Tag Archives: Corallimorphs

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Day 11: Not the Three Reef or the Five Reef but a Journey to the Fore Reef

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I woke up at 6 this morning and worked on my blog post from yesterday before having a great breakfast of fryjacks and mango jam. This mango jam is actually my favorite thing on the island. We went to the lecture hall where Lindolfo gave us a great presentation about the marine protected areas and what the officers here do to take care of the reefs in the area. After that, we geared up for our first snorkeling excursion of the day.

We took the boat out onto the fore reef near Long Caye and dove into the deepest water we’ve been in yet. The currents here were pretty strong, which made it hard to swim a little but the view underneath the waves was worth it. We also took some great photos of each other under the water here. We saw a southern stingray on the benthos right before coming back into the boat to go to another spot on the forereef, where we saw parrotfish, fire coral, and other organisms that I had a little trouble seeing in the water without my glasses. Everyone started getting pretty queasy after this though so we got back into the boat and headed back for lunch.

A Slightly Blurry Ringed Anemone

After a great lunch, we all took a communal nap by the hammocks before getting ready again to go urchin collecting. We decided to use the sea urchins as a measure of the health of the MPA vs non-MPA zones so we headed out in a boat to the MPA zone from yesterday to collect first. Collecting the urchins was hard since they were spiny and stuck to the rocks but we managed to round up 74 in total, including a West Indian Egg and a Diadema. We headed to the non-MPA zone to do the same thing, this time collecting a ton of huge diadema and 76 urchins in total. After we caught them, we measured them and released them back into the ocean.

After coming back and showering, we had dinner and headed into lectures, where Ceyda talked about herbivorous fish, Elena talked about piscivorous fish, and Andressa talked about Marine Debris. Afterwards, it was off to the races for the Dermit Crab Races!

THE DERMIT CRAB RACES

We went around the island to find our chosen steeds, with everyone getting a hermit crab except Sam and Elena who raced with Caribbean Blue Crabs. We made two lines in the sand and put coconut on one end to entice them. The Caribbean Blue Crabs were fast but ran off the track, which left the spot open for my large hermit boy, Alejandro, to steal the spotlight and win the races. My crab won and everyone else’s was trash. Afterward, we all watched the storm roll in and worked on our blogs and notebooks.

Corallmorphs, Zoanthids, and Anemones seen:

A Giant Caribbean anemone seen in the MPA zone, at about 3 ft in depth on the side of a rocky outcropping. The tentacles were the purple morph and was about 20 cm in length.

A Ringed Anemone hiding under a conch shell in the MPA zone at about 3 ft in depth. I couldn’t see the base, only the tentacles that curled up out of the side of the shell.

2 sun anemones in the non-MPA zone, both fairly close to each other on the side of a rock, about 1 ft from the surface. One fan coral close by but nothing else around them.

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Day 10: A True Texan Rodeo Where We Coral Up Some Data

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I woke up at around 6 to finish up blogs before eating breakfast with the rest of the gang at 7, where we had the sweetest pineapple I’ve ever had. We got a chance to use our quadrat for the first time by doing a little mock experiment by counting the leaf litter on the Beck Interpretive Trail. We changed and jumped in the water to try the same methodology using worm mounds in the sea grass bed, where I may or may not have lost my clipboard which Elena promptly found.

We had a little break after this so we headed to the observation tower to see the island and walked around the trails before a delicious lunch. We took a stop to the dead coral graveyard and got to see some great examples of the corals we would be seeing in real life just a little later. We changed back into our gear before heading our on the boat for out first dive outside Middle Caye.

We sailed about 15 minutes into the MPA (marine protected area) zone where we decided to use our quadrats to measure the percentage of the benthos in MPA vs non-MPA areas that were covered in live coral. We used the transect and quadrat to measure our small plots of reef over 100ft. We finished pretty fast so we got to explore the reef and look at sea urchins that scattered the rocks everywhere. I might have then lost our quadrat but Sam and Rose found it so our team slogan of Will Rice Will Lose Stuff seems apt.

We went a little farther out into the non-MPA zone to repeat the procedure. This area was a little deeper so we had to dive to retrieve our equipment. Elena and I finished pretty quickly again so we spent some time looking around, where we got to see a spotted moray eel.

