Uni nigiri
After a year of working as a research diving assistant in the Hovel lab, I had the opportunity to pursue my own honors thesis project in the kelp forests off La Jolla, CA.
Kelp forests can exist in one of two states, either as a kelp forest (bottom left) or an urchin barren (bottom right). One hypothesized cause for urchin barrens is the lack of predators keeping urchins in check. It goes like this: predators eat urchins, urchins eat kelp, but without predators urchins eat all the kelp. Without kelp, there is no food or habitat structure for other organisms that live in kelp forests. Do the urchin predators we find in San Diego exert strong enough top-down control of urchins to prevent urchin barrens?
I worked with California spiny lobsters (Panulirus interruptus, bottom left) and California sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher, bottom right), which are both known to consume urchins. I wanted to know if spiny lobsters and sheephead increased their feeding rates with an increase in urchin densities, thereby controlling urchin abundance.
I conducted the experiment in the La Jolla Ecological Reserve in La Jolla, CA. Sheephead swim around during the day, and spiny lobsters walk around at night, which meant that I was awake (or asleep, depending on who you ask) during all hours. With help from my lab, we constructed Urchin Housing Units aka UHUs (pronounced “ooo-hooos”) to provide artificial habitat for urchins during the experiment and camera stands named “Mars Lander” and “The Beast”. This was years before GoPro was on the market. In my undergrad years, I had to use handheld video cameras, big underwater housing, and a lot of cement.
I managed to record interesting footage during the day, but due to issues with the camera and lighting I managed to capture one photo at night.
In addition to the fieldwork, I also constructed an Individual Based Model using NetLogo. It was kind of like making my own video game.
You can read the results of the experiment in Marine Biology Nichols et al. 2012.
I’m forever grateful to Dr. Kevin Hovel, our lab, and other graduate students in the SDSU Ecology Program, and Constance Gramlich for all their support during my undergraduate and beyond. Shout out to Ryan Jenkinson for taking me out to the Channel Islands and showing me how to eat fresh uni like a sea otter.
Recipe
Ingredients
fresh uni
3 C short grain rice
3 1/2 C water
1/2 C rice vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
Directions
1. Rinse rice until water runs clear.
2. Add rice and water to rice cooker and press "cook". Alternatively, add rice and water to a pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer for 15 min. Turn off heat and let rice rest for 10 min until all the liquid is dissolved and the rice is cooked.
3. Combine rice vinegar, sugar, and salt.
4. Transfer rice to a casserole dish (avoid any metal) using a plastic rice scooper or a wooden spoon.
5. Sprinkle half the rice vinegar mixture over the rice. Mix rice and add more seasoning to taste. You'll want to fan the rice until it stops steaming.
6. Wet hands and scoop out a small portion of rice. Form rice into retagular-ish pieces.
7. *optional* take strip of nori, moisten, and wrap around rice clump. There should be a little bit of space between the top of the nori and the top of the rice. This will hold the uni.
8. Place uni on rice and enjoy!
fresh uni
3 C short grain rice
3 1/2 C water
1/2 C rice vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
Directions
1. Rinse rice until water runs clear.
2. Add rice and water to rice cooker and press "cook". Alternatively, add rice and water to a pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer for 15 min. Turn off heat and let rice rest for 10 min until all the liquid is dissolved and the rice is cooked.
3. Combine rice vinegar, sugar, and salt.
4. Transfer rice to a casserole dish (avoid any metal) using a plastic rice scooper or a wooden spoon.
5. Sprinkle half the rice vinegar mixture over the rice. Mix rice and add more seasoning to taste. You'll want to fan the rice until it stops steaming.
6. Wet hands and scoop out a small portion of rice. Form rice into retagular-ish pieces.
7. *optional* take strip of nori, moisten, and wrap around rice clump. There should be a little bit of space between the top of the nori and the top of the rice. This will hold the uni.
8. Place uni on rice and enjoy!