Tag Archives: herbivorous fish

An Un-Belize-able Experience

Hey guys! It’s Michiel, and this will be my last blog post !!

My experience in Belize was life-changing; it was an adventure that I’ll never forget.  I remember expecting that this class would push my boundaries, and it certainly did! I’ve always been used to working in sterile, organized labs, and working out in the field was nothing like that. I would have never reached my hands into coral crevices to try to get a sea urchin or pick up random arthropods I found in the jungle before this class. I also expected that each day would be a great workout, and it definitely was. The physical exertion required by this class was tiring, but it made me more proud of what I was doing.

It also opened my eyes to the diversity held in both coral reefs and the tropical rainforest and showed me similarities between the two ecosystems I would’ve never noticed without this class. One of the most important similarities I noticed is the importance of destruction in the ecosystems. When plants die and fall to the forest floor, the decaying organic matter adds nutrients to the soil, which are quickly taken up by surrounding plant life. It is also a source of energy for detritivores. Thus, the decaying plant contributes to both nutrient cycling and the food chain. Similarly, the erosion of coral by waves contributes to its ecosystem, but in a different way. As the coral is eroded, it becomes sand particles that contribute to the sediment in the reef. Adding sediment creates new space for coral to colonize, which allows the reef to grow larger. It also stabilizes already growing coral. The way these habitats handle destruction contributes to the biodiversity of these places because a variety of organisms take up and use nutrients deposited by decaying organic matter in a variety of ways in the jungle and coral growth through additional sediment allows for other marine species to inhabit the area the coral colonized. However, human involvement has taken this destruction to an extreme that is unsustainable. The felling of trees for logging doesn’t allow the soil and surrounding organisms to take up the nutrients and energy from the tree, and the weakening of corals by climate change creates so much sediment that it buries live corals, obstructing their access to sunlight.

While I was in Belize, I was also able to observe a staggering amount of symbioses. In the jungle, leaf cutter ants (Atta spp.) cultivate fungus gardens by collecting leaves for it to feed on, and once the fungus is grown, it is eaten by the ants. Another example of a symbiotic relationship is between the acacia ant (Pseudomyrmex ferruginea) and the bullhorn acacia tree (Vachellia cornigera). The tree provides a home and food for the ant by allowing it to live within the thorns of the tree and giving it nectar to feed on. In return, the acacia ants are fierce defenders of their home. In the reefs, symbiodinium algae lives within coral, providing it nutrients it synthesizes through photosynthesis. In return, corals give the algae nutrients it can’t synthesize and a safe place to live. Symbioses like this allow various species to coexist in the same ecosystem, contributing to the habitats’ biodiversity. 

A difference I noticed between the two ecosystems, were their dependence on wind and waves, where the jungle depended a lot less on the wind than the reef depended on the waves. Yes, plants in the jungle rely on the wind for pollination and seed dispersal, but many plants have evolved in ways that make them rely on pollinating species, rather than the wind, and they have come up with ways to disperse their seeds that don’t require wind, like through animals. However, the reef has mass spawning events where gametes are released into the ocean and the current pushes gametes together as well as dispersing fertilized eggs to new areas of the reef. Additionally, wave activity can limit where reefs can grow, because too much wave activity will destroy coral at a faster rate than it can be produced, but too little wave activity will limit the spread of nutrients throughout the reef.

Other than analyzing the similarities and differences between coral reefs and rainforests, and observing herbivorous fish and mammals, we also had some very memorable experiences. I absolutely loved hiking through the jungle and swimming through the reef, listening to my peers get excited as they talked about their assigned taxa or topic for their lecture, and the camaraderie developed between everyone on the trip. I also loved looking through the reef for sea urchins; I thought that was one of the most fun and interesting activities I’ve ever done. However, taking freezing cold showers at Las Cuevas and wearing the same dirty clothes every day was definitely not fun.

Now that this class is over, it has left me with some lessons that I won’t soon forget: drastic climate change is changing both rainforest and coral reef ecosystems that are making it inhospitable for many organisms, there is a balance between destruction and growth in both environments that is vital for its success, and termites taste like carrots.

I loved this trip! I’m so thankful to my professors and peers that made it as enjoyable as it was. I’ll miss Belize for years to come, and I’ll be eternally grateful for the opportunity it gave me to explore a new area in biology. Here are some final pictures of my new-found friends and I on the trip!

