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Will Rice Will Lose Things

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Today I got to sleep in because breakfast didn’t start till 7! After breakfast, Scott had us practice using our research equipment on land before we got in the water. We looked at the proportion of dead leaves on the main trail of the island. Once we were confident with using the transect tape and quadrats, we got ready for using it in the reef.

Putting on the dive suit over an already sweating body was a struggle, but once I had all my gear on I headed to the dock. Once in the water, we used the same technique with the quadrats and transect tape in the sea grass to find what percentage of the benthos contained worm mounds. On the way out of the water, I realized I lost my clipboard and had everyone looking for it, but Elena ended up finding it right in front of the ladder in the sand (sorry everyone:/).

After a delicious lunch, we headed to what Scott told us was Adrienne’s favorite spot, the Coral Graveyard. It was really interesting to be able to identify the different hard corals and also me and Jessica found beautiful pink conch shells and pretended we were in Moana.

Then we headed back into the water, to repeat the same experiment but with measuring the proportion of hard corals. We went to one patch reef in the Marine Protective Area which was pretty hard to maneuver in since it was really close to the surface. The second reef we visited was outside the MPA and was a lot deeper than the first so it was easier to swim and use the equipment. I really felt like a real marine TFB being able to use the quadrat and tape, and swim so close to the coral.

While at the different patch reefs I saw a bunch of the corky sea fingers and purple sea fans. I also got to see some bipinnate sea plumes as well as some sea rods, however it was hard to tell which type of sea rods they were, but I definitely spotted black sea rod.

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Sea Aliens and Seasickness

Day 11: May 25th 2018, Glover’s Atoll

This morning we started with a talk from a member of the Belize Fisheries Department. He talked about the work they do here at glovers and the difficulties in maintain it. At 9 am we geared up for our 1st snorkel of the day. We took the boat out to the fore reef as we exited the atoll and moved adjacent to it until we reached a decent spot. Here when you look down you could see some huge coral structures including some enormous Pillar Corals (Dendrogyra cylindrica), large Staghorn Corals (Acropora cervicornis), a few varieties of brain coral (Pseudodiploria), and two types of star coral which I believe were Smooth Star Coral (Solenastrea bournoni) and the Lobed Star Coral (Montastraea annularis). While all this excitement was happening, Professor Solomon managed to spear another lionfish which are an invasive species and should be killed here.

The second spot we went to was on the fore reef by our island. Here I saw more huge Pillar Coral structures (). Professor Solomon spotted some Lettuce Corals (Agaricia agaricites) on the substrate below me. Most excitingly there was a huge Elkhorn Coral (Acropora palmata) in the area. It was at least 6ft wide and 3ft tall. It was exciting to see as the mass bleaching event of the 90s hit the Acropora corals hard. So hard in fact that they are considered critically endangered. Unfortunately, this is where I get seasick, and end my snorkel early. However, I wasn’t the only one.

For lunch we had homemade pizza which was awesome. After lunch, we all took a nap and at 2pm, we geared up for snorkel #2. We went out to a reef patch inn the marine protected area. Here a timer was set for 25 minutes and we were off to search and collect urchins. We found them in all sorts of holes and crevices under and around rocks. When our 25 minutes were up, we had collected a 4 varieties of sea urchins, including a Sea Egg Urchin. We then measured them and releases them back into the water. They both look like an alien species and look incredibly adorable as they walk. They almost stick to you and they move their spines across your hand. We then went to a spot outside of the Marine Protected Area, and repeated the process. Here we found only 3 species, but we found significantly more and bigger Spiny Sea Urchins which can hurt if they stick you. We used tongs to handle these.As we were measuring these, I found one I was particularly found of as it was extending it mouth parts to either eat something off my hand or eat my hand. You can’t feel it though so it doesn’t hurt. I named it Gary. While searching for urchins, I did note the prevalence of Acropora cervicornis (Staghorn Coral) in both areas which surprised me. They appeared a yellowish color, which a branching structure that made it so that you had to be extra careful in avoiding hitting them.

After we got back from our many snorkel adventure, we ate a wonderful dinner of mashed potatoes, meat, salad, and flan. We then had lectures on Herbivorous Fish, Piscivorous Fish, and Marine Debris. After that things got really crazy, we actually had our Hermit Crab Derby. Except some of us had caught Blue Crabs, so it was more of a Hermit/Blue Crab Derby. Sami’s hermit crab, Alejandro, won. After such a full day, it was time for bed.

