Tag Archives: zoanthids

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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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Zoanthids in the Channel

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Today was an amazing day for snorkeling. We hit the water right away after breakfast, visiting three different sites that all had different things to offer. Our first spot, called “the channel”, was my favorite one because it was the deepest. We saw a few nurse sharks there, along with tons of reef fish and even a few squids. It was nice to finally get out into new waters where I could dive down and attempt to blow bubble rings, which had mixed levels of success.

On those reefs, I spotted for the first time the White Encrusting Zoanthid (palythoa carbaeorum), as well as some Mat Zoanthids (Zoanthus pulchellus) and Sponge Zoanthids (Parazoanthus parasiticus). I also saw a few Giant Caribbean Anemones (Condylactis gigantea) and one Sun Anemone (Stichodacylus helianthus). Corallimorphs still manage to elude me, unfortunately. Maybe I will get lucky in the mangroves tomorrow.

Palythoa caribaeorum: White Encrusting Zoanthids
The Channel

After snorkeling all morning, we had lunch and then got to do another fun activity; we dissected the six lionfish that Scott had caught over the course of the week. Deepu and I named ours Monroe Buckingham, because he was a classy fish even though he was invasive. After collecting data about the lionfish, including the contents of their stomach, Scott cut them up and we made a ceviche out of their meat. We brought this ceviche to a neighboring island called Marisol where we stayed for an hour and a half enjoying ourselves. We then returned to eat dinner and present our lionfish findings.

It is unfortunate that we have to leave Glover’s tomorrow morning. I enjoy living out here on a small island, very isolated from the stresses of the world but still working hard. I’ll miss jumping into the sea every day, but I am excited for what the forest has to offer for us.

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Sea Urchins and Soccer

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Another day, another adventure. Right after breakfast, we counted our sea urchins from yesterday and then hit the water once again. We released our urchins from yesterday and then motored over to another patch reef, this time one in an unprotected marine area. We performed more transect surveys here in the same fashion as yesterday, collected more urchins, and came back to analyze all of our data from the past two days after lunch. This took us three hours, but we received good reviews on our work. We found a lot more urchins in the protected reef.

On the reef, I only spotted more Parazoanthus parasiticus zoanthids on the same vase sponge species, but didn’t manage to spot any other members of my taxon group in the water today. I did, however, see tons of flamingo tongues, which provide a stark color contrast with their environments and have beautiful colors (pictures to come later when we return to strong wifi). Our group also saw a nurse shark lounging under a rock. To cap off a nice day in the water, I handled a Diadema sea urchin a bit recklessly and currently have two tiny spine fragments in my right hand to show for it. The joys of the sea are endless.

Flamingo tongue
Before it poked me

After wrapping up our research for the day, we had an hour of free time. Damian, Deepu, Alessi, Therese and I got a game of beach soccer going with a couple of the guys working on Middle Caye right now, which was a ton of fun and left me so sweaty that I probably looked like I had just come out of the ocean. There’s nothing like a small-sided pickup soccer game to get me going, though. I also spoke a bit of creole with some of the people here, as the Belizean dialect is very similar to the Jamaican dialect that I speak. All in all, today was a great day for research and personal enjoyment.

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The Water Deepens

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Today started a little later, around 6:30 am. After a serene half-hour, we went for breakfast before starting our day. Today was all about quadrats; we got some practice using them on land before jumping back into the patch reef. We used our quadrats and transect tape to measure how many organisms of different phyla we could find, and Deepu and I finally got to take our trusty quadrat, nicknamed “Larval”, into the water. On this snorkel I saw three Caribbean Anemones (Condylactis gigantea) in the sea grass, was brought what I believe to be a Sun Anemone (Stichodactyla helianthus) that was attached to a piece of sea grass, and almost laid the transect tape on top of a baby nurse shark.

After lunch, all of our quadrat practice from the morning became useful as we took a boat out to a patch reef near another caye. We used our quadrats and transect tape to measure live coral, dead coral, sponges, and other features of the reefs. Deepu and I accidentally set our transect tape into deep water, which would have made measuring twenty-odd feet down more difficult were the quadrat not covering a completely sandy area. After finishing our measurements, we got to explore the reef a bit. I found a beautiful Flamingo Tongue, and some more Sponge Zoanthids (Parazoanthus parasiticus) growing on the same type of sponge I found it on yesterday (Niphates digitalis). I also got to practice blowing bubble rings, since we finally got into water that we couldn’t stand in.

After our first data collection, we then spent 25 minutes picking up as many sea urchins as possible in order to measure them tomorrow. We will compare our findings for the urchins and the coral cover from today, which were taken in a Marine Protected Area, to findings from an area that is not protected tomorrow. I am excited to see more reefs and potentially snorkel after dark tomorrow! Glover’s Reef is truly paradise.

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Splash

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The 5am wakeup ended up being an easy one, since I went to sleep at 10pm for the first time in a while, not to mention the morning songbirds’ assistance. After a quick breakfast of PB&J sandwiches, we set out for Glover’s Reef Atoll. One hour and the bus and two and a half more on the boat, which featured a massive Green Turtle surfacing close to our boat. We finally arrived at Middle Caye, settled in, toured the island quickly, and then ate a much-desired lunch.

A boat at Middle Caye

After lunch, it was time for the main event: our first snorkel of the trip. After pulling on my brand new dive skin and putting on my much older mask, the water invited us in to take a break from the blisteringly hot sun. We stayed in the shallow waters by the dock for today, snorkeling around some patch reefs a short swim away. I managed to find a fair amount of my assigned taxon group of anemones, corallimorphs, and zoanthids. With Adrienne’s help, I found a small colony of mat zoanthids (Zoanthus pulchellus) growing on a small stony patch, and I then found some small Sponge Zoanthids (Parazoanthus parasiticus) growing on a pale blue, vase-shaped sponge. I even managed to spot a small Caribbean Giant Anemone (Condylactis gigantea) among the sea-grass on the way out of the water. Although I don’t have to keep track of reptiles for another week, I noted the appearance of three spiny-tailed iguanas (Ctenosaura similis) on Middle Caye, as well as a house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus).

Zoanthus pulchellus: Mat Zoanthids

After our snorkel, we went to a coral graveyard on the island full of dead coral skeletons. We identified them using guidebooks, and used them to learn to recognize the potential corals we will see tomorrow. After dinner, we rounded off our day with lectures on echinoderms and stony corals, and finished by making quadrats that we will use tomorrow for our activities.

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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.