Monthly Archives: May 2016

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Sharks and corals and rays, oh my

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Today checked two more things off my Belize wishlist—sharks and rays. We had seen some smaller stingrays around but today, snorkeling on the fore-reef, we saw a huge spotted eagle ray gliding underneath us. Then, during our drift snorkel a nurse shark came and swam under us three separate times. It was a dream come true. We also had the opportunity to see the stag horn and elk horn corals that have been mostly destroyed over the last decade. There have been so many times during this trip that I was blown away by the things we have gotten to see or do. Truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The first two snorkel excursions were a little too deep for me to find many annelids but on our short trip out to the back-reef I found three split crown feather dusters. There were also spaghetti worms buried into cracks and crevices all over the place. There has been fire coral fairly evenly dispersed over every reef we’ve been to, both the branching and bladed formations. Looking forward to more christmas tree worms!

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Sophia Streeter

5/28

2016, Uncategorized

Rock the Boat

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My stomach is strong, as are my legs, and I am now very confident in my ability to weather choppy waters on a small boat.

We explored the different areas of the reef today starting at the fore reef and the reef crest and ending the day at the back reef. The fore reef and the reef crest were so choppy. Part of the reason that the rest of the atoll isn’t as choppy is because the fore reef bares the brunt of the wave action coming from the ocean. Everything was moving back and forth constantly and it was really hard to even stay in one place while floating above the reef.

The fore reef was amazing, and we got the chance to see many rays, a nurse shark, and amazingly we saw both species of acropora (cervicornis and palmata) in the wild! Acropora were mostly wiped out in the Caribbean due to white band disease, so it was a unique experience being able to see them. We also got to see an eagle ray swim by underneath us, which made me super happy. They’re HUGE!

Eagle ray
Eagle ray
Acropora palmata
Acropora palmata

My camera died before we got to be on the back reef at the end of the day. They definitely aren’t as waterproof as they say they are. I opened it up and there was water in the battery!

At the back reef I saw so many queen conch (probably hundreds). I also got to see a milk conch, which is the only other conch I’ve gotten to see on this trip. While digging through the rubble on the back reef I saw a few species of cone snail living in some unoccupied shells of former molluscs.

2016

(Nakian) May 28: Eagle x Lion X Deep Sea

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Seeing a giant animal passing by fills a heart with amazement and respect to the sublimity of the nature. Today we entered the deeper sea outside of the reef where the high waves hit. The deep blue, depth, the high wave made sharp contrast with the shallow emerald water we have been diving into. Gazing down to the massive reef structures far down, I was filled with both fear and respect. Then there appeared an eagle ray. Its length must be as long as myself and it gracefully flapped its wings above the floor.

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The strong waves outside the reef were enough to exhaust those inside and make those on the boat suffer seasickness. The sun shot down on our exposed skin. Overall the diving in the deep sea we experienced the strength of the nature.

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Later in the afternoon, we went out to the shallow waters. I always overlooked the uniform seagrass floor of the shallow water but soon great biodiversity carpeted under the water that only came up to my waist. Vicious looking barracuda with size of my arm lurched silently, similar sized lobsters peeped their long antennae under the reef, and great diversity of fish swam around well structured reef. Of course brown algae was everywhere. Among the prairie of seagrass patches of forkweed and scroll algae. There were Turbinaria too, mostly growing on reef structure, as expected.

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Among the reef were lionfish. They are vicious invasive predators that will devastate the native ecosystem. We were out there to catch them and contribute to the ecosystem by making them into lionfish ceviche. Their stripe pattern wwas pretty I must say, but the venomous spikes were intimidating. We caught four of them and hopefully will become a great ceviche for tomorrow.

2016

Day 12: Broken Camera

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My class issued camera is officially out of commission. I checked the battery last night and it leaked acid. I’m pretty upset, I’m finally getting better at diving down and there’s so much to see. But I have nothing to capture the images except my memory. At least I have that I guess.

