Old Dominion University scientists seeking corals for climate change study try, try again
On a Monday in October, two sounds can be heard several hundred yards offshore of Virginia’s Kiptopeke State Park. The first is waves lapping against nine partially sunken World War II ships. The second is two scientists hunting for a coral that might be growing on the ships, who periodically surface to clear water from their snorkels with forceful exhales.
One of the scientists is Hannah Aichelman, a graduate student studying biology at Old Dominion University (ODU). The other is Dan Barshis, a biology professor at ODU researching how climate change affects corals. Barshis is Aichelman’s mentor for her master’s project as a Virginia Sea Grant graduate research fellow. Aichelman wants to see how a species of coral found off Virginia’s coast, Astrangia poculata or the Northern star coral, responds to rising temperatures. And to do that, she needs to harvest her test subject from its natural habitat—an undertaking that’s more challenging than one might think.
The pair’s original plan was to dive at a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean, where they’d found coral before. But the winds picked up unexpectedly that morning, summoning waves six- to eight-feet tall. To avoid a potentially dangerous situation, along with certain seasickness, the captain of ODU’s research vessel called off the dive.
So Aichelman and Barshis came up with a new scheme.
Plan B: Science by Kayak
Astrangia likes salty water, and lives on hard surfaces offshore from the Gulf of Mexico to Cape Cod. But since the waves were too high to dive in the ocean, Aichelman and Barshis, ever hopeful, turn to the next best thing: the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
Kiptopeke State Park sits at the southern tip of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The two scientists think the water might be salty enough for Astrangia off the park’s shore, where Chesapeake Bay spills into the Atlantic Ocean. They hope to find it growing on nine partially sunken concrete ships paralleling the shore. When the ships were intentionally sunk in 1949, there was no Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to connect Virginia’s Eastern Shore with its western shore. Instead, those wanting to cross the mouth of the Bay took a ferry. The ships were sunk to form a breakwater that shielded the ferry’s pier from the onslaught of waves.
Aichelman and Barshis load a two-person kayak with gear—including their so-called “basket of science,” a grocery shopping basket they hope to fill with corals—and paddle out to the ships. The above-water portions of the ships are plastered in guano from the brown pelicans that guard them like sentinels. After tethering their kayak to one ship, Aichelman, donning a wetsuit, snorkel mask, and flippers, slips into the opaque bay water. When she resurfaces a few moments later, “creepy” is the first word out of her mouth.
“It’s like another world down there!” she exclaims. Soon, Barshis slides into the water too, and both search the ships’ underbellies for Astrangia.
