Tag Archives: 2017

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Worms and Trash (Day 5)

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Today we attempted to recreate the experiment that a former TFB performed on host preference in Christmas tree worms. Christmas tree worms are colorful little annelids that live on the surface of corals. In that way, this was easier than the urchin experiment because they were much easier to see.  I saw another Sailor’s eye algae today during the experiment. That was the only time we spent on the reef today, so I didn’t have time to look for other algae species much.

Two Christmas Tree Worms on top of a brain coral.

 

Besides algae, I also got to see the molt of a Caribbean Spiny Lobster today and a Donkey Dung sea cucumber on the back reef. These are funny because they look like a donkey’s dung (or at least what I assume the dung of a donkey might look like). Tonight when we shone a dive light into the water (it was too rough for us to do a night snorkel), we saw a crocodile and a stingray, too.

A Donkey Dung sea cucumber.

For the last part of today, we collected, sorted, and weighed marine debris. It was shocking, and depressing, to me how much debris there was on Middle Caye because we are so so remote. After 30 minutes of collecting, we didn’t even make a dent in the amount of litter there was within the mangroves, let alone the amount there is in the world, Belize, or even just the amount on Middle Caye.

A large piece of marine debris that was found during our Christmas Tree Worm experiment.

We couldn’t do the night snorkel or go out to the reef crest today, so fingers remain crossed.

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Best Birthday Ever!

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What a fabulous way to turn 19! We took an early morning dive on an unprotected patch reef and collected the same type of data as yesterday. Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for… *insert drumroll* … We found that the urchins are significantly bigger and more numerous in the protected reef area!

Me + the Diadema that stung me

I hope everyone appreciated that information because we spent about 3 hours trying to crunch those numbers. I think we’re all a little sleepy and dehydrated! Eventually we put a nice poster together to show all of our data to Scott and Adrienne, and we presented it to them on the dock.

The coral on the patch reef was incredibly beautiful today! I didn’t identify any new species, but I did see a fire coral that had grown over a sea fan. It was so elegant, so check out the picture below. There were also comb jellies floating around the reef. They don’t sting, but they startled me a few times when I swam into them!

Fire Coral growing around a sea fan

The best part of the day was definitely dinner. We were sitting around the table, discussing which character from Finding Nemo best represents Therese, when Scott and Adrienne brought a cake with candles to the table and sang happy birthday. They made a pineapple cake just for me! It was a very delicious and un-Belize-ably sweet surprise.

2017, Uncategorized

Day 5: Human Impact (05/20/2017)

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This morning, my class and I explored one of Glover’s backreefs, noting densities of Christmas tree worms (Genus Spirobranchus).

A beige Christmas tree worm on a hard coral

While my own data collection was less than fruitful, the outing marked a major victory for me as a tropical field biologist. I encountered interesting echinoderms like a donkey dung sea cucumber (Holothuria Mexicana) in a sea grass bed and a West Indian sea egg (Tripneustes ventricosus) partially covered with algae. Both were neither in motion nor interacting with other animals. My most memorable sighting was a Caribbean reef squid (Sepioteuthis sepioidea) swimming by.

I swam after the squid for a while, trying to get a better look. The animal was iridescent and translucent, a visual schema difficult to describe with an ordinary color pallet. There is something about the ocean that compels organisms to take on the most astounding colors and sheens; it’s simply breathtaking.

This same day, my classmate Isaac gave a presentation about the expansiveness and damaging ecological impact marine debris can have. My class also spent the afternoon collecting and measuring the debris accumulation from some of the shores of Middle Caye, which lies adjacent to a protected marine area. In my ordinary life back home, I contribute little to resolve this issue. Like most Americans, my status quo involves unbridled consumerism. An ordinary shopping trip involves buying excessively packaged goods from an energy-inefficient grocery store and taking them home in a disposable plastic bag. It is both interesting and unacceptable that such an irresponsible course of action is deemed ordinary in American society.

Despite how ingrained reckless consumerist behavior is, conservation and preservation of ocean creatures is non-negotiable.

Every living thing deserves a chance to not only survive but to thrive. Waste accumulation in our oceans, the direct result of human negligence, strips many living things of their chance for survival. For the long-term wellbeing of all living things, from reef squids to the human race, communities need to make thoughtful decisions regarding their own waste production and disposal.