Last Day on the Reef!

Hey y’all! It’s Michiel again : )

I’m sure you guys already know that the day started with everyone waking up and getting breakfast by 7. After waking up this morning and getting breakfast, everyone quickly put on their snorkel gear, got their transects, quadrats, and clipboards, and boarded the boat to go out to a non-MPA reef. There, we collected data for the research question I talked about on June 11. The reef was a pretty good depth, not to shallow or too deep, but it had a lot of fire sponge and fire coral. Thankfully, I managed not to touch any while I was there. It also had a lot of dead coral and there were very few fish. I remember seeing two Cocoa Damselfish (Stegastes variabilis), but I can’t remember seeing any other fish I could identify. After, Ava and I laid out our transect and counted alive and dead coral in our quadrat, the entire class began collecting sea urchins for 10 minutes. This place was full of sea urchins; I ended up getting 11, but some people were able to find a lot more. We ended up with 177 sea urchins after only 10 minutes.

After this reef, we went to a much nicer, deeper reef where the class had a chance to snorkel without the pressure of collecting any data. This was our last time to snorkel on the trip, and I’m really happy with the reef they ended up taking us too. The coral in the area was beautiful, and I saw so many fish. In terms of herbivorous fish, I saw a bunch of Cocoa Damselfish (S. variabilis), some really large Sergeant Majors (Abudefduf saxatilis) – they were about 20 cm – Threespot Damselfish (S. planifrons), and Bicolor Damselfish (S. partitus). I also saw a Blue Tang (Acanthurus coeruleus) and a male Bluelip Parrotfish (Cryptotomus roseus), both of which I followed for a while to get a good picture. I got some fine-ish pictures of the Blue Tang, but I couldn’t get any good ones of the parrotfish because the parrotfish kept going all over the reef, moving through coral so fast that I could barely keep up with it. All of these fish were really hard to get pictures of because they tend to hide within the coral whenever you approach them.

Huge Abudefduf saxatilis

After we left that reef, we compiled all of the data we’ve collected over the past couple of days. We were able to conclude that there is a correlation between a high percentage of live coral coverage and less sea urchins. However, we didn’t see any correlation between the amount of urchins and whether we were collected at an MPA or a non-MPA. We think this may be due to our ability in collecting sea urchins improving as we went from reef to reef. This would explain why we collected so few sea urchins from the first non-MPA site we went to, which probably skewed our results. After determining all of this, we put all of our information on a poster and presented our project to Scott and Adrienne.

Later in the day (after lectures and dinner) we dissected lionfish. My group was given a really tiny lionfish, which was challenging, but my confidence in my dexterity skills skyrocketed after I saw how well I did on the dissection. The most interesting part of the dissection was opening its stomach to examine its content. We were able to see some invertebrate organism within it that measured about 2.1 cm. After dissecting the fish, Scott took them, fileted them, and made ceviche. The ceviche was delicious, and we were all happy that we were simultaneously having a wonderful snack and contributing to the betterment of our marine environment.

After the ceviche, we worked on our assignments and got ready for bed. This was the last day of the reef! I’m sad it’s over – I had so much fun snorkeling – but I’m excited for everything I’m going to learn in the rainforest.

The best photo of the blue tang I could take : (
A photo Sophia took of the blue tang!

Trash Day!

Hey y’all! It’s Michiel again : )

I woke up this morning after nearly freezing to death last night. It wasn’t actually cold (I mean, how cold could it get in the tropics?), but my bed is right by the window and the wind kept blowing into my sheet, and I couldn’t figure out how to close the window, so that was fun. It wasn’t that bad, though, I’m definitely being dramatic. After waking up, I met everyone for breakfast, and they make the most amazing pancakes here; I was so happy when I saw them waiting for us.

