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SEAORCA sweeps STARWhat washed up Why fisher- Washington Orca Bowl! The after the tsunami? men and tugboat Sea Grant Nationals are Page 4 captains aren’t coming! feeling crabby. University of Washington Page 2 Page 5 Spring 2014 MAY COPE, BUT CRINGE WHEN THE WATER TURNS SOUR

By Margaret C. Siple, WSG Writing Fellow ne food-web ecologist likes to call Changing chemistry may make the seas To understand how Ozooplankton “yummy crunchy things.” They even more dangerous. Basic life processes such as changing ocean certainly are for a wide range of marine , organisms’ respiration of CO2 have always affected from and hake to and ; pH on the local scale, especially in shallow and chemistry will these free-swimming, 20-micron to 20-millimeter- confined embayments. But “ocean acidification” affect marine food long cousins of and are foundations of (OA) refers to something bigger: a persistent drop in webs, UW’s Julie the . For Julie Keister, an assistant the sea’s pH with a clear cause. professor in the University of Washington’s School Keister and Anna When we burn fuels, we release CO into the of Oceanography, they are something more: keys to 2 air. The ocean, the world’s largest carbon reservoir, McLaskey put tiny understanding how the emergent threat of ocean absorbs much of that atmospheric CO . As CO acidification will affect marine . 2 2 to the dissolves in seawater, it forms carbonic acid and With support from Washington Sea Grant, Keister lowers the water’s pH. Ocean pH has already dropped acid test. and her team study the effects of acidified water 0.1 points on a 14-point logarithmic scale, equating on the hatching and survival of two important to a 30 percent rise in relative acidity. The ocean’s pelagic crustacean taxa, copepods and krill (a.k.a. pH is expected to drop another 0.2 to 0.4 points by euphausiids). In the open ocean, these little animals 2100. And as acidity rises, the amount of available face a gauntlet of threats from the day their lives carbonate drops, making shelled marine animals use begin. The Keister studies, more energy to find calcium carbonate and build pacifica and the Calanus pacificus, are their shells. free-spawning, so their eggs begin to sink as soon as Whether or not they build calcified shells, all they’re released. If they sink below the , organisms must regulate their internal pH. where sunlight penetrates, they can become lost have small bodies, so their surface-to-volume ratio is in a food desert. After they hatch, both species are huge, allowing rapid chemical exchange. This means regularly devoured by juvenile and forage . Young that are particularly sensitive to the salmon packing on the pounds seek out fat-rich chemistry of the water they float through. crustacean zooplankton. Copepods • continued on page 6 BOWLING FOR SAND DOLLARS, AND ALL THE OTHER CRITTERS IN THE SEA By Eric Scigliano When she looks back at the path that brought her Later that year she and four other Garfield juniors where she is today, Alexis Valauri-Orton recalls the took the bowl stage. time she dressed up as a pirate to answer questions At first the Garfield pirates struggled with the unfa- about bioluminescent plankton and sea jelly life- miliar buzzers they had to press to answer questions. cycles before an audience of hundreds. By the end, however, they found their mojo, came in As a high school junior, Valauri-Orton cofounded ninth out of 16 teams competing, and won the bowl’s a team that nearly won a statewide marine-science sportsmanship award. competition called the Orca Bowl. Each March “We were surprised at how much we knew,” Valauri- this event, sponsored by the UW College of the Orton recalls. Environment and hosted by WSG, brings student teams from 20-plus high schools together with By the next year she and her teammates had taken Washington Sea working scientists for some high-wire brain-teasing, physics, which left them better prepared to answer tough questions about waves and currents. They Grant hosts the face-to-face networking, and a few costumed hijinks. The Orca Bowl winner then goes on to face 25 other very nearly won that Orca Bowl and a ticket to the 2014 Orca Bowl states’ champions at the National Ocean Sciences national finals, but were edged out by the ExCEL and prepares Bowl (NOSB), which UW and WSG will host for the Academic League from Vancouver, Washington. first time this year. to welcome the Garfield’s pirates received a runner-up prize, Super Bowl of high Six years later, Valauri-Orton is back, after finishing however: They got to join a research cruise with school ocean sci- her undergraduate studies and a globe-trotting fel- the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems. ence to Seattle. An lowship project on ocean acidification. She’ll assist at this year’s Orca Bowl and the national bowl, even as “We had an incredible time,” recalls Valauri-Orton Orca Bowl vet- she works with WSG on an ocean acidification cur- – at the bowl as well as on the cruise. “It was so riculum project. And she thanks Orca Bowl for help- eran explains why exciting to be at UW, around all these scientists and ing her find her vocation. these quiz games researchers, and to envision ourselves as marine matter. Valauri-Orton attended Seattle’s Garfield High biologists one day.” School, an inner-city school renowned for its long- That experience helped form her decision to dedicate running marine biology program. Garfield once herself to marine science and education. But she also fielded an Orca Bowl team, but that effort fell by the wanted to attend a smaller liberal arts college. She wayside years before Valauri-Orton arrived. Marine landed at North Carolina’s Davidson College, which biology was her favorite , and when she learned though inland offered an excellent biology program that Garfield used to be an Orca Bowl contender, she and generous scholarship. Valauri-Orton in turn and a marine-minded classmate (who now works at enriched Davidson’s offerings: When her senior class the Seattle ) decided to start a new team. on included nothing on ocean acidifi- cation, she petitioned successfully to give a presenta- tion.