We headed back to the main island where I quickly took a shower before dinner. We got to drink from some fresh coconuts here, which came at the exact right time. We had dinner and had some down time where we worked on our notebooks and blogs and enjoyed the wind and lightning from the coming storm. We headed inside for lectures from Chloe (soft coral), Andressa (green algae) and Ceyda( the future of coral reefs). Everyone was falling asleep hard during this so we all stood up a little and Elena, uninvited, slapped me with a Clif Bar. After lectures ended, we stayed in the classroom and finished up our blogs and notebooks for the day.

CZA found: giant Caribbean anemone in the MPA zone in a very shallow region (about 2 ft), surrounded by soft coral and growing on rock.

Sun anemone in non MPA zone- it was a little hard to be sure that I saw this one because it was far away but it was in a rock cropping surrounded by hard coral in a shady edge of a reef.

Both of these were expected, though I did expect to see more of both types in the reefs

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Day 9: Glover’s? I Barely Know Her!!

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We all work up around 5:40ish before packing up our things to say bye to land for a while. We ate breakfast in the dining room of the TEC and loaded up our things into the van where Eduardo helped up. We drove into Belize City, which looked completely different from the first time we’d seen it. We passed through the neighborhoods and shopping centers of the city before arriving at the marina where we met our captain and water safety officers, Javier and Rose. We loaded up the boat and started the sail to Glover’s.

One of the coolest part of this sail was watching the water change into every shade of blue as we went farther away from the mainland. We sailed for about 3 hours through the water and enjoyed watching the islands and mangroves pass by. The view was tranquil and a huge change from our previous views in the rainforest. We got the chance to talk to Rose, which was really cool because she has one of the coolest jobs.

Goodbye civilization!
The Patch Coral right off the dock

The water turned a beautiful vibrant turquoise as we entered the lagoon. We drove slowly over the water and could see the sand at the bottom clearly. We docked on the island and unloaded our stuff before getting to see the island. We had a great lunch and got to see our rooms before snorkeling out for the first time. We put on all our dive gear and paired up for our dive teams (I somehow got stuck with Elena I’m about to die in the ocean). We immediately almost stepped on a stingray, so we did great. We went out around the sea grass and a shallow reef to try on our gear, which was a lot of fun.

We got out of the water, showered, and ate a really great dinner with upside down pineapple cake. We went for our first rounds of lectures here with Veronica doing echinoderms and the microbial processes of coral reefs and Kristen doing hard corals. Afterwards, we made our quadrant Bichael using the pvc pipes and string so that we could use it for data collection tomorrow. Afterwards, we all spent time working on our notebooks before turning in.

Corallimorphs, Zoanthids, and Anemones seen today:

It was hard to tell them apart in the reef but I definitely saw a giant Caribbean Corallimorph about 200 ft from the dock in the reefs around the island, surrounded by hard coral. This was pretty expected as this depth is in its range.

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Day 8: We Help The Mayan’s Withdraw Funds: ATM Cave

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We woke up at our earliest time so far at 4:40, but I think I’ve lost all track of time here so it didn’t feel that early. I finished up packing and we all enjoyed our last home-cooked meal of the Chiquibuil. We loaded up into the van and waved goodbye to our temporary home.

We drove through the mountain pine ridge, stopped for snacks at a convenience store, and headed to ATM. ATM was cold, rocky, and amazing. The stone structures were mind-blowing and the remains were spooky and fascinating. Even the pots held so much history and meaning. Even the poor skull with a giant gash in it added to the ambiance; it made it more hole-y. We exited the cave and trudged back to the carpark where we ate lunch before heading to TEC. This car ride was interesting, to say the least.

We arrived at TEC an hour later and got into our rooms. The electricity and hot water were hot commodities. It’s weird to be excited about things that I have at home every day but I was.

Master Oogway and Mistress Viper-Kung Fu Panda (2008)

We played cards for a little while and ate a quick dinner. We hopped in a pickup truck and traveled to the zoo, where we started our night visit by holding a python. We saw a pygmy owl, a barn owl, jaguars, coatimundis, margays, tapirs, pumas and more. The night visit was really cool to see the nocturnal animals and hear about the zoo’s message. We headed back and worked on our notebooks and blogs in the dining room before heading in for the night to get ready for Glover’s tomorrow.No spiders or corallimorphs, zoanthids, or anemones seen today

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Reflections on Belize

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The coral reef and the rainforest are both incredible places for biodiversity. Even though the reef is dominated by animals and the forest dominated by plants, both have fundamental living structures that provide the basis for life. Both are nutrient-poor environments, but between trees and corals both environments have living things that host other organisms. Corals build up space in the ocean where other organisms can live, and tree canopies in the forest host birds, arthropods, and many others. These spaces also provide the basis for many trophic levels, which is why they contribute so much to biodiversity.

