"There are two classes of water which make the highest appeal to the imagination and the emotion. There are those, which are unknown and unfished, whose mysterious depths may contain anything, and which you are the first to explore. But an emotion equally strong, though different, is given by fishing a river which has been fished for centuries. As I walk its banks, I like to think of those who walked before me."

John Waller Hills, 1921, A Summer on the Test

Holistic Biology will focus on the ecology of rocky shores and the coastal ocean, including fisheries and other human impacts. These are the systems in which Steinbeck and Ricketts immersed themselves in the 1930's, and both played a formative role in their philosophy and writing. Hopkins Marine Station, a center of research and teaching on the shores of Monterey Bay for over 100 years, has been joined by so many other research and teaching institutions that the regional marine ecosystem has arguably become the most thoroughly studied in the world. On the other hand, the Sea of Cortez largely remains wilderness.
But changes are taking place in both regions, and it remains a major challenge to elucidate the factors that determine how species, populations and communities are structured in space and time and to identify impacts of anthropogenic forcing on these natural systems. We will take advantage of the rich biology of Monterey Bay and Baja California to extend our understanding of complex natural systems. As a team, we will engage in research that addresses broad as well as focused questions.

1. Long-term changes in the rocky intertidal fauna at Hopkins Marine Station

During the first several weeks at Hopkins we will examine the composition and community structure of the local invertebrate fauna. We will adapt the views of Ed Ricketts described in his landmark work Between Pacific Tides to the contemporary picture. As part of this, we will become familiar with the relevant local invertebrate species and carry out transects at a site established in 1931 by Willis Hewatt and more recently re-examined by Baxter and colleagues, including two undergraduates ( Barry et al., 1995: Science. 267:672). Long-term changes in the presence and abundance of certain species were observed that were consistent with a warming of the local climate, but no quantitative work has been carried out for over a decade. As a class we will repeat this transect in order to begin a monitoring program that will continue into the future. We will pay particular attention to selected taxa that are important both in Pacific Grove and in the Sea of Cortez, including echinoderms (sea stars, urchins, brittle stars and sea cucumbers) and certain snails (predatory species and tube-dwelling, vermetids)

2. Long-term changes in the rocky intertidal fauna in the Sea of Cortez.

In Mexico we will extend the background obtained at Hopkins to representative sites in the Sea of Cortez that were studied by Steinbeck and Ricketts in 1940, by our group in 2004 and by Holistic Biology in 2006. These include sites near downtown La Paz ( Caimancito ), on nearby islands Espirtu Santo ( Punta Lobos ), Cayo ( Cayo ) and San Jose ( Amortajada ). In addition, we will study two remote sites ( Punta San Francisco and Punta Marcial ) located near Rancho San Marta on a roadless section of coast north of La Paz. We will carry out quantitative transects along established courses that will allow our data (and future data) to be compared to previous sampling (Hopefully the markers are still there!). We will also utilize the time-honored “boulder-rolling ” method of sampling, which reveals a many species that are generally not encountered in the transects.
Again, the goal will be to determine how intertidal communities are changing, both from 1940 to today as well as into the future. Based on our 2004 work, we found three major changes from 1940 that were widespread: i) a large decrease in the number of echinoderm species and individuals; ii) a decreased presence of large predatory snails and an increase in smaller snails; iii) a large increase in the abundance of tube-dwelling, vermetid snails. Work by our class will serve to follow these apparent changes into the future.

3. Oceanography and pelagic biology in the Sea of Cortez

We will carry out a variety of activities aimed at furthering our understanding of the behavior and life history of the jumbo squid and of local oceanographic features relevant to the species. Although the squid fishery is presently the third largest in Mexico (~100,000 tons per year), it is essentially artisanal (Fig. 3 & Fig. 4). Amazingly, jumbo squid were not recorded by Ricketts 1940.
We will work on the live-aboard vessel, Don Jose, at sea off Topolabampo in Sonora. This area appears to be a developing ‘hot-spot’ for squid, and we will search for adult and juvenile squid in this area and characterize some basic oceanographic properties. As we transit across the Gulf we will deploy an instrument to depths of 600 meters that measures conductivity (salinity), temperature, depth (pressure), oxygen and fluorescence (chlorophyll) – the first three parameters give the instrument its name, CTD profiler.  We will compare these physical properties of the water column to the position of layers of planktonic organisms using acoustic (sonar) methods. In addition, we will also carry out plankton tows to sample phytoplankton in the day and zooplankton at night. As discussed below, the picture we develop will be relevant to an important question concerning land-sea interactions.
 Finally, we will catch adult squid and deploy pop-up satellite tags that record the pattern of their vertical and horizontal movements, detach after a few days and float to the surface, and then transmit data to a satellite system.  We will recover the tags using direction radio gear. These data will reveal how the squid utilize the midwater environment, particularly a hypoxic zone called the oxygen minimum layer.  This environment may be expanding in the Pacific, and we know relatively little about it at present.
Sperm whales and pilot whales are primary predators on jumbo squid, and they may be locally abundant when we are working.  We will see a large variety of seabirds, including several species of boobies, frigate birds, pelicans and ospreys. Other pelagic life such as turtles, sharks, mantas and billfishes may also be encountered.  Life at sea is always to some extent an unpredictable adventure.

 4. Exploration of Isla Santa Catalina.

This remote and legally protected island is an amazing place that we will explore over the course of 4 days on both land and in the water. On land, we will find endemic species, including a rattle-less rattle snake. In the shallow subtidal we will experience fish and invertebrate communities on relatively unperturbed reefs.  We will also explore the intertidal.  As part of this exploration, we will be assessing the suitability of sites on this island to add to our monitoring program in the future.

5. Social, economic and ecological impacts of man.

During the last week in Mexico we will move towards the effects man has had on the terrestrial and marine environments.  We will visit a remote Jesuit mission (Loreto) in a high mountain valley that marks the start of man’s successful dominion over nature in Baja. In Santa Rosalia we will see the squid fishery of today in the shadows of abandoned copper smelters and mines that represent the economic life-blood in the early part of the 20th century. 
Finally, in Sonora we will visit the Yaqui Valley agricultural region, which is the source of a large amount of agricultural runoff into the Sea of Cortez.  This runoff has added an increasingly large amount of nitrogen into the marine environment over the last 50 years, but ecological effects are totally unknown.  Our background oceanographic work off Topolabampo will be designed with this gap in our knowledge in mind. In effect, we will acquire ‘control’ data on natural upwelling-driven phytoplankton blooms that can be compared to future studies of blooms triggered by runoff events. Because these occur in winter, when the fields are flushed, we will not be able to study them directly.