We began the day by continuing our comparison of reef health in the marine protected zone and the non-protected zone by measuring the urchins we had collected the day before. As a group, we collected 144 in the protected area. After, we performed another graudrat and transect experiment on a reef outside of the protected zone. There was definitely more sea grass and macro algae present in this region then in the protected area. The benthos was covered in red coralline algae and there were lots of Ctenophores (cone jellies) floating around. One jelly road around on my mask for a while. When we collected urchins from this reef, we were only able to find and extract 60 urchins. While snorkeling around the reef, I saw my first nurse shark of the vacation hidden under the coral. I also saw lots of worms and brittle stars while searching for the urchins.
While on the reef, I saw a large number of herbivorous fish. For the first time on this vacation, I saw the terminal phase of the Sparisoma Viridi (the stoplight parrot fish) and Chaetodon Striatus (Banded butterfly fish). I continued to see all the other herbivorous fish mentioned in previous blog posts. In the Non-MPA reef, the fish tended to be bigger especially the parrot fish and the blue tangs. I believe that this is primarily due to the fact that this reef was deeper than the MPA reef. This was also the first time, I saw a school of Blue tangs and surgeon fish swimming around the reef picking macro algae.
After our experiment, we ate lunch and began our poster write up for the experiment. It turned into a 4-hour long catastrophe. Our final project turned out pretty good, but the road to getting there had many ups and downs involving many calculation errors. Let’s just say that basic arithmetic does not mix well with the heat and high levels of exhaustion. I have never laughed more about math in my life.
After, dinner we listened to presentations on green, red, and brown algae. One of our marine safety officers gave a talk on Belizean culture that was very interesting. Finally, I gave my presentation on the factors affecting coral reefs today and in the future.
