Tisha B'Av

Today was a very quiet day at work.

The day started with me and a PhD student going to the observatory

to collect water samples and test them for the amount of phytoplankton by analysing the florescence of the sample. This sampling has been done every day for the last 20 years by various researchers at the IUI.

While on the way to collect this sample we saw the manager of the observatory digging in a pile of sand in the middle of the turtle enclosure and after the sampling we bumped into him and he showed us the baby turtle he had found amongst the already hatched eggs under all the sand. Unfortunately it was too early in the morning for me to think of taking a picture.

Like I said before, it was a quiet day at work not because nothing happened but because only a small number of us were there.

Today was Tisha B'Av (the ninth day of the hebrew month of Av). On this day people are given the option to stay home as today is a day of fasting.

This day commemorates the destruction of the holy temples in Jerusalem. The first was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC before the Jewish people of Jerusalem where enslaved in Babylonia.

 They returned to Jerusalem and constructed a second temple on the sight of the first in 516 BC. The second temple was destroyed in 70 AD  during the Roman siege of Jerusalem.

All that remains of the two temples is a wall in old Jerusalem. 

The destruction of both these temples occured on the ninth of Av which is why this day was declared Tisha B'Av.

The Experiment

The reason I am here and my primary focus until September.

Why are copepods found in dense aggregations at certain depths?

 We have some understanding of the how; by swimming and the buoyancy of the lipid sacs many copepods contain they are able to maintain a certain depth even if there is strong upwelling/downwelling of the water in that area (giving some new meaning to the classification of copepods as plankton or 'drifters').

But what is the advantage? usually the reason for individuals to get together is for either food or sex (much like in humans) but but these aggregations are composed of many different species that cannot mate and their food supply is plankton that moves with the water current so it makes sense that the copepods should allow themselves to also move with this current and their food.

My role in this project is to determine the affect of pressure (as a proxy for depth) on the sinking rate (as a proxy for buoyancy).

To do this I must first determine the relative amount of fat or lipids the copepods contain. I measure the area of the oil sac and the area of the body (prosome) of the copepod using image analysis of each individual.

 After I have these measurements and I have removed the copepods antennae, I sink them.

I introduce the copepods gently into the top of the chamber and time them using a stop watch, recording the time as they pass every mark in order to later determine the sinking rate.

As the copepod reaches the halfway mark I introduce 3.5 atmospheres of pressure into the sinking chamber, this recreates the pressure the copepod would experience at 25 meters depth.

The hypothesis was that, because lipids are more compressible than water, the relative density of the copepod would increase and it would sink faster once the pressure is increased. However, in the 'fat' individuals especially, we have found the opposite.

Currently I have performed this experiment on 60 individuals and am now inputting the data into a spreadsheet  so that I can analyse the initial results.








Although this is my primary focus at the moment I am also carrying out a side project investigating any patterns in the visiting of the whale sharks that come here every year (more information in a future post).

As well as this I have also received the exciting news that I can start my very own project (with funding) once I return after this initial three month stay so now I have to come up with a relatively short research project that I can make my own.

Asian and Ginger

As me and my house mates (Stephanie and Ellie) were getting ready to head back to the apartment after work, me and Stephanie got talking about a restaurant I walk past every day to catch the bus. The resteraunt called Ginger serves Asian food and amazing sushi. Stephanie then mentioned that she had been so busy through the day that she had forgotten to eat, so it was decided and we headed to Ginger.

Stephanie suggested we at the bar as from there you can watch the sushi chef as he prepares the meals.

Above: chef preparing the smallest of the sushi platters

Unfortunately we did not order a sushi platters but at least it gives me an excuse to return.

 The sushi was amazing, in good sized portions and most importantly very reasonably priced at around £8 a portion. The view wasn't too bad either:

Mountains, desert, a meal and dessert

Last weekend me and Ellie decided we would get up before sunrise on Saturday so that we could hike in the 'Eilat Mountains' before it got too hot.

The area called the 'Eilat Mountains' is just behind the city and is more of a hilly desert than a mountain range that is a 10 minute walk from our apartment.

As this was our first time visiting the area we decided to stay close to the main road so that we would not accidentally come across the Egyptian border and the numerous soldiers that patrol it.

After a while of walking we found a hill that was suitable for us beginners and we climbed it, following a sort of track that had likely been formed by other visitors

 Once we had clambered to the peak we sat and enjoyed the view for as long as we could.

We decided to head back down once we noticed the rapidly increasing temperature.

We returned to the flat about four hours after we initially set off and I was so exhausted that I fell asleep almost instantly.

I was later awoken by a phone call from Amatzia (the director of the IUI) inviting me to dinner at his house along with Margarita (the phd student I am helping).

Amatzia picked us up at six and took us to his beautiful home that looks out upon the 'Eilat desert' where I had just been as well as a deep dried up river bed that is only re freshened during heavy rains in the winter.

for dinner we had grilled fish, salad and extremely interesting conversations that covered topics from English culture to Amatzia's Phd thesis in which he discovered deep sea 'Black Corals' on sea mounts (Corals on seamount peaks provide evidence of current acceleration over deep-sea topography) and also spent part of this study aboard the Alvin submersible research vessel.

A day of learning, a night of drinking

Last night me and Ellie (from Plymouth uni) where invited to stay at the IUI after working hours by American Ellie (a PhD student).

