This morning, I woke up to light shooting straight into my eyes from the window next to where I was sleeping. At first, I was a little upset but that was until I realized it was the sunrise. The sun was starting to peek out from behind the horizon and it was a deep red color. It looked fantastic over the water. Then I saw that it was 5:30 a.m., and I quickly went back to sleep.
Our goal for today was to become comfortable collecting data in an ocean setting. So, a little bit after breakfast we had some practice on land. We visited a coral graveyard (don’t worry, there weren’t any ghosts) where we tried to find out the percentage of “live”(it was dead) coral covering the ground. We utilized some of the same strategies/techniques which we’ll be using in the water. While in the graveyard, I tried to find dried out starfish or urchin tests but I didn’t have any luck.
After lunch, we were able to put this practice to use when we actually got out into the water and conducted a survey. We surveyed an area of mostly seagrass as well as one which was a good mix of grass and algae. We looked at the percent coverage of grass and algae in the two areas, and it was a great way to get used to collecting data in the water. It was pretty awkward at first, but I’m sure it’ll become easier with time.
Measuring seagrass coverage
I didn’t see any echinoderms today, except I thought I saw a Tiger Tail Sea Cucumber when we swam over to a small reef after our survey exercise, but unfortunately I didn’t. Depending on the weather, we might be heading out to some patch reefs tomorrow, so I have a good feeling I’ll finally get to see some echinoderms. Fingers crossed!
Today was the first day we got to ride the boat to a patch reef. We went to one reef in a marine protected area and one reef outside of a reef protected area to compare the live coral cover between them.
Later, we got to spend around an hour wading next to the island to collect any organisms we saw. From my taxon, we saw two Sun Anemones (Stichodactyla helianthus) and a few Giant Caribbean Sea Anemones (Condylactic Gigantea).
Giant Caribbean Sea Anemone and Damselfish
Sun Anemone found in seagrass
There were two Damselfish that were swimming within the Giant Sea Anemone which is a common occurrence in Sea Anemones. Fish, shrimp, and crab sometimes live in association with this species by providing nutrients and protection for the anemone in return for protection from predators.
Today’s blog will be relatively brief as I have spent the whole day unconscious (sleeping—sleeping on the boat, sleeping in the van, sleeping on the airplane). We woke up at 5:00am just in time to watch the sun rise over the ocean. It was a beautiful way to end our time at Glover’s Reef—then we jetted off the island in a boat to escape the bugs once and for all.
The boat ride was relatively smoother returning to the mainland as we were not fighting the current, but there were still some rough patches that woke me up from my nap. Dolphins were spotted at some point?, but I missed them unfortunately. After a short van ride, we were at the Belize Airport, ready to head home. I bought some Belizean hot sauce for my friends and family. On the plane ride home, Aquaman was playing, and I’m pretty sure that (in that one scene where kid Aquaman is at the aquarium and controls a shark) there’s a Nassau grouper in the background—so exciting to see my taxon! Finally, in Houston, we parted ways with part of the group, and, at Rice, we said our goodbyes to the whole group. I’m staying at my cousin’s place for one more night, then heading home to Memphis tomorrow. I hope everyone has safe travels wherever you may be going! Thank you for a fantastic trip!
We spent the day working on a small research project comparing the community ecology structure of a mixed sea grass and algae region to a mostly seagrass region. It was a very tiring and at times frustrating experience because of different problems with equipment and getting used to swimming to the bottom to collect data.
At the end of collecting data I got to snorkel around a patch reef where I saw so many different fish, and coral. There are so many different organisms in the reef that I have no idea how to identify even into a broad group like I could often do in the rainforest because it is such a different environment to be in.
Giant Sea Anemone in the seagrass
I spent most of the day in a seagrass bed, so I did not see any anemones, zoanthids, or corallimorphs. Kaela showed me a picture of what looked like a greenish or yellowish sea anemone which was probably a Giant Caribbean Sea Anemone (Condylactisgigantea).
After a three-hour boat ride from Belize City, we made it to Glover’s Reef Research Station. The ocean is beautiful and blue. There are hermit crabs all along the trails. It is definitely much hotter than the rainforest.
We spent the rest of the day getting used to snorkeling by practicing in shallow waters. It was windy which made it hard to control myself and my mask kept getting fogged up. We also had to go through mangroves to get to a different part of the island and got swarmed by mosquitoes which was miserable.
Giant Caribbean Sea Anemone
I did not see any anemones, zoanthids, or corallimorphs, but Bella saw one in the seagrass and took a picture for me. It was hard to see in the picture, but the shape looked just like the Giant Caribbean Sea Anemone (Condylactis gigantea), and it had green tentacles with swollen tips.
We left Las Cuevas Station this morning. It was sad to leave, but all our feet hurt so much that we felt it was time to go to the reef. Our first stop of the day was the ATM caves which is a Maya archaeological site. After swimming and climbing through the cave we made it to a larger chamber where there was pottery and human skeletons.
