the scant headlamp aura, searching for familiarity in the dark ridges of the looming mussel beds. The ever-present mist and rain limit visibility further, so your other senses must take center stage. You crouch close to the ground to lower your center of gravity as you walk, because now you can’t discern villainous, slippery algae from bare rock. You scrabble on your hands and knees, feeling for the bolts that mark a permanent survey plot, and rummaging through blades of algae as you might rifle through a stack of papers. Perhaps the dark always acts to make humans feel alone, but it’s a much more solitary experience working the night-tide and in the silence I always have to remember to lift my eyes from my work to admire the unearthly landscape and smattering of stars.

Counting mussels quickly before the sun sets. Location: Strawberry Hill, Oregon

Sun, moon, and planets at dusk over the intertidal. The far-off light on the horizon is from a boat, likely folks fishing late into the evening.

We use high-powered headlamps to work at night, each of us often wearing more than one headlamp and using additional flashlights if we have to take photographs. We work in pairs for safety in the dark. On wavy days, one person will work while the other stands looking out for sneaker waves.

The dark emerges & we keep working.

A gunnel hiding under a blade of kelp, in the damp, cool coralline algae understory.

Working late into the night at Strawberry Hill, Oregon.

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks
to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognize that eradicating
poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest
global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.
All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will
implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of
poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the
bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world on to a
sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge
that no one will be left behind.

Jessica Reimer & Allison Barner (background) with KBVR Chariots of Curiosity host Sami Al-AbdRabbuh in the Oregon State University KBVR studio.

This past week, we (co-author Jessica Reimer and I) joined Sami Al-AbdRabbuh on his show Chariots of Curiosity in the KBVR studio at Oregon State University. We had a great hour of stimulating conversation about why aspirational goals like the SDGs are necessary, and how any individual (not only scientists and politicians!) could participate. In particular, there are multiple different local and global efforts to involve individuals in SDG action and even a special assembly of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network focused on the participation and perspective of the global youth.

Evaluating Temporal Consistency in Marine Biodiversity Hotspots

Fig 5 from Piacenza & Thurman et al. 2015. North Biogeographic region—location of 1600 km2 grid cells with ≥ 3 scientific trawls/year and hotspots for A) benthic fish species richness, and B) benthic fish Shannon diversity, H′.

​Quantifying basic ecological patterns, like hotspots of biological diversity, becomes even more important as global ecosystems are changing with increasing velocity. We further develop previous methodological approaches to quantify and identify biodiversity hotspots, and apply this technique to data from the US West Coast Groundfish Bottom Trawl Survey. This method is spatially and temporally explicity, and thus can identify regions where biodiversity is consistently high, with direct application for resource managers. Piacenza SE, Thurman LL, Barner AK, Benkwitt CE, Boersma KS, Cerny-Chipman EB, et al. (2015) Evaluating temporal consistency in marine biodiversity hotspots. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0133301.

Patterns and Variation in Benthic Biodiversity in a Large Marine Ecosystem

Fig 3 from Piacenza et al. 2015. Relationships among depth and latitude and (A) fish species richness, (B) fish Shannon diversity, (C) invertebrate species richness, and (D) invertebrate Shannon diversity.