Literally, the fate of the world depends on it.

2017

What a Trashy Day!

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After breakfast today, the water was very choppy so we could not go out on the reef. Instead, we did our presentations in the morning and learned about Mollusks, Annelids, and crustaceans. Next we went through the mangroves of death which were very un-deathy to get to a patch of back reef. There were a few mosquitos, but they were not huge swarms of biting insects. While on this reef, we were looking for Christmas tree worms and were trying to measure host preference. Unfortunately, there were very few Christmas tree worms on this reef. The current and waves were also very strong. While on the reef, I saw a Caribbean squid and lots of fire coral.

While on the reef, I continued to see lots herbivorous fish. The parrot fish on this reef were also bigger then on the little patch reef off the dock. I saw for the first time the intermediate stage of the Blue tang.

I continued to see Sparisoma Viridi (the stop light parrot fish), Chaetodon Striatus (Banded butterfly fish), Chrysiptera parasema (the yellow tail damsel fish), Stegastes paritus, the Bi-color damsel fish, and Scarus Croicensi (the striped parrot fish, initial and terminal phases). I see the parrot fish species and the Chaetodon capistratus (the four eye butterfly fish) the most. While this is very antidotal, I preserve these species to be more abundant.

After lunch, we did data analysis and of the Christmas tree worms. Although our data sample was small, we saw a slight preference for Christmas tree worms on brain corals. Next, we designed an experiment to analyze what types of marine debris are the most prevalent. We picked up trash from the beaches and mangrove areas. There were a surprising number of shoes and toothbrushes washed up on the beach. We found a little hermit crab within the trash that was using a bottle cap as a shell. It was very sad. Once we counted and weighed all the different types of trash, we had free time for the rest of the night.
Tonight, we say on the dock and put dive lights under the water. We saw a crocodile, a possible shark, and a few stingrays. It was really nice just to relax for the night and watch the stars.

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2017

Day 5 – So trashed today…

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Hi friends,

Today we really got down and dirty. In the morning we got into the backreefs which was beyond the mangroves on the other side of Middle Caye. So we had to waddle through the mangroves, making sure to shuffle our feet to avoid stingray stings. Reaching the backreefs, initially I felt sad seeing that the reefs were much smaller than the ones in the patch reef areas which we have been snorkeling in the past few days. However, after snorkeling around for a little bit, I feel like a huge reason for that was probably because of the stronger currents in the open ocean. That said, I became impressed at how life can survive even in these harsh conditions.

We were supposed to look around to study the host preference of Christmas tree worms (Spirobranchus giganteus) in the backreef, which suits me perfectly as it was my taxon group! However, we completed the study quickly as there weren’t that many worms about.

After the backreef study, we came back for lunch and had a presentation on marine debris. Which led us to our land activity of the day: picking up trash around the coastal areas of Middle Caye and doing a project on the types of trash found. In half an hour, the 11 of us managed to pick up 38 kg of trash around the coast. There was trash of all types, from plastic bottles (a lot of them) to Styrofoam to McDonald toys and Lego pieces. I’m glad that we did this and helped (however much slightly) make this island a better place.

At night, because of the strong currents, we did not do night snorkeling. Instead, Scott and Adrienne set up naval lamps by the dock and we sat there to observe the fishes that were attracted to the light. It was fascinating to see the different species that come out at night that I don’t see in the day and definitely mesmerizing fishwatching and stargazing at the same time. Kind of sad that we have to leave this island in a couple of days… In any case, I’m done for today.

Till next time,

Damien

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I’m Trash at Volleyball

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This morning we were hoping to take the boat out and snorkel on the atoll’s forereef, but the sea was a bit too rough for that, so we went to a small patch reef on the other side of Middle Caye. The water was shallow enough for us to leave our fins on shore and walk in the water with our masks on. We looked to see if Christmas Tree worms on the reef preferred to burrow into certain corals. After lunch, we analyzed the data and found inconclusive results.

On the reef I spotted, with Jordan’s help, one Condylactis gigantea, a Giant Caribbean Anemone, burrowed in a rock. I did not see any more of my marine taxa in our brief jaunt in the water today.

