27 de noviembre de 2022

New Observation Field Requirement

Hi combers! I have updated the project so that whenever anyone goes to upload an observation to the project, you will be asked to confirm whether or not you saw surface life during your beach trip. This will help to prevent the project from being overloaded with absence observations and will help us greatly with data analysis.

I hope this new requirement does not cause too much confusion! We are all navigating this for the first time so please reach out if you experience any complications.

Thank you all for being so adaptable and patient as we continue to figure out how to best serve this community. You all are the best!

-Ari

Publicado el 27 de noviembre de 2022 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

18 de octubre de 2022

Protocol Update

Hi combers,

Our GO-SEA project has been growing for over a year now! There have been so many great observations uploaded to the project and we are very thankful for everyone who chooses to participate in this effort to study the mysterious ecosystem at the ocean's surface. Now that the project is pretty well established, we are getting a better idea of what data is the most useful and I wanted to update you all on what we've figured out.

Absence observations are helpful, but they have gotten a bit out of control, which makes processing our data a lot more challenging. We wish there was a better way to regulate these but unfortunately iNaturalist does not have a way to do this. As much as I love to see what you all have found, please DO NOT upload all of your observations from your beach trips. ONE absence observation is great, any more than that really complicates things!

When you find surface life and upload those observations, please DO NOT upload any other absence observations from that same day. That is also hard for us to analyze. The point of absence observations is to let us know that surface life was not found at a certain location/time so if they are uploaded alongside surface life observations, it can be confusing.

I know this project is atypical, but we are studying some pretty atypical organisms! Please let me know if you have any questions about the protocol or project. I will keep everyone updated with our findings as we continue to analyze our data.

-Ari

Publicado el 18 de octubre de 2022 por goseascience goseascience | 4 comentarios | Deja un comentario

25 de septiembre de 2022

Sea Skaters!

Hi, combers! Did you know that sea skaters in the genus Halobates are the only insect that lives on the open ocean? They are also the only surface life that can move freely on the surface, rather than relying solely on wind or currents. For more information on sea skaters and their amazing adaptations, check out this post I made: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci8IucEuskl/

Publicado el 25 de septiembre de 2022 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

22 de septiembre de 2022

Floating Barnacle Video

Hi everyone, I put together a short video about buoy barnacles (Dosima fascicularis) if you want to check it out! https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRaqSVpv/

I'll be making short educational videos about surface life, iNaturalist, and more, so make sure to give us a follow on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram!

-Ari Puentes

Publicado el 22 de septiembre de 2022 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

09 de agosto de 2022

Social Media Spotlight

Hi, combers! I’m super stoked to announce that we now have over 1000 contributors and 430 members of our GO-SEA project. We are so thankful for how much the project has grown and for all of you wonderful people who are helping us do science in what I believe to be the most rewarding way, as a community.

Some of you may not know, but we feature iNaturalist photos on our Instagram and Twitter! Go check them out if you haven’t already (@goseascience)… your photos might be featured and you just don’t know it yet. In addition to showing off photos from our iNaturalist community, our social media pages are also a great way to learn more about surface life! Do you have photos or videos that you’d like to have featured on our social media pages? We accept submissions, simply DM or email your photos or videos to us. You can also request more info on a certain topic or organism.

As always it’s a pleasure to see what you find!

-Ari Puentes

Publicado el 09 de agosto de 2022 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

11 de marzo de 2022

Project Update

Hi everyone, it’s been a while since our last update, I want to welcome all of our new members. The project has grown so much and we have now observed over 1000 species and have over 800 contributors! We seriously cannot thank you all enough for helping us collect this data and are working on ways to start showing our appreciation. We are creating spaces where GO-SEA members can interact and chat with fellow ocean-lovers, working on member incentives, and are in the process of creating a tool that allows you to explore your observations more deeply. This tool will use your observations in addition to local weather and ocean current data to allow you to discover ocean processes occurring in your area!