After breakfast, we went to the forereef. The waves were pretty strong today, so I started getting a headache on the boat and it kept getting worse as I was in the water, but it was definitely worth it because the area of the reef we saw was so amazing. We saw spur and groove formation, a swarm of ctenophores,  and a sea turtle lying in the sand! This area was also way deeper than any area we had been to before (about 70 feet) and there was a reef drop right next to it which dropped for hundreds of feet, so we really got to test our breath-holding abilities. One of the experienced divers actually went down about 100 feet! While we were there, we saw a school of fish, but I could not get close enough to figure out what they were. They were mostly blue and larger than a damselfish or a surgeonfish, so they may have been a parrotfish, but they may have also been something entirely different. Parrotfish and other types of herbivorous fish are known to travel in schools, so it isn’t unruly to guess that these may have been parrotfish, but, again, they were so deep that I couldn’t get a very good look. It may not have been an herbivorous fish at all. If it wasn’t, then I didn’t get to see any herbivorous fish today because we were too far from the reef to see that many.

Unknown fish (possibly herbivorous)

After leaving the forereef, we had a little break, then watched some lectures and had lunch. After lunch, we started coming up with a research question that would involve a beach clean-up. We ended up with “What percent, by mass, of the trash on Middle Caye needs to be disposed of off island? What area is the most efficient for collecting trash?” We hypothesized that over 50% of the trash would need to be moved off island for disposal and that the coral graveyard would be the most efficient area for trash pick-up. To collect data, Ava, Michael, Maggy, Adrian, and I went out to the bunks to collect trash for a total time (between all people) of one hour. Different groups did this at different locations around the island. Back at the wet lab, we weighed everyone’s trash bags, separated burnable trash from non-burnable trash, and weighed the non-burnable trash. With our data, we discovered that only 11.43% of the trash here needs to be removed from the island because they actually burn the plastic here, so they only remove the metal and glass. We also found out that the most efficient area for trash pick-up was the area behind the kitchen because the people there collected 16.41 kg of trash per person-hour. We believe that the reason the most efficient area wasn’t the coral graveyard was because the coral graveyard’s trash was more spread-out and it was much smaller, so it didn’t contribute as much in terms of mass. Hopefully this data can be helpful to the Belize Fisheries Department because they have plans to do more beach clean-ups on Middle Caye!

After presenting our project to our professors, we had another lecture then dinner. Right before dinner, though, Nate set a shell down in front of a hermit crab, and we saw it change from it’s previous shell to that one! It was so gross. Anyway, we stayed in the dining room until it closed because we were all talking, and then Ruth (a marine safety officer) joined us and told us about the clothes she makes and the history of Belize. She taught us a lot, and she’s been a super important part of our stay here on the reef, so we couldn’t be more thankful to have her.

After dinner, we were going to go on a night snorkel, but the weather picked up and we decided that it wouldn’t be safe to go. The group just ended up working on our blogs and field notebooks before going to bed.

Overall, today was a great day! Here’s a group picture of us washing our hands after we finished handling all the trash, a picture of Sophia, Elena, and I as we were working on our poster for our trash presentation, and a picture of an iguana.

Fire and Burns

Hey guys! It’s Michiel again : )

We started this morning with breakfast (big surprise) before going out to collect more data for the research question we started on yesterday. The first reef we went to was in the Marine Protected Area, and it was deeper than the reef we went to yesterday. It also had a lot of sea grass, algae, and dead coral. Ava and I laid out our transects and quadrats and counted a lot of coral all over the reef. While we were doing this, Ava took a picture of me counting squares in my quadrat, and I’m sharing it here (once again, thank you Ava)! After collecting this data, we were sent out to collect sea urchins. I found a lot in coral crevices, but these were really difficult to pull off of the coral. However, that did not deter me from trying. I ended up getting two sea urchins, but as I tried to get another one, the crevice my hand was in had fire coral. Thankfully, only my pinky brushed up against it, but I definitely had a burning sensation there for about an hour. It was worth it, though, because we ended up collecting 52 sea urchins! Additionally, I believe I saw a male Bluelip Parrotfish (Cryptotomus roseus), and I definitely saw more Ocean Surgeonfish (Acanthurus bahianus) and Blue Chromis (Chromis cyanea). Scott also took a video with a damselfish in it that kept making its signature popping sound to show aggression. Damselfish are aggressive toward other fish that come near their algal gardens because they don’t want those fish to eat the algae they’ve worked so hard to cultivate.