During working hours:

Margarita (Phd student I am helping with her copepod project), Amatzia (director of the IUI/ me and Margarita's supervisor) and I are still awaiting the lab engineer's (Moty's) return to begin experimentation.

Nonetheless, their was plenty to do. Maya, a previous masters student of Amatzia's returned to the IUI to present her finished masters project to all of us.

Her masters project had recently been published so, as is tradition here, she brought a cake with her.
Her project was to understand why certain soft corals (pictured above) exhibit a pulsating motion with their tentacles.

Video of soft coral pulsating

Although this video claims that the coral are 'eating', these corals do not feed on plankton and rely solely on photosynthesis. So why do they pulsate in this way as it clearly uses up valuable energy?

Well, Maya discovered that the pulsating pushes away water that it has already depleted of CO2 (needed for photosyntheses) and filled with O2 (a waste product of photosynthesis). By moving this O2 rich water away it can better photosynthesise.

Amatzia later described, in a lecture he was giving to the resident undergraduates, that hard corals rely on reef fish taking shelter within their branches to move water away from them as they swim.

After the working day:

I finished around 5 o'clock (normal time) so I had three hours until the BBQ, so I did what most people at the IUI do when they have some spare time, went for a snorkel on the coral reef that fringes the IUI and the shore for miles in each direction. (I will write extensively on the coral reef once Kim's underwater camera arrives in the post.... Love you babe).

Anyway by the time I stepped foot on land again, the food preparations for the BBQ were well under way so I helped by scavenging some wooden pallets with American Ellie's Russian boyfriend who lives and works in Eilat.

Once the fire was started, the food was brought out and all nine of us sat around with beers, shared knowledge of our home countries (England, America, Russia, Italy and Israel) and got progressively more drunk. The perfect end to any week of hard work.

Red Sea Monitoring Cruise

On Tuesday the 18th I joined four oceanographic scientists, two technicians and a skipper aboard the Sam Rothberg Research Vessel.This cruise has collected seawater samples from various depths down to 700m

from three different stations within the Israeli owned area of the Gulf of Aquaba every month for the past nine years.

The equipment used is a carousel water sampler (niskin bottles) with an attached CTD (measures salinity temperature and density of the seawater) and a flourimeter  (measures chlorophyll a/ phytoplankton concentrations).

Options

 I had a few tasks on the boat but the main reason I was there was to observe and learn. Since I am currently still awaiting the return of the resident lab engineer before I can carry out the copepod experiments.

When I enquired into the trends in the chemical data they have collected, I learnt that this years phytoplankton bloom was very small due to the unusually warm winter. Unfortunately this means that the annual visiting of the whale sharks is less likely to occur this year.

This cruise is just one of many monthly monitoring programmes that are launched from the IUI and my supervisor (Amatzia Genin) is very enthusiastic about getting me involved in more of these programmes.

The Inter-University Institute of Marine Biology (IUI)

In other words my second home in Eilat.

This Is where I spend the majority of my days.

Pictured is just one of the many buildings that makes up the IUI. In fact this is the building where most of my work takes place as the experiment I am currently carrying out is set up in the left hand side of this building. On the right hand side of this building is a sort of lecture theatre where scientists visiting the IUI present their current projects. So far there have been two such lectures in my short time here, the first on determining past present and future climate change through paleogeochemistry and the second was a PhD on the bio-availability of iron to phytoplankton.

I refer to the IUI  as a second home because even though I've been here less than a week that is how my co-workers make it feel. Everyone is extremely friendly and invite me to join them for freshly made meals they prepare in the IUI kitchen.

Behind the IUI is the Red Sea and between the IUI and the Red Sea is the IUI's private beach which, in such a touristy area is an amazing privilege.

 This is where the scientists of the IUI usually take breaks and finish their day of work by snorkelling on the coral reefs or simply relaxing on the beach.

The land on the other side of the sea is Jordan. From this position you can in fact sea three other countries; Jorden is directly opposite, Saudi Arabia is just a little to the right of the above photo and Egypt in only two kilometres from the IUI on the same side of the Red Sea.

My Apartment

The apartment itself is not the most attractive of beasts so I thought it would be easier on the eyes if I posted a picture of the view from my apartment..

Those hills in the background are in fact part of Jordan.

The apartment itself has a six person capacity. The apartment is currently occupied by me, a German PhD student named Stephanie and Ellie (who some of you know as a fellow Plymouth undergrad). This apartment acts as a container of the overflow from the halls of residence at the Inter University Institute of Eilat (IUI) as well as a residence for strange foreign students like myself.

The apartment is situated in a great central location while also having the advantage of being miles away from the tourist area of town. The disadvantage of the location is that, in this heat, I would not consider it walking distance from the beach.

Another perk is that just a little walk down the road is "the best bakery in Eilat" as many have informed me.

In the beginning...

So here I am sitting in my apartment in Israel (603 Eilot street, Eilat for anyone who wants to Google map it) attempting my first ever blog.

The premise of this blog is simple, it is an on-line version of the placement journal Plymouth University has asked me to create during my placement year.

    The major difference between this blog and its leather bound counterpart is that there will be much more shiny pictures (see examples above) and a lower scientific content to make the blog more user friendly.

Of course I am open to suggestions and any fellow students out there that find a subject that I mention especially interesting, I may comment on it in further detail.