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Day 11: Ooo the Drop-off…

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Blog Post #11
Day 11: Ooo the Drop-off…

Written at 6:25 am on May 26th

 

We did a lot of exploring and learning, and even some of the drop-off (figured I throw in some Finding Nemo reference even though it’s the wrong area of the globe). We started the morning of May 25thwith a presentation from the Belize Fisheries and Coast Guard divisions and how they enforce their laws. It was awesome to get some context on just how important of an area Glover’s Reef is.

 

Then we hopped on the boat for a morning of exploring the forereef—we stopped at two different places: an area behind Southwest Cay and an area behind our island that is the drop off. These snorkels were really gorgeous; the diversity of coral, fish, and other wildlife such as rays, sponges, and soft corals. There seemed to be a lot of Ctenophores, which are commonly known as comb jellies even though they aren’t jellyfish. I had hoped to see a sea turtle since they love snacking on those, but alas, none were found.

 

The sponges in the spurs and grooves leaving to the drop-off weren’t very diverse in species but had incredible ranges of color. The branching tube sponges were gray to green to blue, and the rope sponges varied from brown to red to tan. There were a few vase sponges that had hints of pink and light blue and green in the same one!

 

Vase sponge with baby fish (hard to see)
branching tube sponge

In the afternoon, we collected sea urchins to measure their size and species richness to test the health of the reef at one reef patch inside the MPA and the other outside of it. I did manage to nab a black sea urchin with some tongs, after many tries. We haven’t yet analyzed our data, so stay tuned!

 

My lip is sunburned, but my soul is happy. I love being out on the water and exploring, and even better to be doing science at the same time!

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Day 11: Crab Derby

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We started the day by going out on the boat to look at the outer reef. We spent all morning swimming around looking at the fore reef (without collecting data) which is outside the lagoon. We saw an eel, a few stingrays, lots of fish and lots of coral. It was really cool to see all the life. Scott caught a lionfish which is invasive here. We’re going to get to dissect and eat it later which I’m super excited about.

This afternoon was spent collecting sea urchins to estimate reef health in and outside of the protected zone. We found a bunch of a few different types, mostly reef urchins, slate pencil urchins, and black sea urchins. We timed how long we were looking for urchins to keep constant how many we were collecting. At the very end of time for the patch reef inside the protected area, I found an east indies sea egg.

It was 9.2 cm in diameter, two to three times the size of the other urchins. It had white spines and a black body. Its spines moved so beautifully when I picked it up and it stuck to me with its tube feet. I named it Jerry and it is my patronus. We took so many pictures with the urchins and the brittle stars we picked up. They were beautiful and cute and surprisingly friendly despite their spines. It’s really sad to think we may be the last generation to see the reefs like this.

We finished the day by spending a lot of time with my taxon (crustaceans). In the afternoon I saw a blue land hermit crab on top of a bush which was really startling. I’m sure it just climbed up through the branches, but anywhere off the ground still isn’t where crabs belong in my head.

After lectures, everyone went and found hermit crabs to race. We’ve been talking about doing a crab derby for days and it finally happened. Elena and I grabbed blue land crabs while everyone else grabbed hermit crabs from the compost area. We drew two lines in the sand and then let all the crabs go. Lots of the hermit cabs never moved or started walking in the wrong direction, but quite a few actually mored along in the race. Elena’s blue land crab, Rihanna, was way faster than all the other crabs, but it walked off the course and then hid under a building.

My crab, Angus, disappeared into the night. But three of the hermit crabs had a pretty neck and neck race to the finish line. Sami’s crab Alejandro ended up winning; we rewarded him with coconut. Every night we’ve been here it’s been stormy, which has looked pretty cool, but I really want to see the stars out here. I’ve heard (from previous TFBs) that you can see the milky way out here which would be really cool. Regardless, today was a pretty great day.

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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 11: Sea Hedgehogs

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I’m pretty sure that anyone reading my posts is kind of tired of me starting all of them with something like “OMG TODAY WAS SO AWESOME,” but seriously, today was so awesome, and I don’t even like the word awesome. It’s such a boring, generic word, but I can’t think of anything else that accurately sums up my feelings.