Today was probably the best and worst day of the marine section of the trip all rolled into one. We went out to the fore reef in the first part of the morning. It was really cool, probably the deepest waters I’ve ever been in. We saw a ginormous Spotted Eagle Ray, it was swimming around on the ocean floor. I finally got the hang of diving, which was good because out here there’s not much to see near the surface. After we went outside the reef crest and did some drift snorkeling where we let the current carry us. We saw a pretty sizable Nurse Shark that was over 6 ft. The motion of the unbroken waves started to make me feel a little queazy in the water, and only got worse when I got back onto the boat. I was pretty out of it for a while.

In the early afternoon, we did some data analysis and a presentation session. This gave me some time to recover from the sea sickness. Later in the afternoon, we went to the back reef right off the island. There was so much diversity in what was out there. Scott, Adrienne, and the water safety instructors were out catching Lionfish, I helped spot two of them.

I’m starting to like the water more and more. Boats not so much. I’m pretty bummed out by the camera thing, but oh well.

-Randy

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Day 12: I’m on a boat(yeah)

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Today was another boat day! This morning we went out to the fore reef. It was definitely rougher than the water we’ve been in the last two days. Moreover, it was so much deeper than the water we have been in. Some notable things from the first snorkel were three rays and a HUGE spotted eagle ray. We also did a drift snorkel(where you keep moving) and I loved it. We saw Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis (elkhorn and staghorn) corals which are no longer seen much. We also saw a good sized nurse shark.

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In the afternoon we went back in the water, but this time right off of the island. And I saw so many anemone. There were Condylactis gigantea(condy) and Stichodactyla helianthus(sun anemone) all over the part of the back reef we were on. I also think I saw Zoanthus pulchellus growing on the side of a boulder. The little zoanthids were all tucked into their columns and would barely come out before going back in. My last taxon sighting were two more anemones- one I recognized and one I did not. The one I recognized was Barthalomea annulata or the corkscrew anemone. It was hiding under something and I barely spotted it. The one I didn’t recognize looked like a little yellow marshmallow with stubby purple tentacles on top.

Aside from my groups, I spotted two lionfish(they caught 4 today). I also locked eyes with a barracuda and I think we both startled each other, because we both swam away very quickly.

 

 

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Comparative study

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We leveled up today on our length and difficulty of our snorkeling projects. We visited patch reefs inside and outside the protected area and did transects for comparison. We also collected sea urchins in a 25 minute period, then measured and ID’ed them. Compared to the no-take zone, the unprotected zone had drastically fewer urchins, which starts to give you an idea of the breadth of human impact on some of these reefs.

To be honest, I got a little distracted during the urchin collected period because there were so many worms around! I saw about 20 christmas tree worms, two social feather dusters and one split-crown feather duster. They’re really beautiful little things. There was one coral in particular covered by about 10 christmas tree worms in a variety of colors—from blue-grey to yellow to orangeish-brown. If you wave your hand in front of them they tuck themselves inside their tube to hide, then slowly reemerge after a moment. There will be pictures to come.

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Sophia Streeter

5/27

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Day 11

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I think that I am starting to get a much better grasp of how to maneuver on the reef. While I don’t think that I will every really be able to get over my sensitive ears. Depth does still hurt quite a bit. Anyway, I found today’s activities much easier than yesterday’s.

We had two projects to do today. First, we did a similar transect method as we did yesterday to estimate total coral cover on patch reefs inside and outside of the Marine Protected Area of Glover’s Reef. The second task was to collect as many urchin species as we could in 25 minutes for species ID, abundance, and diameter of test.

This has been one of my favorite days on the reef so far. The diversity that we saw was at the perfect depth for both quadrat measuring and for personal observation. I keep seeing so many examples of my taxonomic group, an encouraging sign. Today I saw a couple more examples of sea whips. I also noticed a lot of different sea plumes. I don’t know what exact species they are, but I believe that my taxonomic sheet has them.

