First guest blog post: LTJG Johns!

We have our first guest blog post of the survey! We feature our OPS officer for leg 1 of NF1802, LTJG Johns!
LTJG Johns shared with the blog: “My name is LTJG Kristin and I studied Biological sciences at Rutgers University. I am the Operations Officer on the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster.  As the operations officer, my job is to ensure the science gets completed in a safe and efficient way. My goal is to communicate and coordinate with the science party, ship's bridge team, and crew for a successful project and happy team! My job is to look out the window at a beautiful ocean and help science happen. Oh, and drive ships, 

LTJG Johns in much colder climate!

What’s better than that?!”
An officer “OPS” leads and communicates on behalf of the ship’s officers and multiple ship departments. It can be a challenging role, but in my opinion, it’s also very fun because in one ‘field season’ they get to learn about a lot different topics that can range from mapping the sea floor, to projects that use scuba diving as a tool to monitor fish populations, to collecting awesome larval fish, to deploying extremely sensitive scientific equipment to monitor the ocean in real time. If you have any questions for LTJG Johns, please comment below and feel free to learn more about the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps or see previous blog posts by other NOAA Corps officers (Norton, Zygas)

NF1802! May the tuna be found today!

Fish eggs

Hello and welcome back to another year of our Nancy Foster Chronicles! This time we are well into Episode 2 of our NOAA RESTORE Project "Bluefin Tuna Ecology." Please check out last year's posts particularly the Return of the tuna!

Top: NOAA Shiptracker map of transit
around Florida
Bottom: Four NOAA Ships meet off the
Dry Tortugas!

Our survey started in Jacksonville, FL, and did a fun U-shaped track around the Florida Peninsula until we reached our study destination: the grand Gulf of Mexico. We even sailed past several other NOAA ships doing work in the area (NOAA Ship party!) to include the NOAA Ships Okeanos Explorer (EX), Oregon II (R2), and the Pisces (PI)! The NOAA Ships fleet support science in multiple fields including oceanographic, fisheries, and atmospheric research.

Join us for another adventure on NOAA Ship Nancy Foster!

It's been a week already, and we are now in the Northern Gulf of Mexico searching for the elusive bluefin tuna larvae. They have been hiding from us, but we are relentless and will keep searching! Our strategy is to target some favorable habitat which is usually in between oceanographic features.

I hope you learn something new during our journey and feel free to ask questions!

We are back home! Last post from the Chief Sci

Scientists and crew sign the NF1703/04 NOAA Corps flag 

First of all thank you for following our research expedition by reading our blog! My name is Estrella Malca and I was the chief scientist for this survey (NF1704) aboard the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster. What does that mean? Each project has a designated person that takes a leading role on the logistical, scientific and reporting aspect of the entire survey. 

One last selfie!
Estrella (Chief Sci) and Samantha (Senior survey tech)

I love to figure out the 'tetris' of things, so this year's cruise has been challenging but fun! Why challenging? Well, usually we have 6 months+ to prepare for our surveys: buying equipment, supplies, assigning scientists and volunteers to participate, and most importantly, securing any relevant permits as well as communicating with the ship's officers and crew about the multiple operational aspects of our project at sea. However, because of our very recent NOAA RESTORE project selected for funding, we had just two months to get a brand new project planned, signed and delivered on time! Without the rest of the science team, there is no way we can come out here and successfully achieve all of our research goals and deliverables!


We had the pleasure to continue to collaborate with several of our partners and also obtained new research connections!

NF1704 Leg 1 scientists

NF1704 Leg 2 scientists

Estrella and Niki deploy our very last satellite tracked drifter

Here is a list of our NF1704 accomplishments!! We were quite busy this  past month as you can see!