In terms of what I observed, I have found that the rainforest had much less open space than the reefs. In the water we saw patch reefs, which were dense clusters of high diversity interspersed with more or less barren sand, but the rainforest was packed everywhere except for the man-made trails. In both cases, it was hard or rare to spot a lot of megafauna, but both places were teeming with life in any case.

Three things that I learned from this trip are that there is hope for the environment, field research is hard but rewarding, and that the rainforest is less grueling than I thought. Both Glover’s and the Chiquibul have faced threats to their health, and still do, but when left to recover it seems like the power of nature to right itself after damaging influences have negatively impacted the environment. In both locations, the group was faced with difficult questions of how to answer research questions that took us hours at times. Processing data was also very difficult, but seeing our posters completed at the end was always a good feeling. Finally, the rainforest had fewer biting insects than I thought it would, although it definitely had a fair amount. It was not as hot as I thought, either.

This course definitely met and then exceeded my expectations. We did a lot of experiential learning and exploring pristine natural environments like I expected, but I was blown away by the tranquility and biodiversity of these places. I also got a good dose of Belizean culture and hot sauce, which was a pleasant surprise. One of my favorite parts of the course was exploring both environments and seeing new critters, especially when one of them was from one of my taxonomic groups and I could then identify it for everyone. Our group was also a lot of fun and it seemed like we were always laughing together and enjoying each other’s company. The only bad part of this trip I can think of was the bug bites and sea urchin wounds, but even those are part of the greater story of an amazing trip.

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Belize Bound

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After taking my first malaria pill and finally finishing up all my assignments, it’s beginning to finally hit me that tomorrow is the day we take off for Belize. I’m lucky enough to say that I have traveled to Belize and other parts of the Americas before, but I don’t think those trips will compare to this one. Having access to some of the most pristine habitats that can only be accessed by special groups such as ours is a privilege that I can’t wait to seize. I am especially excited for Glover’s Reef. I have always been enamored by marine life, and I take any chance I can get to dive or snorkel.

With that being said, I know this trip will not be all fun and games and that I’ll have to wake up early, take good notes in my field notebook, and write these blogs every day. Our preparations of making taxon sheets, doing readings on the environments we will encounter, making power points, and searching for gear have made it clear that this will be a fast-paced trip, but one that will also teach me a lot. I hope that the trip will give me a good idea of what it is like to be a field biologist, something that has always been alluring to me but that I don’t have firsthand experience doing. I don’t find myself too nervous about anything we will encounter except for the large amount of insect bites that I already know I will have to endure.

I do have a lot of experience traveling, especially in the last year or so, but seeing a new place never seems any less appealing to me; in fact, the more I travel, the more I want to see, and the more I want to have different experiences. I am most excited this trip because research is the focal task, unlike any trip I have ever taken before. Rather than traveling primarily to observe, I am now traveling with the primary purpose of actively interacting with my environment.

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Wrap up

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One week in the Rainforest. One week on the coral reef. As different as the two ecosystems sound, in a lot of ways they are similar. Both are hotspots for biological diversity, driven by diverse geography and topographical features which create countless niches to be filled. The niches are filled in fact by huge ranges of organisms that have adapted to suit their microenvironments. For example in both the rainforest and in coral reefs, light penetration plays a role in determining the organisms that will survive and thrive in different locations. High light-need species reach the heights of the canopy in the rainforest; they reside in shallow waters on the reef. Other factors include resilience in inclement weather, particularly in countries like Belize. Belize is affected by tropical weather systems such as hurricanes, which may reshape the ecosystems and the organisms that are not sheltered must be able to survive the effects. This is true in both the forest and the reef, as exposed species in either are at risk.

Another similarity I have noticed is the apparent paradox of high biological diversity in spite of nutrient poor environments. Both reefs and forests support incredible richness and abundance of life. In nutrient poor environments this is made possible by the efficient cycling of the nutrients that are present. In fact, the ecosystems themselves are in a way nutrient rich, in that the nutrients are usually actively being used by the occupants.

This course was what I expected, but better. I had expected to find a bit of direction and to maybe make some friends. I have found such reassurance in this course: reassurance of wanting to pursue biology and perhaps marine biology in particular. And the group of people on this trip are each individually important in creating the amazing group dynamic we had. This also includes the instructors, who are passionate about the material and make me feel passionate about it as well.