Tomorrow we go to the fore reef, a more densely packed area. I hope to see even more soft coral and hard coral. These are encouraging to see because of their high contributions to reef framework growth. However, I’m sure that we will see lower levels of cover and diversity in the non-protected area. All will be revealed in the data tomorrow.

 

2016

In Which Things Go As Planned

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  Our first boat day was today! We measured live coral cover compared to macro algae and recently dead coral. We also collected sea urchins for 25 minutes and then measured them.

We actually did two boat trips today. One was to the south of the island in the marine protected area and the other was slightly further away in the same direction outside of the protected zone. We collected the same data at each site and we will compare it later when we analyze.

Pencil Urchin
Pencil Urchin

I saw a huge wall of queen conch at our second site, but all of them were dead. Apparently the huge eagle rays eat them. I also saw flamingo tongues on gorgonians. It’s satisfying when things behave like they’re supposed to.

After we got back from the boat trip I became the first 319 student to actually take a kayak out. I went down into the mangroves and explored a little with Ella and Stephanie. We saw the skeleton of a pelican hanging in a tree, an osprey, some crabs on logs, and a beautiful sunset.

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Osprey
Pelican skeleton
Pelican skeleton

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After dinner we had free time, and we hung a light off the dock to see if we could attract anything to it. Mostly we got a bunch of tiny fish and some crustaceans (maybe shrimp?). People switched from looking at the light underwater to looking at the stars and some point. They were beautiful.

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Day 11: Counting corals and urchins

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The projects of the day consisted of comparing live stony coral cover and numbers of urchins between the Marine Protected Area (MPA) and a zone outside of the MPA at Glovers Reef. To measure coral cover, we laid down 7 transects that were each 100 ft long. Every 25 ft along the transect we measured two quadrats that were 2 ft by 2 ft. Each quadrat is fitted with twine to make 81 squares, or 64 intersection points. We looked at what was underneath each intersection and classified it as live stony coral, recently dead stony coral, macroalgae, other living organisms, or other dead/abiotic objects. Tomorrow we will analyze the data that we gathered, but we predicted that there would be a higher percent of live coral cover inside the MPA.

To count urchins, we timed how many urchins 18 people could collect in 25 minutes. Tomorrow we will compile all of the data and determine which urchin species were most common and quantify the difference between the MPA and the area outside the MPA.

Collected urchins (Photo credit: Scott)
Collected urchins (Photo credit: Scott)

We didn’t have very much time to explore the reef, but during data collection I was able to observe several species of parrotfish, including what I believe was a stoplight parrotfish. I also noted a large number of flamingo tongue snails, which are an interesting species of mollusk that is mostly an off-white shade with yellow spots that have a black outline. The snails are mostly found on sea fans.

As for green algae, I saw pinecone algae in the MPA. The pinecone algae are concentrated in sandy areas where they are able to attach their holdfast to the sand. The pinecone algae were smaller than I was expecting and were narrower, so they could be a slightly different species than I researched. There was also calcareous green algae that was growing on dead coral both in the MPA and outside of it. While the algae consisted of multiple species, I believe that most of them were species of Halimeda. Most of the green algae that I saw today was covered in sediment so it was difficult to identify the exact species.

2016

Day 11: Ouch

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Today we surveyed reefs for live coral coverage and urchin presence. We went to two separate places in the morning and afternoon. I enjoyed today much more than yesterday. We actually got to see corals and a lot of fish, instead of trying to dig through a thick layer of sea grass. I pretty sure I got better at controlling my body in the water today as well.

While we were collecting urchins in the afternoon, I got stabbed by an urchin spine. A pretty substantial piece pierced flesh, broke, and lodged itself in my left middle finger. It stung a lot in the salty water. I hope it gets better before tomorrow, supposedly we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

The ocean may have won this battle but the war is not over yet!

-Randy