Chromis cyanea

After this, we went to another reef in the Marine Protected Area. This reef was much shallower than the other one; it was about as shallow as the reef we went to yesterday. We did manage to collect our data better in this reef than the one from yesterday, though, because the waves were not nearly as strong as yesterday’s. However, Ava and I were very scared we would touch some fire sponge because it was absolutely all over the reef and we were swimming only inches above it. After collecting our data, we were out on the hunt for sea urchins once again. I collected two sea urchins again, but I learned my mistake from last time and only tried to collect them from beneath coral rubble instead of from inside coral crevices. In total, we collected 56 sea urchins from this area!

On our way back to the island, I noticed that I got a sunburn on my hands, so I’m really excited for the tan I’m about to get that starts at my fingers and ends at my wrists. On the island, we had lunch and were given the option to participate in an optional snorkel activity. I opted out of the activity because I was so drained from this morning, but I spent the afternoon working on my field notebook, messaging some friends, and reading my book. I’m very glad I chose to rest.

At the end of the break, we had dinner, were given presentations on the Belize Fisheries Department and the Belize Coast Guard. Overall, today began with lots of work and ended with a well-deserved break. I’m excited to go out onto the reef again tomorrow to collect more data and see more fish!

See y’all next time!

So Many Fish!

Hey guys! It’s Michiel again; I’m sure you all missed me : )

This morning started the same as every other morning here. I woke up, got ready, and joined the others for breakfast in the dining hall by 7. After breakfast, everyone in the class put on their snorkeling gear and went out into a new area of the water that’s behind the dining hall. It was full of sea grass and very shallow, but our goal was to find as many interesting species as we could and put them in a bucket. Some notable finds were a lobster, Diadema antillarum (a sea urchin with an interesting history), a sea anemone, and several crabs. In regards to herbivorous fish, though, we caught a Cocoa Damselfish (Stegastes variabilis), and a Bicolor Damselfish (Stegastes partitus). These fish are actually very territorial, so we saw them chasing and trying to bite one another in the bag. Once we laid out all of the species we caught in the wet lab, every person presented on the species caught within their taxa. We passed around lots of algae and talked a lot about different corals; it was so much fun!

After this, we took a break for lunch before going out on a boat in our snorkeling gear to work on a new research question we had come up with earlier in the day. We are trying to identify the correlation between sea urchin prevalence in a reef and the percentage of dead coral in the reef, and we want to see how this changes between Marine Protected Areas and other areas. We went to a reef that wasn’t in an MPA and tried to measure the percentage of dead coral in the area we were looking at using transects and quadrats. However, the waves were really strong and the reef was shallow, so Ava and I kept getting pushed into coral. After collecting this set of data, everyone collected sea urchins for 10 minutes, and we actually found 18 of them!

With our urchins and data collected, we left this reef and went to a new reef that was in an MPA. However, since the wave conditions were so harsh, we just snorkeled instead of collecting data. This reef was really nice. It had a bunch of fish diversity. I had a lot of people coming up to me asking about fish they saw (they mostly saw Yellowtail Damselfish and Blue Tangs). Unfortunately, I saw neither of these, but I did see a Blue Chromis (Chromis cyanea), which is beautiful, and some Threespot Damselfish (Stegastes planifrons). These kept staying very close to the coral, hiding in the crevices as I approached. They tend to do this because they’re pretty small, so they’re great prey for larger fish and are therefore more likely to hide when approached by something larger than them. We also saw a huge lionfish that Scott speared and took with us back to the island! Hopefully we will be feasting on lionfish ceviche tomorrow.

That was most of my day! We had some presentations in the evening that were very interesting (as always), but now it’s time to rest in preparation for tomorrow. Have a great night, guys! (Also here are my very feeble attempts at taking pictures of some of these fish).

Sergeant Major
Cocoa Damselfish
Blue Chromis

First Day of Experiments!

Hey guys! It’s Michiel; I’m glad to write to y’all again : )

This morning I woke up and had an amazing breakfast (as always here). After breakfast, Adrienne and Scott wanted us to practice using our quadrats and transects, so they sent us out to collect some data on the island using these tools. Ava and I decided that we wanted to see how much of the island sand was disturbed by crab lines. We set up a 50 yard line from our transect, set our quadrat on either side of the transect, and counted the amount of squares covering sand that was disturbed by crab lines. We ultimately determined that about 9% of the sand in the area we studied was disturbed.