In the evening, we got a tour of the Belize Zoo at night which is a good time to come because many of the animals are active during the night. My family is not going to believe that I held a Boa Constrictor, but I did hold one for around ten seconds. I also got to see a Tapir, Jaguar, Barn Owls, Pigmy Owls, Morelet’s Crocodile, Ocelot, and many others.
Tapir at the Belize zoo
I didn’t see any Orthoptera because we mostly spent the day in a dark cave, traveling, and at the Belize Zoo. Tomorrow I will start looking for my reef taxon which is the non-reef building anthozoans which includes anemones, corallimorphs, and zoanthids!
Today was our last day at Las Cuevas Research Station and we had a full day. We collected all the camera traps that we set up the first day. Later in the evening, we looked through the camera trap photos and the most exciting photo was of a Tapir!
We also excavated a young and old leafcutter ant nest and saw the chamber where they keep their fungi garden in the older nest. The ants bring the leaves to the fungi for it to digest to a form that the ants can eat. It was a little scary when the army ants came out of the nest and started surrounding our boots because they can cut through pants and draw blood.
It was a great day for spotting Orthoptera. I saw at least two katydids. Both mimicked brown leaves to avoid predation. I think one of them was the Dead leaf katydid (Orophus tesselatus) because it has a very similar shape and pattern of the wings to the picture on my ID card.
Leaf mimic katydid
Dead leaf katydid (Orophus tesselatus)
The last Orthoptera I saw was dead and had its antennae and legs eaten off which makes it harder to identify. The hind wings were like a bright red fan which made me think it was the Giant Red Winged Grasshopper (Tropidacris cristata) and not a katydid. It was also very large and had bumps on the pronotum which are characteristics of this grasshopper.
Today was the busiest day at Las Cuevas so far. In the morning, we compared the plant diversity of a region disturbed by a hurricane a few years ago to an undisturbed area.
In the afternoon, we collected data to see if young Cecropia trees that are not yet colonized by ants have tougher leaves than those that are colonized by ants to avoid herbivory. Cecropia and Azteca ants form a symbiotic relationship where the plant gives the ants a home and carbohydrate source, and the ants protects the Cecropia.
Giant Red Winged grasshopper nymphs.
The most interesting Orthoptera I saw was a large group of grasshopper nymphs in the morning. They looked like they were piled on top of each over and formed a ball when I first saw them. I think they were Giant red winged grasshopper nymphs (Tropidacris cristata) because of the yellow aposematic markings on one of them. I also saw a lot of crickets at night, one of which looked like the White-kneed king cricket (Penalva flavocalceata).
Today we left the Tropical Research Center and took a 3 hour boat ride to Middle Caye on Glover’s Reef. As soon as we got here, after an orientation and lunch, we got in the water (around 2pm). The problem: The water was a bit choppy. We could tell on the boat ride over. One of the crew said he’d seen worse, but it got pretty rough after we passed the barrier reefs (a good demonstration of the sheltering effect of reefs!). The boat ride was actually kind of fun in this weather, but snorkeling, not so much. I ended up breathing in some seawater in an area where I couldn’t stand because we just jumped right in. Fortunately we dove from the dock, so we weren’t far and one of the safety officers helped me and a few others get back to shore. In case you were wondering, and without too many details, breathing seawater is a bad idea. I was fine after recovering on shore for at least an hour.
Instead, we went to the shallow wade-able reef at the other side of the caye. We finally saw coral! Mustard Hill Coral (Porites astreoides) was on several of the clumps of coral we tried to avoid stepping on. We also saw several brain coral, which I think were all symmetrical brain coral (Pseudodiploria strigosa). There were several sea fans, though I’m not sure yet what kind. The most likely options are Venus sea fan (Gorgonia flabellum) or purple sea fan (Gorgonia ventalina). Most of these corals looked healthy. We tried not to kick sediment on top of the reef formation.
Shallow side of the island (Middle Caye)
We started a scavenger hunt which will be ongoing. Here, we found Christmas Tree Worms, Scleractinian (stony) corals, Gorgonian (soft corals), endosymbionts (corals) and several other items on the list.
Prepare yourself for a super long blog that I have been procrastinating posting because I’ve been thinking long and hard about this trip. I’ve written and re-written this so many times; the words just aren’t coming out right. There are things that I have to say, things that I want to say, and things that I can’t properly articulate for my life (don’t worry though, I’ll try). All that to say, good luck reading.
