We have been working on the poster and paper. This is the final push of the semester and to finish capstone. Stats has gone well and we have found some significant results. We are now finalizing maps and editing posters and papers like stated earlier.
Last week we finished data collection! We collected a total of 4360 trees and have started running statistics. We found that nurse plants effect island oak health and growth rates. We also found how tall and thick trees are more reproductive. This will help future management of Santa Rosa Island.
I finished calculating the area under the curve of my cross-sections (the relevant ones). This allows me to see how sediment has stabilized throughout time. Each stream event changes the amount of sediment under the curve. With changes in the amount of sediment, I can see any relative changes in the geomorphology as a whole. This is also useful in helping to catch my mistakes for the finalization of all figures, maps, and text.
As someone who often does way too much and who has his hands in way too many pies at any one time, I am used to doing one project today and then a totally separate endeavor the next. But with an increasingly disturbing regularity, my “separate” worlds appear to be merging. Case in point was my painting delivery service/water quality research/family friends confab this weekend.
Sumner painting delivery service in effect! #PirateLab pic.twitter.com/DcaMwxGt2E
— Dr A (@RestoringNOLA) April 28, 2016
Wonderful day honoring @WishtoyoChumash hosted by @MrBeauBridges & @WendyBebe w/ @RestoringNOLA. Blessed! #VCK pic.twitter.com/IhgFdQZB6f
— Dr. Stacey Anderson (@andersoncsuci) May 1, 2016
Another case in point is the growing use of drones for all manner of things related to coastal and marine management. We are doing lots of this ourselves (e.g. helping folks with limited resources better inventory their coastal resources or working to help measure and bolster the much-in-need-of-improvement sustainability of our seafood harvest), but the amount of innovative ideas never ceases to amaze me:
New Toys at the lab: starting to build our newEST drone-based LIDAR mapping solution! #CSUCI #AARR #PirateLab #ESRM pic.twitter.com/aKDelusMuK
— Dr A (@RestoringNOLA) April 15, 2016
While there is much too much hype in the drone industry from the perspective of current valuation (see Colin Snow’s talk from last weeks sUAS Business Meeting in San Francisco), the creation and innovation side of things is going gangbusters. Indeed, while we here at CSU Channel Islands are a player in this space, aerial and aquatic robotic technology is evolving faster than my students, colleagues, or I can seem to keep track of. Two weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a colleague from another university about the possible use of robots and fishing efforts in the open ocean. I was envisioning something akin to one of our underwater ROVs equipped with a spear or perhaps netting and thinking of the growing ranks of “water proofed” robotic platforms (e.g. the Amphibia). Indeed, early adopter commercial operators are already using robotics to manage their operations in southern California waters.
Then, I woke this morning to find FStop (via Cliff over at UAVExpertNews) pointing me to a merging of our marine conservation and robotic tinkering: the apparently first-ever use of a drone to target and capture Thunnids via directed dropping of lures/hooks via their a DJI Phantom while beach fishing with rod and reel.
This raises a whole host of intriguing questions: is this considered “regular” recreational fishing under local fishing laws and ordinances? Is this really just a new form of the novelty kite fishing (I doubt it…)? Will flying or swimming drones be the next in a long line of technological innovations from diesel-power winches to Radar to satellite data feeds that have empowered us to further overexploit our already stressed global fish stocks?
Will this tech be eclipsed by the technology that seems poised to soon allow the angler to simply fly over the fish she is looking to target:
Many of us are determined to help make this tech supportive of conservation and responsible management, but the reality is that we really are gazing into a brave new world through a mirror, darkly.
Went out to Anacapa Island this weekend to finish up my advanced open water certification with Ventura Dive. Next stop scientific dive school in Long beach!
This last week we tried some different solutions for dissolving crab tissue and shells so that we might “float” our plastics out to save time when looking for plastics. We are tweaking the methods used in the Claessens et al 2013 paper. We are having to tweak because they fried all of the fibers from the samples. I will have more updates later in the week.
My final semester of undergrad is soon coming to an end. It has definitely been way different than I first planned. I took a lot of classes every semester leading up to this one to give myself an easy semester. Going into this semester, I only needed two more classes until I graduated. During winter break, I finally realized what I wanted to pursue as a career and in graduate school. This quickly changed my plans from an easy semester to a full load. Luckily, I was able to enroll in the classes I needed as prerequisite courses for graduate school. I ended up taking three math classes, a biology class, and capstone. Although this isn’t what I initially planned on, the semester has been great. I have loved my math classes and have been so happy with my choice to challenge myself, rather than taking the easy way out. My easiest semester turned to my hardest semester. I am overall very pleased with this semester and the preparation I am getting for graduate school.
My SAGE poster will be submitted at the end of this week. I have made great improvements of its design over the past few weeks. All I have left to do is finish my capstone paper. I am just having some issue with how to conduct my common garden statistics on SPSS. Hopefully, I will figure it out this week. 
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