2 Washington Sea Grant Sea Star Spring 2014 Upon graduating, Valauri-Orton received a Watson Fellowship, a yearlong stipend for select graduates from liberal arts colleges to pursue original research overseas. She traveled to villages around the world, examining their dependence on resources threatened by ocean acidification. That’s led to her current work developing an online collection of ocean acidification curricula and teaching tools with WSG acidification specialist Meg Chadsey and Suquamish tribal biologist Paul Williams. The need is urgent, Valauri-Orton explains: “Nobody my age knows much about OA.” Another generation of Garfield pirates made a strong start at this year’s Orca Bowl in March. But then one pirate jumped the buzzer to answer the question: “How many plates do commonly have?” “Eight,” she replied – the most common number, but the wrong answer. “Seven or eight” was the multi- ple-choice answer she didn’t wait to hear. Orca Bowl And they let volunteers from marine fields and the To volunteer at rules, like life in the sea, are unforgiving. One of two wider community boost both the effort and their next year’s Orca teams fielded by Everett’s Ocean Research College own ocean literacy – and to have fun, especially if Academy (that’s right, ORCA) won the bowl and a they volunteer here in Washington. At Orca Bowl, Bowl, or to become shot at the national title. uniquely among the 25 regional competitions, many a sponsor, contact of the 100 or so volunteers wear marine-themed The pressure will be even higher at the National [email protected]. Ocean Sciences Bowl, which unfolds at UW’s costumes. Those attending last year could have seen Sciences Building on May 3 and 4. This year’s theme WSG’s director, Penelope Dalton, decked out as a Or, if you know of is ocean acidification – befitting the venue, since coral polyp. a high school that’s leading OA researchers from UW and NOAA will Dalton didn’t go coral this year, though it would have interested in starting attend. suited the OA theme. But Alexis Valauri-Orton did Such competitions are widely hailed as a way to dust off her pirate togs. a team, please con- stimulate student interest not just in ocean science Left: Garfield’s pirates count plates in a show- tact us! You’ll find but also in STEM studies and careers generally. They down with Redmond High. Above: Friday Harbor B Team more information give students a chance to meet peers, potential teach- in competition and the 2014 Orca Bowl champions from ers, and mentors from around the state and country. ORCA at the awards ceremony at the Seattle Aquarium. about Orca Bowl at They let science buffs shine, just as athletes do on wsg.washington.edu/ fields and courts. orcabowl. Washington Sea Grant Sea Star Spring 2014 3 early three years have passed since the Tōhoku ber 18, 2012, a 65-foot-long dock from the Japanese Nearthquake and resulting tsunami struck north- port of Misawa landed on the beach near LaPush; it east Japan with devastating force. When the destruc- was cut up and removed in March 2013. Next up, a tive surge returned to the sea, it left nearly 16,000 cement cylinder landed at Leadbetter Point in Long people dead and another 6,000 injured, and carried Beach, Pacific County, on February 23, 2013. A away an estimated 5 million tons of debris. Perhaps month later a 20-foot fishing vessel landed in Long 70 percent of that load sank to the seafloor off the Beach on March 22, 2013. The vessel contained five Japanese coast. The remaining 30 percent was swept striped beakfish, the first vertebrates to come ashore out into the ocean. in tsunami debris – and an invasive species. Four were euthanized, and the fifth went on display at Initially, many media sources predicted that large Oregon’s Seaside Aquarium. deposits of tsunami debris would wash up on the west coast of North America. But by compiling So far, says Miller, “damage from the debris has reports from citizen beachcombers, WSG’s Port been limited to the ingestion of Styrofoam shards by Angeles-based marine hazard specialist, Ian Miller, marine animals.” Many coastal residents feared that pieced together a very different story. radioactive flotsam would wash up onshore, but “so Photos: NOAA far no elevated radiation levels have been detected “It appears that tsunami debris, ranging from small on debris or in coastal waters.” lumber and Styrofoam to large fishing vessels and By Jakob Jarecki, WSG docks, has landed in smaller, intermittent bursts The observed deposition pattern reflects the com- Science Writing Fellow along the coast all the way from Alaska to Califor- plex relationship between large-scale ocean currents nia,” says Miller. and local weather conditions. The debris initially was swept into the mighty Kuroshio and Oyashio Washington’s first encounter with large tsunami currents, which meet to form the eastbound North debris came on June 15, 2012, when a 20-foot Pacific Current off Japan’s east coast. As the debris fiberglass boat washed up at Cape Disappointment approached North America, it was borne either State Park in Ilwaco on the Long Beach Peninsula. north and west by the Alaska Current or south by That summer a plastic fishing tote and a soccer ball the . Next, storm patterns nudged labeled “Ōtsuchi Soccer Club” – an eerie token of patches of the circulating debris toward land; others the devastated coastal town of Ōtsuchi – washed up continued circulating along the vast gyre that circles farther north in Olympic National Park. On Decem- the infamous North Pacific Garbage Patch. Forget the dire forecasts of massive wash-ups and a sea star-killing “radiation wave.” Washington Sea Grant’s Ian Miller tracks the curious tsunami relics that are actually reaching our shores.