A quick update on the project protocol because I know it is a bit different than most projects. Whenever you find the surface life in our field guide (https://goseascience.org/field-guide/) upload your observations to the project. When you go to the beach and do not find any surface life, upload ONE observation of your choice. This will help you build up patterns in your observations, a record of both when things are around AND when they are not. This also helps our scientists to understand where our targeted organisms can be found at any point in time. All observations must be manually added to the project, which can be done when they are initially being posted to iNaturalist. When uploading past observations, please only upload the organisms on our field guide.

Happy beachcombing!

Ari Puentes

Publicado el 11 de marzo de 2022 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

08 de diciembre de 2021

Join Our Mailing List

Hi everyone, I just wanted to encourage you all to join our mailing list so that you can stay up to date with all GO-SEA updates as we begin to move out of beta mode! To join the mailing list, simply enter your email address here: https://mailchi.mp/e403dc0b2f83/goseascience. Even if you do not wish to sign up for our newsletter, please feel free to email any questions, recommendations, ideas, or other feedback to goseascience@gmail.com.

We could not do this without you all and we are looking for ways to start giving back. If you have any suggestions for incentives that you might be interested in, please let us know!

Ari Puentes

Publicado el 08 de diciembre de 2021 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

18 de noviembre de 2021

Learn More About GO-SEA!

Hey everyone! We are getting close to having 500 contributors now which is pretty incredible!! Watching this project grow and seeing all of the amazing life that you all have found is such a great experience for the GO-SEA team, we seriously cannot thank you enough! For those of you who are new to GO-SEA, or for anyone who wants to learn more about our project, I encourage you to read this wonderful paper written by one of our marine biologists on the team, Dr. Rebecca Helm. The paper talks about the importance of surface life and gives lots of background knowledge on the surface ecosystem and why our research needs to be done. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001046

We will also be having another open lab meeting on Sunday, November 28th that anybody is welcome to attend. The meeting will be held virtually through Zoom and it will take place at 10AM HAST, 12PM PST, 3PM EST, 8PM BST (So many time zones to consider!) If you are interested in attending send us a message and we will send you the link!

I hope you all have a great week and I hope to see some of you next weekend!
Ari Puentes

Publicado el 18 de noviembre de 2021 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

11 de noviembre de 2021

Blue Sea Dragons

This week I want to talk about my personal favorite surface animal, the blue sea dragon, or sea swallow (Glaucus spp.) I think blue sea dragon is the most fitting name because these animals look like mythical creatures or something from another world! They are sea slugs but they have some special tricks up their sleeves. They are vicious predators and eat many of the surface animals we’ve talked about previously like by-the-wind sailors, Portuguese man-o-wars, and blue buttons. They can eat jellyfish and other animals with stinging cells because they are immune to them, and on top of being immune to them they also store the stinging cells in special structures called cerata so that they can use them for their own defense! That’s right, these sea slugs have jellyfish stings!! The blue sea dragons have interesting coloration that serves as double camouflage, their top sides are blue and white to blend in with the ocean’s surface, and their underside is whitish to blend in with the sunlight shining through the water.

Wishing you all the best beach-combing finds!
-Ari Puentes

Publicado el 11 de noviembre de 2021 por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

29 de octubre de 2021

Floating Anemones

Hey everyone, over the past month our iNaturalist contributors have more than tripled! We are all so grateful and excited to see what you find!

This week I wanted to talk about one of the less well-known creatures that live at the ocean’s surface, the floating sea anemones. These anemones are in the genus Actinecta and they don’t have a common name, they are only referred to as their scientific names. These creatures have a float at their base that allows them to live at the surface of the ocean, hanging upside down and catching prey with their tentacles. They are a pretty rare find but sometimes they can be found in the open ocean or washed ashore.

Happy Halloween weekend!
-Ari Puentes

Publicado el 29 de octubre de 2021 por goseascience goseascience | 2 comentarios | Deja un comentario