After this riveting experiment, we got to put our tools to use out on the reef! Our professors left us in the wet lab with only instructions to come up with a research question and methodology. As a class, we asked “How does the density of Penicillus green algae change as we get further from the dock?” To test this, each buddy group lined up in the water near the dock and spread out horizontally so that there was at least 10 ft of space between us. Then each of us went off, placing our quadrats at every 10 foot marking on the transect to count the number of Penicillus organisms. Unfortunately, Ava and I did not see a single one (we did see two sea anemones and a starfish, though). We also did not get to see any herbivorous fish since we stayed pretty far away from the patch reefs : (. They’re really only found over there because their diet consists mostly of algae that grows on the reef, so it would be unwise for them to go too far.

Thankfully, the other groups did find some Penicillus, so we pooled our data and determined that the organism increases in density as one goes further from the dock. We believe that Ava and I did not see any because the lush sea grass in our area may outcompete or cover it.  After discussing our results, the class put together a poster and presented our research to Scott and Adrienne.

After these presentations, we went to a very cool area of the island that was just a huge fossilized coral reef. Adrienne showed us lots and lots of different, very well preserved, corals. She identified some of the most common corals we have been seeing in the reef and told us about their importance and history. She even showed us a couple species that are currently rapidly dying off in coral reefs.

After the fossilized coral area, we had a presentation, then dinner, then I presented on herbivorous fish (I hope you all enjoyed), then there were a couple more presentations.

Overall, today was full of activities and it was our first time conducting research in the water! We all had lots of fun and I’m sure we’re all excited for the upcoming days of research in bigger coral reef systems.

Also, here’s a picture Ava took of me holding a starfish (thank you Ava!)

First Reef Day!

Hey y’all, It’s Michiel again : )

Today was so much fun! This morning was absolutely beautiful and I loved looking out over the island during breakfast. Just after breakfast, we saw an iguana. It was very pretty and we kept seeing iguanas (or perhaps the same iguana) throughout the day.

After breakfast, we put on our snorkel gear and dove off the dock. The tropical waters were very inviting with how warm they were. We saw huge schools of tiny fish which we could not identify. Once my partner (Ava) and I made it to the patch reefs, we could not get enough of our taxonomic groups. They were telling me all about soft corals and I returned the favor by offering them  facts about herbivorous fish. In this reef, I saw a lot of herbivorous fish, but I didn’t have my taxon ID sheet so I was only able to identify a few. We definitely saw a lot of Threespot Damselfish (Stegastes planifrons) and Cocoa Damselfish (Stegastes variabilis), and I believe we may have seen an Ocean Surgeonfish (Acanthurus bahianus). I noticed that it’s really hard to get good pictures of a lot of these fish because they hide as you approach, so I stayed a good distance from them and zoomed my camera in as much as I could.

Once we got into the water, we went to the wet lab to make quadrats and set up a scavenger hunt. Soon after this, we decided to explore the reef near a different part of the island, but to access that area we had to go through the Mangroves of Death (MOD), which were filled with mosquitos that chased us and bit through our lycra dive skins as we ran through the forest. Finally finding safe haven within the water, Ava and I went off again to look at more soft corals and herbivorous fish. While there, I saw many Sergeant Majors (Abudefduf saxatilis) and Beaugregories (Stegastes leucostictus). We also saw a lot of competition between corals, and we saw two stingrays! Ava and I were very grateful that we had decided to swim over the seagrass instead of walk through it when we saw those.

Sergeant Majors (Abudefduf saxatilis)
Stingray hidden in seagrass

After this second reef excursion, we had wonderful presentations given by Rusty, Ava, Maegan, Phoenix, and Michael who presented on hard corals, soft corals, coral reef framework, ctenophores and jellyfish, and sponges respectively. Now, the day is over and I am posting this blog before getting some rest.

Also, I’ve included a group photo of some of other TFBs and I hanging out in the wet lab! See you guys soon!

Day 1: Longest Boat Ride Ever

Hey, guys! It’s Michiel again. Today was our first day in Belize, so I’ll try to quickly tell you guys all about it.