AFTER THE TSUNAMI 4 Washington Sea Grant Sea Star Spring 2014 Two other celebrated incidents have given ocean- ographers insight into how today’s tsunami debris TUGBOATS AND CRAB may behave in the Pacific. In the 1990s Seattle-based oceanographer Curtis E. Ebbesmeyer tracked the FISHERMEN CAN GET ALONG contents of two spilled shipping containers in the North Pacific, one containing Nike shoes and the WSG’s Steve Harbell helps two industries other plastic bath toys. This flotsam circulated for find a better way to share the waters. an average of 2.9 years; some traveled as long as five or 41 years the West Coast’s crab-fishing and tug- years and as far as 7,000 miles. Fand-barge industries have been working out their From Ebbesmeyer’s findings and other circulation differences at the negotiating table. The challenge: data, we can assume that the Pacific Ocean still how to minimize the costly entanglement of crab gear contains plenty of tsunami debris. But that debris has by tugs and barges, while leaving the crabbers room broken up and dispersed, making it undetectable by to fish and assuring safe, efficient tow lanes. Now the satellite. It is safe to assume we will see more make process, which has already made the seaways safer for landfall in the next few years, just as the Nikes and both industries, is nearing full fruition. Steve Harbell, bath toys continued washing up. WSG’s Montesano-based marine field agent, is broker- ing a final agreement between Oregon’s fishermen More info: http://wsg.wash- But we won’t likely see the “radiation wave” that dire and tug companies, and hopes to see its terms extended ington.edu/lanes news stories and blog posts have described as creep- down the California coast. ing across the Pacific and even, according to some unfettered speculation, causing mysterious sea star “Tug and barge encounters with crab gear are almost always fatal to the gear,” die-offs along the West Coast. The time elapsed -be says Dale Beasley, president of the Columbia River Crab Fisherman’s Associa- tween the tsunami and the failure of the Fukushima tion and the Coalition of Coastal . They’re also dangerous to the tugs Daiichi power plants, plus the sheer size of the sea, and barges that get fouled. ensure against this. Harbell, together with California Sea Grant, originally assisted Oregon Sea “The power plants did not deteriorate and start leak- Grant in the effort. But in 1997 he took the lead in what’s now called the Com- ing radiation until well after the tsunami surge had mercial Crabber Towboat Lane Agreement Project, mediating between the returned to the sea,” says Miller. And any radioiso- two industries all the way from San Francisco to Washington’s Cape Flattery. topes that did escape were dispersed widely in the He hopes to have the final Oregon agreement in place this December, when immense volume of the Pacific Ocean. the 2014-15 crabbing season starts. This accord will replace the current pair of two-mile-wide tow lanes along the — an inshore lane open summer and fall and an offshore lane open winter and spring – with a single mile-wide lane located in between the two and open year-round. It will maintain entrances to Coos Bay and New- port but close unused lanes into Garibaldi, Umpqua, and Siuslaw. Provisional lanes will be reserved, in case tug traffic resumes to those minor ports. These changes promise not only to improve safety but also to lower fuel costs for tug operators as they save miles and avoid the stormier winter weather farther offshore. The fishermen will lose access to the new single lane all year long, but will gain more than 175 square miles of new crabbing area in the old lanes. Both will benefit from greater certainty as to who belongs where. A similar accord is in the works down the coast, from Coos Bay, Oregon, to Eureka, California. In Washington, tug operators have already shown that, using modern navigation equipment, they can operate in a lane just one mile wide. Harbell estimates that, coast-wide, the accords in progress already save the two industries more than $1 million a year, including 5,000 crab pots that would otherwise be lost. Thanks to the ongoing regular meetings, he says, “we’ve already seen greater cooperation on a variety of issues outside the tow- lanes between the two industries, plus the international shipping industry.” Fisheries coalition president Beasley seconds the emotion. “The agreement is a collaborative effort free from government intervention,” he says, “and a great example of industries sharing mutual respect for each others’ needs and look- ing for solutions that are mutually beneficial. As new industries come to the ocean, they can learn a lot from this collaboration. We hope Sea Grant will be AFTER THE TSUNAMI able to expand its role as a mediator of shared ocean space.” — Eric Scigliano Washington Sea Grant Sea Star Spring 2014 5 Copepods • complex tank system that automatically balances all continued from page 1 these factors contained a plastic that contaminated the tanks and killed the krill. So McLaskey developed If conditions are unfa- a procedure that keeps the krill healthy while main- vorable for a long time, taining the correct water chemistry. This delicate it becomes difficult for chemical balancing act only ends after the krill finish zooplankton to regulate their second molt, when she preserves and sorts their internal pH. This them and evaluates their body condition. kind of internal regulation demands a large investment Based on the few previous studies on these crusta- of energy and may leave them ceans’ response to acidification, copepods seem to with less energy to spend on other things, be more tolerant of acidified water than the delicate such as finding food and krill. Copepod species other than C. pacificushave