ü  500++ Tunas collected, more than 600 specimens individually measured at sea

ü  90 CTD casts: Depths were (300m, 500m, 1500m, and 2500m). The sensors we used on the CTD included temperature, oxygen, salinity, chlorophyll-a and CDOM, conductivity, PAR.
ü  Continuous measurements of currents (ADCP) from Key West to Progreso and to Miami

ü  Continuous measurement of flow through (TSG) from Key West to Progreso and to Miami

ü  7 SVP Drifters were deployed

ü  546 Flow cytometry samples (phytoplankton, bacteria, water column abundance)

ü  72 Elemental Nitrogen (N₂)-fixing organism samples

ü  6 casts with PAR (Photosynthetically-Active Radiation) sensor

ü  207 Microbial Abundances and Biomass samples

ü  95 Sediment Trap Flux samples

ü  78 Thorium concentration profiles (dissolved + particulate)

ü  354 Primary Production and Nitrate Uptake

ü  226 Deckboard Incubations for nitrogen utilization rates

ü  120 Shipboard Nitrate Concentrations

ü  57 Deckboard Incubations for δ¹⁵N.

ü  130 Nutrient Profiles for NO₃^- + NO_2,^-PO₄^3- and isotope analyses (δ¹⁵N and δ¹⁸O)

ü  95 Mesozooplankton Biomass and Grazing

ü  48 Growth and Grazing Rate Profiles (8 experiments x 6 depths)

ü  279 Phytoplankton Pigments fluorometric Chla,

ü  210 High-performance liquid chromatography  samples

ü  19 ring net tows (100m)

ü  136 net tows (25m): 120 Bongo-90 (240 jars) & 16 Mini-bongo net tows

ü  16 Mesozooplankton and 16 microzooplankton samples

ü  120 Live-sorted plankton samples
ü  95 specimens selected for genetic analysis
*   40+ Open House attendees. Our outreach event welcomed our scientific counterparts, students, professors, and fishermen in Progresso, Mexico

We hope that our projects will fill in a lot of the gaps about the biogeochemical ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico as it relates to bluefin tuna research for the Western Atlantic stock. Our results will be shared with local and regional stakeholders like NOAA, ICCAT, among others. Soon, we will get started working up the data! Stay tuned and read our posts!

Group selfie, navigating into to the port of Miami

Featured today: LTJG Niki Norton

Today’s post features LTJG Nikita "Niki" Norton, and officially welcomes her to the FORCES Lab family! Niki is the current "Florida Bay Operations Officer," replacing LTJG Aras Zygas.  As a part of the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, she operates sampling platforms to facilitate scientific research and provides logistical and administrative support to NOAA’s mission.  She shared with the blog: 

Niki  records the flowmeter data into our logsheets

"For the last three years, I was assigned to the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada out of Newport, Oregon, conducting fisheries surveys from Vancouver, Canada all the way down to San Diego, CA.  Along with the responsibilities of being Navigation Officer and Medical Person in Charge, my primary duty was to “drive” the 210’ Fisheries Survey Vessel every day for 200+ days a year

Niki and Loni on the back deck, waiting to deploy the CTD

"Many of the sampling techniques that are routinely performed by research groups on the West Coast to collect plankton are exactly the same as those conducted by the FORCES lab to collect larval fish! 

"This included Bongos, Neustons, MOCNESS, and CTDs on many of the projects.  We performed extensive mid-water stern trawls with a net the size of a football field to catch fish like Pacific hake and sardine. We followed and tagged endangered Resident Killer Whale pods and acoustically monitored beaked whales at 4000m depth.  The remainder of the year, the ship completed Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) transects and hydrographic missions in the Farallons and Channel Islands.

Niki and Estrella deploy a satellite tracked drifter

"While many of the operations may be the same, this new job with the Southeast Fisheries Science Center is quite different - as is the scenery!  Rather than the whipping cold wind of the Pacific Northwest, the hot sun in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico is one of my favorite parts of the job. With the FORCES Lab, I get to work "on deck" to deploy and recover gear, wash down nets, assist with station planning, and see the plankton and water samples we catch up close! 

NOAA Ship Nancy Foster, Brewers Bay, USVI

"When I am not underway as a scientist, I work in the office to ensure that the lab has everything they need logistically to sail each year by assisting with cruise planning and administrative budgeting.  Now that the first year of sampling has come to a close, I am very excited to see what new projects I will get to be a part of and hope to use my background in reef fish ecology and microbiology to explore new research with the FORCES lab – while getting ready for next year!"

Girl Power! The women behind the science in NF1703!
Top (L-R): Sarah H., Niki, Trika, Sarah P.
Bottom (L-R): Kristen, Vanessa, Jess, Alexis

Niki on the bridge