This morning, we headed out to the fore reefs (area outside of the lagoon) beside one of the cayes nearby, as well as a fore reef beside the island that we’re staying on. The fore reef was much deeper than the places we previously visited, maybe ~30 ft deep. The current was much stronger here than in areas we’d visited before, but I actually really enjoyed bobbing up and down on the waves (shout out to my dad for teaching me to swim)!

The benthos was covered with coral rubble, live hard and soft corals, and all forms of fish. If I listened carefully, I could hear colorful parrotfish crunching at the coral below. I spotted a southern stingray rippling along the floor and a Nassau Grouper, which is a highly protected endangered species of fish.   AhhhhHHH watching a healthy coral reef teeming with life makes the heart happy 🙂

Coral reefs make a great photo op!

After stuffing ourselves with homemade pizza for lunch, we headed out for my favorite part of the day: sea urchin collection! As the resident Echinodermata expert on this trip, I was kind of obliged to geek out about them. But really, sea urchins are so fascinating that I didn’t even have to pretend.

We headed out to the same shallow patch reef that we visited two days ago. This patch reef is inside what’s known as a Marine Protected Area, which is an area in which harvesting is prohibited but recreational activity is allowed. We got 25 minutes to search for and catch as many sea urchins as we could with the goal of comparing the urchins we found in the MPA to the ones we found later when we visited the non-MPA.

Those little guys were so hard to catch. They’re super spiny and like to hide in inaccessible reef crevices as well as under rocks. There’s a technique to catch them easily, but it requires extreme precision and lack of fear of stabbing oneself with a spine, neither of which I possess. You just have to reach in, grab a spine, and jerk sharply – but if you don’t dislodge the urchin on the first try, it’ll become almost impossible to grab. Its tube feet will reach out and suction to the rock when it senses danger.

I learned how to catch the urchins pretty quickly! I caught so many reef urchins and slate pencil urchins by turning over pieces of coral debris and picking them off the benthos below. They were adorable, especially the baby ones that were smaller than a centimeter in diameter!!

A bonus of turning over coral debris was that we found so many brittle stars, which are another type of Echinoderm. I know for sure that I saw at least 2 spiny ophiocomas and many Suenson’s brittle stars, but there were many others that I could not identify. They wriggled away and dropped their arms too quickly.

A tiny green brittle star that I couldn’t identify. 

I think the catch of the day was a West Indian Sea Egg that Claire found at the MPA patch reef. It was 9 cm in diameter and had a dark purple body covered with short white spines.

Here I am holding the West Indian sea egg that Claire found! Isn’t it cute?  What an egg. 

When we got back to the island and after we finished dinner and lectures, we raced crabs that we caught on the island! We dubbed it “Crab Derby,” or “Dermit Crab Race.” Each of us caught either a Caribbean Blue Crab or a hermit crab, lined them up, and let them race towards a finish line.

Once the starting time was called, there was a sudden cacophony of screams of encouragement as each of us egged on our crabs. I’m proud to announce that my hermit crab, Georgiano, won second place! He made me so proud :’)

I’ll be awake again bright and early for another packed day tomorrow, so good night!

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Day 10: Snorkeling is Probably My Favorite Thing Ever

I like a lot of things. Actually, I’m a little too obsessed with many things – I’ve always been the type of person who enjoys many hobbies and who uses said hobbies to procrastinate doing my actual work. But I think my actual favorite thing in the whole wide world is snorkeling.

We snorkeled for 3 or 4 hours today, and although I was soooo physically worn out, I could have gone for more. (Also, do you understand how amazing that is for me? I did rigorous physical activity for MULTIPLE HOURS and I WASN’T EVEN MAD AT IT?!?! I swear, if I lived on an island I’d have the beach bod of all beach bods.

The day started off with an excellent breakfast of cheese, fresh avocado, johnnycakes (biscuits but better), and fresh fruit. I think we’re all getting a little spoiled on the food here because it has been consistently delicious. AhhhHH

After filling up our fuel tanks, we met to practice a data collection technique that is commonly used by field ecologists to obtain random samples along a straight line section of an area. We used devices called quadrats, which are basically square grids that we made of plastic tubing a string, to sample small chunks of the ocean floor. Before getting into the water, we practiced laying out the transect tape (a huge tape measure that tells us the line along which we will measure) on land.

When we’d become sufficient at conducting transects on land, we moved to the water to practice. And when we became used to snorkeling while carrying 1058593 pieces of equipment, Scott deemed us ready to go conduct some real life transects on some patch reefs at a nearby island.