laying healthy, viable eggs. remained robust at dissolved-CO2 levels that would HOW TO TELL KRILL So far, most studies have kill Atlantic krill (E. superba) eggs. tested these species under Keister and McLaskey expect to find similar dif- FROM COPEPOD… extreme conditions that ferences between krill and copepods to those seen will not be experienced … not to mention ostacod from pteropod, in the earlier research. Indeed, their initial results for centuries. Keister is suggest that C. pacificusmay withstand a wider range polychaete from chaetognath, and crab one of the first zooplank- of dissolved CO than E. pacifica. As in the previous from molt. ton ecologists to study 2 studies, the copepods seem to show some ability to the effects of a changing ast August, Washington Sea Grant published a adapt to rising CO . ocean on copepods and 2 beautifully illustrated letter-size identification L krill at more ecologically Hatching success varies widely among breeding card showing various life stages of these and other relevant levels – those ex- copepod females, which are raised individually in zooplankton species. The project grew perienced now and those NOAA’s ocean acidification lab. Even at dissolved- out of a series of workshops that WSG and several expected in 2100. CO levels we don’t expect to see for 100 years or partners convened to help boat-based education 2 more, some of them do lay eggs that hatch. If this programs perform more meaningful data collec- Keister and her graduate pattern is consistent across the whole population, tion. During the second workshop, Julie Keister student Anna McLaskey could it be a sign that copepods could adapt to dra- showed participants how to sample conduct their experi- matic changes in ocean chemistry? and zooplankton. They used a phytoplankton ID ments at NOAA’s North- card developed by UW’s School of Oceanography, west Fisheries Science “It’s way too early to tell,” McLaskey says. “Climate and lamented the lack of a corresponding zoo- Center. To get specimens, change is going to change the zooplankton commu- plankton card. In response, WSG worked with they must travel to Everett nity, but we don’t know how yet.” Keister and student Audrey Djunaedi to design one. for krill and Shilshole Bay Even in a single sampling season, overall hatching Djunaedi took the photos (which illustrate this for copepods and trawl success can vary greatly. Keister and McLaskey will article). The resulting laminated cards have gone for egg-laden females, have to perform several more experiments before out to boat-based education programs all around distinguishable by the in- they know how OA will affect crustacean zooplank- Puget Sound; digital copies are available at tense purple that infuses tons’ success. http://wsg.washington.edu/zooplankton-card their genitalia. They bring these back to the lab and Keister’s work is part of a recent push to understand