I woke up bright and early at 5:15, got an uber to campus, and was with the rest of my group around 6 am. Together, we took a bus to IAH, which was packed, and successfully made it to our gate. Before boarding, a few friends and I picked up Panda Express (a great way to start one’s day). The flight itself was actually very fast, I spent the majority of it sleeping and reading. Once we landed and were ready to leave the airport, we took a bus to a grocery store, where I bought a souvenir water bottle and pingüinos. After this, it was finally time to take the boat to our research station. The boat ride was four hours, and the weather was extremely hot and humid, but we were all entertained with the changing color of the ocean as we went from shallow to deep water and the increasing intensity of the waves – though that much movement did give me a killer headache.

By the way, I’ve included a picture of me as I was relaxing on the boat!

Anyway, someone told me that they saw a flying fish while we were on the boat. Though I didn’t get to see it, I wondered if it may have been herbivorous. I determined that it was unlikely they were herbivorous because none of my research on herbivorous fish had mentioned flying fish.

Finally, the boat landed, and we got to see the island for the first time (it’s beautiful). We all settled down, had dinner, and had a group meeting to discuss what we’re going to be doing tomorrow. We also saw lots of crabs as we walked between buildings. The hermit crabs didn’t mind us at all, but the larger crabs quickly scurried away whenever we approached.

Overall, today has been very tiring, but I’m glad we’ve finally made it. I’m excited to see what’s in store!

PRE-TRIP EXCITEMENT

Hi, everyone! I’m Michiel, and this blog will record my experience in Belize as I study mammals and herbivorous fish with the rest of my class!

In only a couple of hours, I’ll be on my way to ABL, fighting sleep, to meet with the rest of my class before we start our journey to Belize. I’m excited to get to explore the country, swim through the reef, and I expect that the physical exertion required of this class will be gratifying, but I most look forward to getting exposed to field research. It’s something I know very little about, and I had not imagined I would ever do anything outside of a lab before this class. I hope that this pushes me to continue to push my boundaries and explore topics in science that aren’t necessarily related to my field of study. I also expect that, through the exploration of different ecosystems and study of different taxa within the country, this class will create a deeper love and gratitude for biology within me.

I’ve been preparing for this class for months – buying equipment and getting my passport – but I began to start preparing mentally about a week ago. I got really nervous about going to a new country and staying out in the wild instead of the city, and I still am a bit nervous, but I’m confident that the leadership from my professors and companionship of my peers will help put me at ease. Other than that, I just flew into Houston from El Paso in order to meet with the rest of my class, and I have been packing all day, racking my brain about the smallest things I may forget. I’ve been thinking a lot about the unbearable heat and humidity we’re going to endure. Coming from a desert, the Houston humidity is often too much to handle, and the closest I’ve ever been to the tropics is Cancún, Mexico, which was filled with many more opportunities for relaxation than I expect we will encounter in Belize. However, I’m hopeful that I will quickly get used to it so that I may put my focus to the work we will conduct.

Though I have bits of anxiety about the trip here and there, I am very excited for our trip and hope to return a changed person.

Adios Belize <3

Okay reflection here we go:

There are many similarities between the tropical rainforests and the coral reefs. Starting with the most obvious, both ecosystems rely heavily on water. Both ecosystems seem to have alternating states, whether it be the seasonality in the rain forest (wet vs. dry), or the tides in the ocean (high vs. low) that can differ between the hours. The organisms in each ecosystem have various stages of their life cycles in sync with the different cycles that occur in their environment, such as mating during the start of the wet season, etc. This variation in the environments allows for speciation; when one species is inactive, another in a similar niche can thrive, and so forth.

Another similarity, which is something that I did not know about before this trip, is the paradox of both environments being in and of themselves nutrient poor, yet somehow being able to support staggering amounts of biodiversity. In our little experiments in the Chiquibul for example, we were able to identify, morphologically speaking, approximately 60 different species of arthropods that wound up on our various vials, The fact that this number is a ridiculously small fraction of what is actually out there is absolutely mind blowing. Before the trip, I was wondering how to get as many species of my taxa possible on my taxon ID cards. I foolishly thought that I would be alright with approximately 24 species of trees and 24 of herbivorous fish- I mean were going to areas that were only so big, how diverse can the species get? The truth is, I didn’t see anymore than 8 or so of the species on my ID cards, both in the rainforest and on the reef. That isn’t because there simply were 8 or so of each taxon in each ecosystem- its because there were so many species of each taxon and they were so spread out around the ecosystem, somewhat “diffused” along with hundreds of other species that it was hard to identify them based on a very limited knowledge of their physical characteristics and distribution, bot to mention the fact that so many species looked SO similar, especially in regards to the trees, but in fact were different species entirely. While I knew before that there were MANY species in the rainforest, I think it was difficult  for me to grasp how many is many until I got a small glimpse of it myself. This was one thing that somewhat did surprise me about the course; no matter how much you think you know, or how positive you can distinguish one species from one that looks strikingly similar other than a minor variation in the veins of their leaves, you will never actually know all that much at all.

