Queenscliff Marine Discovery Center

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since my last post so I have loads to catch you up on.

Last Thursday I ended up going diving with a couple people from the MONCU, the Monash underwater club. It was my first dive since my certification so I was a bit nervous but it ended up going really great! I was able to rent the gear that I didn’t have for almost nothing, and was given a ride to the dive site. The water was a bit colder than I was expecting but still MUCH warmer than Buffalo. We saw so many incredible things, from multicolored corals to shrimp, weedy sea dragons, and bull rays. We even saw a good size octopus slinking through the sea grass. I also got to practice buoyancy control so that one day soon I’ll be able to start doing boat dives! Overall it was an amazing experience and one that I’m very keen to repeat.

After the dive I had to do laundry and pack up all the things I wanted to take with me on my marine science field trip to Queenscliff. I also learned the hard way that dryers here need a 15 minute cool down period before they’ll open and allow you to remove your clothes. What a pain!

The next day I met up with my classmates and boarded the bus to Queenscliff. There were two other exchange students taking the course from Canada and the US. Needless to say we bonded pretty quickly. We stayed at Whitehall guest house for the duration of the trip. It’s basically just a big house that large groups can rent to be close to the coast. The first night we were served a delicious meal of pasta salad, chicken, and pulled pork. The caterers also had a large spread of amazing hot sauces available; which of course I loved! After dinner we had a short seminar where the course coordinator gave a speech and ran though the details of the week to come. After that we were split into our project groups and given loose outlines of what we would be doing. My group was assigned to work with the bryozoan, Bugola Neritina. We wanted to investigate the different surfaces that Bugola larva could settle on during the motile portion of their life cycle. We also looked for any type of surface preference. That night we read a few scientific papers to prepare us for our project. The next day we got up bright and early to start our research.

My lab group was stationed in the Queenscliff Marine Discovery Center where we had plenty of room to spread out and work. There was also a small education center attached to our lab that housed a bunch of cool marine organisms. Our species, Bugola Neritina, spawns every day at first light. In order to obtain the larva we needed we would keep them in a dark tank all day and expose them to strong light once we were ready to collect them. We collected data all day, stopping only for brief lunch breaks provided by the caterers. We always ate our lunch on the back porch which overlooked Swan Bay. It was a beautiful place where we could see shore birds, urchins, and even a few jellies. Our work day ended at 6pm and dinner was served at 6:30. After dinner there would be a short seminar where we would listen to one or two of the demonstrators as they discussed their current research. One of the presentations that really caught my eye was given by Martino, a post-doc. He wanted to see the effect that man-made costal structures had on the distribution of heterotrophic and autotrophic organisms. To summarize his results, he found that every dock, or pier we put in the water led to the inevitable replacement of autotrophs (energy producers) with heterotrophs (energy consumers). That meant that not only were we losing a vast source of energy production, but that we were also aiding the recolonization of these areas by marine invertebrates that consume even more energy. I was fascinated with how strong his results were because it was something I’d never even considered. I spoke with him after his talk and hopefully I’ll be able to get to do some work in his lab this semester.

After the seminar each night we would go down to the local pub. Someone would buy a round of drinks and we would just sit and talk. It was a great way to get to know everyone in the group. Our days continued like this for the whole week, sacrificing sleep for the experience of a lifetime. We also spent a few hours in the field collecting materials for our project. We drove to a large pier and looked through all the items and organisms that had gathered around it. We came across a lot of cool things, including an 11 armed starfish that’s native to Australia!

The trip was an awesome experience and opened up a lot of doors for me here at Monash. I made a ton of friends and was able to get the inside scoop on Melbourne. I also learned some new lingo so look out for that in future posts! After all that work I definitely need some sleep!

Cheers,

Elizabeth