Marine Ecology

This past tuesday, my Marine Ecology class took a trip to Lamoine Beach to collect data about species population in the rocky intertidal zone. We drove an hour in vans, talking and taking silly pictures all the way down. Once we got to the beach, my friends Jacque, Elizabeth and I walked around the beach exploring and taking pictures of all the different marine species we found. This included sea urchins, periwinkles, barnacles, mussels, crabs, sea cucumbers, sponges and sea stars (from ones that were bigger than my hands to ones that were half the size of my pinky nail). After an hour of exploring we split into groups to start collecting data. We had large, open squares of plastic pipe and randomly placed them on the substratum. We then counted the different types of species within the square and recorded them. We did this ten different times, recording all our data. This took about two hours. After this we gathered up all of our supplies, climbed back into the vans, and drove home. All and all, this was a fantastic trip. I had so much fun on this field trip, and finally began to see myself as a possible marine biologist.