To start, I just spent two weeks in two of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet and that was pretty damn awesome. Foremost, it was hard not to notice just how much life was everywhere, and how the strategies competing organisms used were similar in the reef and rainforest. There’s definitely not enough space and not enough resources, and in both ecosystems competitors grow up and over each other to get a leg (or leaf, if you will) up. In the rainforest this meant super tall trees with lots of open underbrush, but in the reef this meant structures piling on top of one another in super dense growths that all blended into one another. Definitely the way things were growing had to do with how biodiverse the ecosystems were and how the individuals had to fend for themselves in a nutrient-poor environment. Also, the shapes of animals and plants stood out to me. There was a precarious balance of broad palms/algae/sea fans to try and maximize surface area for photosynthesis, narrow vines and branching corals to shoot between gaps and crevices to the top for light, intricate structures to try and prevent self-shading, and animals with long/narrow bodies for navigating the brush or the coral.
My favorite part has to be exploring the ATM cave (I did title that day the “BEST DAY EVER” after all). Mostly because after the cave I felt like myself for the first time on the trip. I was sore and tired and hungry but didn’t feel any of those things because I was so overwhelmed with joy. Ask anyone, I was literally bouncing up and down. I don’t think it was the things we saw (although the bats, pottery, and skeletons were cool) but more of the rush of climbing around, the comforting sense of trust and communication amongst my team, and the feeling of being in the river.
Weirdly enough my worst day was also in water, this time saltwater. The worst day was the first day at Middle Caye. We’d done a lot of travelling in the morning and I was nauseous, then we ran through the Mangroves of Death (and you know how I feel about bugs), and then we tried to wade around a patch reef, which to be honest was absolutely miserable. I was trying to stand still and take pictures of the corals but also look for specific things but also kept getting pushed around by currents…and dropped basically everything I was clunkily holding, then had to find it in the churned up sediments while it was getting pulled by currents and I was getting pulled by currents…I was frustrated and I felt awful and I may have cursed loudly and explicitly at the ocean. It wasn’t necessarily what we did, it was just feeling so physically and mentally incompetent (luckily things got way better and my faith in the pursuit of marine science was restored).
I’ve been telling people that this course differed from what I was expecting in ways that I didn’t expect…so what exactly does that mean? Hint: I myself am not quite sure, but I’ll try my best to explain. You might remember that my pre-departure post back in Houston two weeks ago didn’t seem too thrilled about going. I had just finished probably my most exhausting semester ever, but really it wasn’t finished because I was still doing assignments for this class and picking up shifts at work and not sleeping…and I expected to be an anxious, exhausted grump on this trip (with maybe also the optimistic expectation that my expectations would turn out to be wrong). I was exhausted and nervous, but the things that stood out to me were the little things that I didn’t have opinions about while I was doing them. Wearing the same pair of pants for six days in a row, not waking up to immediately check my email, and not having electricity or hot water all seemed normal. Maybe I expected to either have strong negative or strong positive feelings about everything, not to just be…content.
I miss Belize. I miss everything that I got used to. I miss waking up at 5am and feeling like I was doing something meaningful. I miss the schedule (I know it sounds weird, but I accidentally stayed up ‘til 1am last night because we have electricity and it just never got dark…and I wasn’t doing anything really). I miss the noise. I miss the birds in the morning, the howler monkeys, the frogs and bugs at night, the rain, the wind, and the waves. I miss sharing every waking moment with twelve other people who brought so much joy and excitement into my life.
As I sit here, drinking my morning (not instant) coffee with (not powdered) milk, I can’t help but think about how truly awful it is to try and capture something like this in words. The most meaningful things that I learned aren’t in words, but in feelings.
I learned that doing things because I’ll never have the chance to again stopped being the reason after the first time I said it. I got up for birding every day, climbed the bird tower, and hiked and snorkeled at night not because I’d kick myself if I didn’t, but because I wanted to. I learned that I may be a nervous wreck but not-so deep inside I do have a craving for adventure.
I also learned that I’m capable of a lot more than I give myself credit for. I had a panic attack in the middle of a hike and kept going, willingly threw my body to the bugs for science, climbed up slippery cave rock-walls, and headed straight into adventure when I couldn’t see what was in front of me. Maybe I could be a field biologist one day, because the things I thought were going to stop me are challenges that I now know I’m ready to face.
Lastly, I learned what I’m excited about. I’m excited about reptiles. Frankly, I want to hold every single snake (they’re big, friendly noodles I swear). I’m excited about boats. Yeah, I get motion sick and being nauseous for the first day or so sucks, but I love the rush of the wind and the ocean spray and being the first person to jump in the water. I’m excited about biodiversity, about finding things and counting things and discovering the mystery that’s out there. I’m excited about making graphs and figures and being able to tell the world what I’ve found. I’m excited about the little things being important. I’m excited…for a future that looks a lot like this.
So, in summation, every day I was sunburnt, exhausted, bug-bitten, nauseous, dirty, sore, anxious, and everything else I was worried about before leaving…but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat because this trip was the affirming, exciting, more-than-I-could-have-imagined, once in a lifetime experience that I hoped it would be when I applied. There aren’t words to express the genuine gratitude and appreciation I have for Dr. Solomon and Dr. Shore, all of the wonderful people who welcomed us to Belize, and all of my classmates for making this trip something I will never forget.