Today’s project aimed to compare the live hard coral coverage between Marine Protected Areas and non- Marine Protected Areas. We first stopped at a reef inside the MPA. We hopped off the boat into water that was the absolute perfect temperature for swimming. It was maybe 30 ft deep, but rapidly transitioned to being 2 or 3 ft deep once we hit the actual reef.

A beautiful coral formation I found at the patch reef!

After conducting our transects there, we had a little bit of free time to look around. I spent the time looking under rocks and in crevices for sea urchins. I actually found so many! There were all tucked away in dark areas so I didn’t dare to stick my finger in to try to pull them out. They were sooo cute, like little sea hedgehogs clinging to the rock faces. I LOVE MY TAXONOMIC GROUP WOW.

Scott picked up a baby one for me to see at the second reef we stopped at today. I think it’s Echinometra lucunter, a rock boring urchin. It crawled across my hand and waved its little tube feet at me. I think I cried a little because it was so frickin adorable.

If you look closely at my hands, you can see a tiny sea urchin! 🙂

Anyway, if you couldn’t tell already, I thoroughly enjoyed myself today. I just loved watching the bustling ecosystem beneath me, with soft corals waving in the current and tiny colorful fish darting between them. This is insane. I can’t wait to get back out tomorrow.

 

 

 

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Day 11: kylie jenner

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I woke up today with a swollen bottom lip, which I’ve never had before. I opted out of the morning snorkel because my lips were numb and my best guess was that I am allergic to the silicone in the snorkel.

I stayed in listening to music till about 11 am, when everyone came back. Apparently the seas were very choppy, and people were seasick. This snorkel was also not an official project, so I didn’t miss anything I had to note in my journal.

We had lunch, it was pizza and it was amazing. After a one hour rest, we headed out on the reef, and I came with this time. I opted to not use the snorkel, in case it was in fact an allergic reaction, and so went swimming with just my mask. This was actually a lot more fun than I expected, since it gave an edge to the breathing, and I had to calculate when would be the best time to take a breath. I actually enjoyed today’s snorkeling more than I did yesterday’s.

Me holding a brittle star while measuring urchins on the boat. PC: Chloe.

Today’s project was to look for sea urchins. I was not amazing at this, but did catch a few. I was mostly distracted by the green algae that I finally started seeing—and I once I saw one, I saw them all. I must’ve seen at least fifty or sixty independent colonies of Halimeda tuna. I also saw three Rhipocephalus phoenix in one corner of the reef, and two fans of Udotea flabellum.

Me looking uncomfortable while making our urchins+coral reef poster. PC: Sami

Apparently tomorrow will be at least partially dedicated to identification of algae, so I’m looking forward to my taxon’s spotlight.

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Day 10: psa coconuts can fall and kill you

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Today we went out on the boat and dove into the atoll, snorkeling in the real Caribbean ocean. After about three hours of practicing with our methodology, counting squares on the quadrat to determine proportions, we all piled into the boat and sailed away from our little island. About ten minutes away is another island, surrounded by patch reefs. We all dove in, holding our equipment, and were sent to explore the reef and collect data.

A stingray we saw gliding through the seagrass off the coast off our island. PC: Chloe

Diving from the boat into the water was one of the prettiest parts for me. As soon as you hit the water, you sink a few feet and all around is pure blue ocean. Sometimes you can see the bottom, twenty or thirty feet below you, and you feel suspended in mid-air, surrounded by nothing by cerulean water. This is the thermocline, where the passive margin that provides a shallow seafloor for the reef ecosystem drops off and is replaced by open ocean.

We collected data at two areas for comparison. The first one was distinctively shallower than the second. I was almost touching the corals right beneath me, and could stand up in the sand with half my body out. The second one was a lot deeper, the corals about seven feet down. This was a lot easier of an area to snorkel, though the data  collection was more difficult because we had to dive down to pick up our quadrats and transect tape. I attempted to dive down and was not particularly successful.

I didn’t take note of any green algae today. I saw a lot of what I thought might have been green algae, seaweed-like organisms anchored to the bottom of the sea, and I saw some non-calcified algae that clung to corals or rocks. But I didn’t identify any of them or take a very good, mainly because I was trying to get used to snorkeling. Tomorrow I’ll do a more thorough search for my taxon.

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