keep them until their eggs some of the effects of increased CO2 on zooplankton. hatch, usually overnight. These effects may manifest themselves not as acute forms of stress (changes in mortality rates, morphol- Keister and McLaskey carefully control the ogy, or embryonic development, for example) but as water’s carbonate chemistry. A computerized subtle differences in the animals’ energetic capacities seawater filtration system scrubs ambient CO 2 that still may have negative long-term implications. from the water and then restores it to a specific level, ensuring a precise pH. They then pump the Keister and McLaskey work in a region where OA water into the small jars where the zooplankton will have especially strong impacts: the northeastern live. Pacific, a highly productive zone where cold, low-pH deep water rises to the surface. In The greatest challenge, McLaskey says, is achiev- this rich environment, C. pacificus and E. pacifica ing conditions “that make the chemists and are ecologically essential: C. pacificusis the region’s the krill happy.” Controlling acidity in the lab dominant large-bodied copepod, and E. pacifica is extremely difficult, and ocean chemists have is the most abundant krill species off the coasts of to keep close tabs on the water’s temperature, Washington and Vancouver Island. Keister’s research oxygen concentration, and pH. This requires stands to teach us what we can expect from vital ma- much time-consuming measurement and, at times, rine food webs as the ocean’s chemistry marches ever troubleshooting. During early experiments, the farther from its recent historical state.