After our worm examination, I gave the class my lecture on marine debris, which doesn’t get any less sad the more I look at it. After the lecture, we followed up with a cleanup of the beaches and mangroves of the island. We only spent thirty minutes as a group cleaning, but we collected over 2000 pieces of plastic and almost 40 kilograms of trash. Nobody litters on this island, so all of this trash washed up here from ocean currents, which is crazy to think of considering we only scratched the surface of the island’s trash today.

After our trash experiment, we got to have free time for the rest of the day. We went out to the dock at night, where we spotted an American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) in the water near the shore. Although there was no soccer today, we did play beach volleyball, which was fun despite how bad I was at it. I have thoroughly enjoyed the free time that we’ve gotten over the past two days. It is really nice to enjoy all this island has to offer outside of biology and to spend time relaxing in paradise.

2017

DAY 4 – 2 URCHAINZZZ

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Hi friends,

Today was similar to the previous day in terms of the diving activities, as we redid the patch reef data collection and sea urchin collection on an area outside of the marine protection zone. We then compared the two data sets, analyzed them based on our project hypothesis and came up with a final poster to showcase our results.

My first takeaway of the day was how adorable sea urchins are. After seeing how they move about using their spines, my perception of them changed completely. And having to handle and measure them also made me like them so much more. Just see the picture below to see how close we’ve gotten.

Black sea urchin (Diadema antillarum) on my back!

It was also fun surveying another patch reef area, and after the experience from the previous day, I was much more confident with collecting data and also identifying organisms in general. Below are some of the creatures I managed to capture (with my camera)!

It’s a Christmas Tree Worm (Spirobranchus giganteus)!

There were Christmas tree worms everywhere!!! And I saw a new mollusk species which I have never seen personally, the Cyphoma gibbosum (flamingo tongue shell):

Flamingo tongue (Cyphoma gibbosum) right in the middle

Exciting times. I’m looking forward to the next few days because we will get to check out other reef types such as the backreefs and forereefs, and I’m eager to see how different they will be from path reefs.

After snorkeling, we spent the afternoon analyzing our data and creating our poster to present to Adrienne and Scott. And then right before dinner we had a friendly pickup game with some of the island staff. Got to sweat it all out! I have to say, Alessi is pretty tenacious when it comes to fighting for the ball, and Therese and Isaac are great technical players. Meanwhile, Deepu is definitely the star striker like Cristiano Ronaldo, scoring 2 of the goals for us. This is my brief analysis of EBIO 319’s soccer team.

All in all, today went by really quickly and I thoroughly enjoyed both the snorkeling experience and the free time to mingle with the other people in Middle Caye. Looking forward to more tomorrow!

Till then,

Damien

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Day 4: Full Circle (05/19/2017)

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I lie on my back on the hammock, swaying gently side-to-side in the breeze. My eyelids float down after a busy morning and afternoon. I witness deep oranges and rusty reds shifting, bursting, and intertwining on the backs of my eyelids, luminescent projections of the intense tropical sunlight. Needless to say, these entrancing visions were enough to lull me to sleep.

This morning I felt quite different – energized and adventurous. Soon after breakfast, my classmates and I measured the sizes of the urchins we caught yesterday at the Marine Protected Area (MPA). We then snorkeled at a non-MPA and carefully collected urchins there. Interestingly, the urchins tended to be larger and more numerous at the MPA. However, the non-MPA was home to the largest urchin we found, a long spine sea urchin (Diadema antillarum) that measured 5.8 cm in diameter.

With its mounds of different corals, the reef visited today was teeming with a plethora of diverse colorful creatures. Some notable sightings included a green sea urchin (Lytechinus variegatus), spiny brittle stars (Ophiocoma paucigranulata), and numerous ctenophores. The green sea urchin was about 4 inches in diameter and found on the seafloor. The spiny brittle stars, found under rubble, had central disks of about an inch in diameter and arms about 3 inches long. The brittle stars would try to move back under the rubble when exposed. None of the echinoderms were visibly interacting with other organisms. Today’s most spectacular sighting was a spotted trunkfish (Lactophyrus bicaudalis); its dynamic black and white speckles contrasted with the mellow blue backdrop of the ocean.

After spending the afternoon discussing my class’ data collected and observations noted, I was exhausted. We had an hour until dinner, so I lied on my back on the hammock.

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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.

2017

Another day in paradise…

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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.