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Last Day on the Reef!

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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!
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Fire and Burns

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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!

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So Many Fish!

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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
2022

The Best Place on Earth (Day 3)

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Hi all, it’s Faith with Day 3 updates from the 2022 Belize trip!!!

Today we started off with a new activity where we learned how to use the quadrats and transect tapes.  On the reefs, quadrats are used for making standardized measurements while fighting the wave currents. You can count them using  the individual squares or their cross-sections!!! We took on two tasks, one as a duo and one as a whole group, that challenged us to use quadrats and transect tapes to answer a scientific question.

As a pair, Maegan and I tried to measure the heights and widths of young palms (we called them coconut palms because they still grow out of coconuts) on the Glover’s island, but Dr. Correa told us to change it, so we ended up measuring the volumes of two random coconut palms. We used the transect tape as a tool to decrease the bias in our samples, and we used the qaudrats squares as a unit of measurement.

After this test-run, our entire group created a scientific question, hypothesis, and procedure for collecting data. Here are the details:

Our question was, “How does the density of the green algae Penicillium change with distance from the dock?” Our hypothesis was that the density decreased because “algae are light dependent and nutrient depended,” and we *assumed* that there was more light and nutrients towards the shore.  For our actual experiment, our pairs lined up horizontally at the doc, and then layed out 100ft of transect tape in a line straight ahead of us. Then, every 10 feet we counted the number of Penicillium in 1 quadrats range on either side of the transect tape. Our findings actually conflicted with our hypothesis because the distance with the highest Penicillium density was actually 80ft away! We concluded that our hypothesis may be wrong because 1) seagrass was outcompeteing the algae in shallower waters, 2) the waters by the shore might not be more nutrient rich or provide more light, and 3) we may have gotten better at finding the algae the more we practiced (therefore reporting more at deeper depths). However, we kinda ruled out #3 because Maegan and I did the experiment backwards, and even though we reported the algae from 100ft to 0 ft, our data aligned with the trend (we found 6 Penicillium at 80ft. which was our highest density). Another group also did a backwards collection and had similar data. To finish off this trial research, the professors made us present it just like I said it to you now!!! So, look below for pictures of our beautiful poster!

Then data collection dive was challenging in many ways. I found out how difficult data collection is because of the currents and carrying materials. Because of this, I ended up leaving my camera behind, so of course, the worst thing happened– 2 echinoderms showed up! First, Professor Correa brought me a Oreaster reticulatus more commonly known as a cushion sea star. I was not sure where she found him, but I assume it was in the sea grass where we were collecting data. I had a difficult time identifying this star because it had pillow-star depth, but the spines were the same color as the bodice and the legs lacked a prominent “fused” appearance. Most guides show pictures where their spines are lighter than the bodice color and their legs are very fused. Nevertheless, I got to hold him and feel his spiny tube feet prick my fingers. Because I didn’t have my camera, someone else took my photo, so hopefully I’ll be able to get the picture and upload it for the next blog!

Next, I saw a West Indian Sea Egg (Tripneustes ventricosus) just sitting in the sea grass, but Ruth, our marine safety guide, picked him up before I could. So, alas, I did not get to name him “Fluffy,” and I cannot cross this off of my goals list! Anyways, we got to see the interesting sea urchin suction mouths because he suctioned to us while we held him. Shortly after seeing him, messing around with plastic-bag jellyfish, and trying to grab upside-down jellyfish, we went inside for lunch.

For our last activity of the day, Dr. Correa brought us to “the best place on Earth” where we identified washed-up coral skeletons based on their coralite and polyp structures. It was a very informative talk, but I don’t think I can cover it all here. You’ll just have to visit the coral graveyard yourself with a coral guidebook! I did go a littttttllllleeeee conch crazy and collected every conch that had color in it (about 5 or so). I also found a walking stick!!!

Till tomorrow!

Quotes of the Day:

“This place is amazing!!! *points at coral* And this is Agaricia”

“Signing off in another language would be a very suburban mom thing to do, ‘like I learned a few new words today’ would be too ‘mom’ of me”

West Indian Sea Egg (sadly not named Fuzzy)
Tripneustes ventricosus
Our presentation poster with a quadrat heart <3
Labeling Coral from the coral graveyard
Fossilized Palm Roots from the coral graveyard. This one stumpted us at first; we knew it wasn’t a coral. All we could do was ask Prof. Solomon, “Is this a land thing?” We found out what it was by finding dead palm roots that looked very similar.
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First Day of Experiments!

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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!)