Will My Wood Research Be Poplar?

I wooden dream of having a post full of wood puns. On the other hand my alder ego often gets the best of me and I may have to cherry pick a few. I am participating in the new round of SciFund Challenge. I am hoping yew (I can’t help myself) will help me support some research on wood falls. Details will be coming soon about how you can contribute! Fir now I have link roundup with my and my collaborator’s recent posts on this cool research.

A Lonely Tree Far From Home Brings New Life to the Ocean Deep: A Narrative in Five Acts @DSN
Some Echinoderms Will Never Grow Up @DSN
Wood, It’s What’s For Dinner @DSN
Wood from Land Feeds Deep Sea Life @DSN
I Got Wood @DSN
Making science out of chucking stuff in the sea @Eclectic Limpet
Why land plants matter to deep-sea critters @Eclectic Limpet

Not to board you with more but below is a gallery of images that I think will spruce up the post. The photos are from wood falls nearly two miles deep on the Pacific seafloor and many are courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. I hope I left you pining for more.

My collaborators Jim Barry and Chris Lovera inspect a collection bag for the wood falls

Xylopyolas_L5 — The siphon of wood boring bivalve Xylopyolas sp. notable because of the protective plates at the end

Gastropod1 — A species of minute snail (<3mm) found on the wood falls

Xylophaga concava, a species of wood boring bivalve. With a shell unlike other clams the siphon is also much larger than the shell

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — The elegant damage done by wood-boring bivalves on a log

The benthic elevator sets on the back deck of the Western Flyer as we depart from Moss Landing

evildrm — Here I am shiving wood for science

poly3 — The golden setae (hairs) of this worm make it one of the more charismatic invertebrates from the wood falls

Me carefully picking invertebrates out of bored log

gastropod3 — My favorite snail from the wood falls because of its milky white color

Kurt Buck looks over my work as pick invertebrates from the log.

poly4 — This worm is the craziest looking organism that occurs on the wood falls

specimen1-L26 — Elephant trunk? Nope. Siphon from a wood-boring bivalve

Video frame grab — Tiny hydroids take up residence on the polypropylene rope on the wood fall

02_34_23_22 — The foreboding last minute before I collect this squat lobster with the suction sampler

05_02_19_01 — A squat lobster feeding on a wood fall

wood8 — A log seven years ago before being deployed to the deep-sea floor

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11 Replies to “Will My Wood Research Be Poplar?”

Hatake Sapuso says:

January 15, 2014 at 20:24

I oak you make it ;)
R(k) says:

January 16, 2014 at 01:27

Silly question born from genuine curiosity: in the absence of wood, what do those wood boring bivalves eat?
Aeolius says:

January 16, 2014 at 08:38

Oh, stop your birching…
Janet says:

January 16, 2014 at 14:56

You have blown my mind with the awesomeness of those pics. Any Siboglinids?
Dr. M says:

January 16, 2014 at 15:22

Nice!
Dr. M says:

January 16, 2014 at 15:24

Not a silly question at all. Once a wood fall arrives to the deep-sea floor larvae settle it on it. The organisms live their entire life until death on the wood fall. However, we really don’t know much about the life cycles of the animals or the cycle of the community itself.
Dr. M says:

January 16, 2014 at 15:26

As of right now we have not seen anything that is recognizable as Siboglinid on the wood falls, but we are still in the process of sorting all the animals and identifying everything.
Janet says:

January 16, 2014 at 15:28

I’m sure you’re kicking the aspen of that research.
Dr. M says:

January 16, 2014 at 15:30

Between the comment here and on Twitter I it wood be prudent for me to leave the puns behind.
Seamus says:

January 19, 2014 at 00:07

I just saw that Xylophaga concava in ¨Prometheus¨.
It wasn’t interested in wood though.
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Will My Wood Research Be Poplar?

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11 Replies to “Will My Wood Research Be Poplar?”