My favorite part of this trip was snorkeling the fore reef. I remember letting myself bob in the waves and then someone pointed down. There was a huge spotted eagle ray swimming right below us. Seeing something like that in its natural environment was incredible. My least favorite part of this trip was the itching. Between chigger, tick, sand fly, and mosquito bites, there are more bites on me than I can count. Incidentally I apparently also have a fairly strong reaction to most of those bites. I have never before woken up in the middle of the night due to itching so badly.

Things I have learned:

  1. Sometimes it is easiest to believe that there is a simple right and wrong, but that’s hardly ever the case. This trip reminded me of that. It would be nice to say that all poaching is inexcusable and conservation should be the easy answer. That, however, is not the world we live in. Hearing more about conflicts between Guatemala and Belize have reminded me of that. I’m going to try very hard not to forget it.
  2. I know that in pursuing science, sometimes the answers we end up with are not the ones we want to hear. I will not always be correct. In fact, most of the time I will probably be wrong.
  3. There are a lot of things worth trying to save in this world. I cannot save all of them. I am not in control. So I am going to try and save a small piece of it.
  4. [Bonus] Ocelots/jaguars/a-lot-of-animals sound really wierd

Thank you.

 

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Day 15: On my way home

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Today we made our way back to Houston- not too quickly though, of course. Who would want to leave the beach? I am however okay with taking a break from the sand flies.

This morning we packed the boat up again and took off. First stop was Carrie Bow Caye, home of a Smithsonian institute research station. We got to take a tour of the facilities on the very small island. In fact the island is shrinking due to rises in sea level and is now about the size of half an acre. It was a functional lab in the field biology sense: a wet lab, dry lab, library, and boats for use. I’d definitely want the chance to research here.

The next stop was at Twin Caye, an island split in two and covered with mangrove ecosystem. We tromped through the mangroves and then took to the water to snorkel one last time. I did not see any anemones, zoanthids or corallimorphs, but in fact I didn’t see much at all. Being in the mangroves, there was a lot of loose sediment that made the water fairy murky. I did see upside down jelly fish(Cassiopea…), a cushion sea star, and a lot of juvenile fish.

Another short boat ride and we were back in Belize City to eat lunch and head to the airport. Officially over when we reached Rice University, EBIO 319 is complete.

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Day 14: It’s the final countdown

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Today was a very busy day. This morning we went out to the back reef again, this time while collecting algae and other things that were safe to bring back to the wet lab. I saw my same anemones I have been seeing (Giant Caribbean and Sun anemones). I did see something that was sort of new though. I think I saw a purple morph of the giant Caribbean anemone. We ended up collecting a sea cucumber, razor clam, crabs, so much red, green, and brown algae, and egg pods that hatched into hundreds of baby shrimp after we collected them.

The other happen stance with my groups today was that a student accidentally put her hand down on an anemone and it stung her pretty decently. Luckily, no one got stung by the box jelly fish (Carybdea alota) that were found today.

We also dissected the lionfish (Pterois volitans) that had been caught previously. The lionfish I worked on was a mature male who had recently consumed a 4-5 cm fish. It had begun to digest, but we could tell that the fish had had yellow scales.

After some relaxation, we will still need to pack up and prepare for tomorrow. We may be getting back tomorrow, but we are not done yet.

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Day 13: Clean up time

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In the morning, we did a mini beach clean-up…and analyzed the trash of course. In an hour of clean-up, we collected over 90 lbs. of marine debris (trash). By mass there was by far the most plastic. I hadn’t been expecting the incredible amount of Styrofoam that washes up on the beach. There were some pretty crazy items also like a melted my little pony, a Barbie leg, a toy soldier, and a bunch of shoes. The craziest part is that beach is cleaned up a bit every week and we hardly made a dent in all of the trash there.

We went to another section of back reef to measure corals again. I did see a corkscrew anemone again. I didn’t see any other of my taxa today.

And then… we did a night snorkel. It was pretty short but I could tell everything is so different on the reef at night. It’s thrilling and a little nerve wracking. You can only see in your beam of flashlight and everyone kicks each other in the face. It is a whole other world, where you get to see the creatures you wouldn’t see otherwise (slipper lobster, squid, tiger-tail sea cucumber. All I wish is that I would have had a brighter flashlight to see even more.