6 Washington Sea Grant Sea Star Spring 2014 FIELD NOTES

n 2007, spurred by community he Washington State Parks Iconcerns, the Washington TDepartment’s Clean Ves- Legislature asked WSG to sel Program and Washington conduct a comprehensive peer- Sea Grant, which operates the reviewed study of the possible Pumpout Washington program environmental effects of the udubon does its Christ- on behalf of State Parks, have state’s fast-growing geoduck Amas bird count. WSG been working overtime to . In December, WSG spends New Year’s Eve moni- help marinas and other boat- presented its final report, includ- toring imperiled sea stars. On ing facilities install sewage ing a review of 420 papers on December 31 WSG-funded pump-out stations, and to get SG coastal resources geoduck biology and researchers Melissa and Ben boaters to use them. Last year 013-14 science writing Wspecialist Jamie Mooney aquaculture, to the legislature Miner (from UC-Santa Cruz WSG boating program specialist 2fellow Chelsea Kahn is also and student assistant Emily and public. The findings gauged and Western Washington Aaron Barnett and his volun- reaching a new stage – a literal Halvorsen have completed an- the effects of geoduck culture University, respectively) shared teers distributed more than one. She’ll speak on communi- other long-awaited report, on and harvest on water qual- their knowledge of sea star 4,000 hose-locking adapter kits cating about climate change at the results of an in-depth survey ity, sediment chemistry, wild wasting disease, the mysteri- to make pumping out cleaner Seattle’s Town Hall on May 19 of more than 100 coastal plan- geoduck populations and other ous syndrome that’s ravaging and easier, and state-sponsored at 6 pm, as one of 13 UW grad ners, managers, and officials in macrofauna, and eelgrass, a the stars along the Pacific mobile pumpout stations took students sharing their science Washington on their experience vital intertidal habitat. But Coast, with WSG marine water the service right to the boats. in the Engage Science Speakers with and strategies for adapting they did not point to severe specialist Jeff Adams and eight The Clean Vessel Program has Series. And congratulations to climate change. It finds that problems. “The range of effects volunteers. The Miners showed meanwhile added pumpout to 2013 WSG science writing an overwhelming majority have varies from modestly negative the group how to monitor the stations in new locations and fellow Margaret C. Siple, who’s encountered multiple obstacles to modestly positive,” said UW ailing stars in two different hab- second units at marinas that only been hired as an analyst by to efforts, especially biologist Glenn VanBlaricom, itats, Rockaway Beach on the had one, and replaced older units Watch, the Monterey a lack of consensus and shared one of the report’s principal east side of Bainbridge Island with new ones that monitor Bay Aquarium-based project sense of urgency, and insuffi- investigators. “We found no evi- and Point White Pier on the volumes more accurately. that produces those invaluable cient staff and other resources – dence that west. Ben almost immediately Are these efforts making folding cards listing the most, few of which they’ve managed is causing fundamental shifts found a sick star on Rockaway. Washington’s waters cleaner? less, and least sustainable to overcome. The Washington in -scale structure or Thus informed, Adams and The numbers suggest they are. and healthful seafood choices. survey is one in a national series function in Puget Sound.” How- his team searched further and Last year Washington boaters Megsie will be evaluating her- initiated by the National Sea ever, VanBlaricom and the other found many stars, ranging in pumped out more than 5.6 ring, a tasty way to eat down Grant Office.http://wsg.washing - researchers noted a number of condition from healthy to what million gallons of onboard sew- the and a founda- ton.edu/coastalsurvey aspects of geoduck culture that Adams calls “white mush,” and age — by one estimate, enough tion of the local marine food call for longer-term research or measured all those on one large to fill downtown Seattle’s Arctic web, while she works on her SG ocean acidification monitoring, from site-specific outcrop for ongoing monitoring. Building. That’s 1 million gallons PhD at UW Aquatic & Fishery Wspecialist Meg Chadsey factors in its effects to genetic They also found “sea star bits more than last year, up from just Sciences. Her autumn Sea Star and Caroline Gibson, the North- inputs into the wild population. and pieces everywhere” amidst 47 thousand gallons in 1996, article on salmon genomics, “A west Straits Initiative’s marine Read the report and related the pilings at Point White Pier. before the state program started. Code of Many Colors,” helped program manager, are present- materials at http://wsg.washing- “Volunteers familiar with the All that even though boat sales win her the job. ing a session on “Novel Actions ton.edu/research/geoduck site said there were far fewer and registrations have slumped. to Address Ocean Acidification stars there than in early Decem- Congratulations to boaters still orrection: We got our in the Salish Sea” on May 1 at ber. Many of those remaining out on the water, who are keep- Ccrustaceans crossed when, the 2014 Salish Sea Ecosystem showed signs of wasting dis- ing their wastes out of it. More copying an erroneous stock- Conference, at the Washington ease.” Adams’s team will now info: http://pumpoutwashington. service caption, we called our State Convention & Trade Cen- train other individual naturalists org” autumn cover critter a “snow ter. See the complete schedule and groups to monitor the stars crab.” It’s actually a Japanese at http://www.wwu.edu/salish- in Central and South Puget spider crab. seaconference/schedule.shtml. Sound.

Washington Sea Grant Sea Star Spring 2014 7 Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage Paid Seattle, WA No. 62

Washington Sea Grant University of Washington Box 355060 3716 Brooklyn Avenue NE Seattle, WA 98105-6716

Editor, Eric Scigliano; Designer, Robyn Ricks; Web Editor, Marcus Duke. © Washington Sea Grant, except as noted. ©2014, 206.543.6600 Tweeting @WASeaGrant University of Washington, [email protected] www.facebook.com/WaSeaGrant Board of Regents. www.wsg.washington.edu. WSG-MR14-03

FLOATAB LE QUOTABLE Amazing single- celled -fishing wonder taco

e discovered a completely new species “ W [of single-celled haptophyte ]. I’ve submitted the name Chrysochromulina tobin for it, after my son. I wanted to do something for him that would stay around a while after I go to the happy hunting ground. “I showed him a picture and he said it was wimpy. I said, No you’ve got it all wrong, this is one tough little guy – it lives at pH 10. It hunts bacteria, using a long called a haptonema that it uses like a fishing pole to retrieve them. We think it also farms the bacteria. It extrudes dissolved organic carbons, which bacteria feed on, and it needs vitamin B12, which bacteria produce. We think it selects the bacteria that grow around it. “It’s shaped like a taco, and 40 percent of its body weight is fat. If you want to retrieve oil [for biofuel], you just touch it and the oil falls out .” The ratfish prepare to attack UW algal biologist and WSG researcher Illustration by Craig Coselini Rose Ann Cattolico