I didn’t realize that working underwater would be such a challenge. Of course, this was my first experience with snorkeling, let alone my first time trying to collect data underwater- I’m sure more experienced researchers won’t get salt water into their eyes as often as I did. However, I’m pretty certain that whether you are a novice or a marine biologist with 20+ year experience, goggles will get foggy, calves will cramp up, transect tapes won’t always stay in place and quadrats will sometimes refused to fall flat on the benthos. We were lucky that there were basically no waves and the sea was very calm. I could not imagine doing the same things we did, like measure coral coverage on the benthos, in very windy or rough conditions. Communicating underwater was quite difficult as well. Most of the time, if what I was trying to say didn’t get through to the other person, we both just surfaced so could talk out loud. I imagine in conditions or project that are time constrained, researchers would need to have a detailed communication system in place so that they won’t have to waste precious time trying to ask someone to lend them their camera.

One last thing that I didn’t really think about much until this course was about how much overlap there is between different fields of study, and how humanity is tied to nature, not matter how far away from it we think we are. Biology is ecology and evolution, yes, but it is also philosophy and physics and geology and politics and chemistry and sociology and history and nearly any field you can think of. People shape their environment, but the environment shapes people too. The things that we learned about the Maya civilization, their use of the land (the trees!), their culture, their struggles and their eventual downfall is all ingrained in the biology of the land as well, from the slashed on the bark of the chicle trees, to the changing soil qualities due to slash and burn agriculture. It really made me think about questions concerning geopolitical borders- the Guatemalans can’t harvest Xate but Belizeans can, just because they are on the wrong side on an imaginary line? The Chiquibul – and nature as a whole- doesn’t follow the rules of man.

Belize was hot. More humid in the forest, and a stronger sun on the island. However, in the forest, the nights were cooler and in Glovers’, we had that occasional ocean breeze.

Complaints? I’ve been told I have had them. As I can’t really think of anything that’s been bothering me up until right now, I think all of my complaints were in the moment, mostly. My various bites are still itchy as hell, but I’m sure I won’t even be remembering them in a few weeks. If I had to pick my least favorite part of the course, I would probably be when my sunscreen keep getting into my eyes while snorkeling and I couldn’t keep them open for hours afterwards- that is until we realized that that was the cause of my temporary blindness and I stopped using sunscreen on my forehead.

It is hard to choose one favorite part of the course, but I can say that all my favorite parts were shared with the people who I have personally learned so much from throughout this course, whether it was about the various lectures we’ve had, or otherwise. We all talked about how much of a surprise it was when we looked over the camera trap pictures and saw the jaguars, or how cool it was to climb around inside the ATM cave, or see scarlet macaws in the wild. The experiences we had during this trip were one of a kind  and I will treasure them forever, but I think that my favorite part overall was being able to meet such amazing human beings with the same passion for science and learning and the environment and people as I have, and the opportunity that I had to experience this truly eye opening trip with them.

I think I somewhat came into this course thinking: okay this is it, after May 29th I will be able to decide whether or not I want to do field work in my career as a biology. I expected to have the answer to the question I’ve been asking myself for the past few months, now that graduate school applications are looming overhead. But now I realize that the answer is not that simple to be answered after a two week experience, no matter how amazing it was. Will I know pursue a career as a tropical field biologist, or even field work in general? Honestly, it’s too soon to tell. I’ll probably have to let my sand fly bites heal before I start thinking about that. What I can say now is that no matter what specific field of study I choose to pursue in my career in EEB, I can always look back at this trip to remind myself of why I do what I do- because I love science and I love what science can do for people, and what science has the potential to do for all of the earth and its creatures.