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.
This morning we all improved our skills clearing our mask and snorkel without surfacing while on a reef scavenger hunt. There were many annelids around but you have to be looking for them because of their small size, and sometimes they were under corals or in crevices. I saw the same star horseshoe worms, but also a light orange-ish christmas tree worm and a brown and white social feather duster. They are beautiful little creatures. I also spotted some fire coral around the patch reef. Aside from the annelids and hydrozoans I saw corals, sponges, sea fans, fish, urchins, barracuda, and a nurse shark today.
This afternoon we practiced using a transect and quadrants to survey things on the reef or ocean floor. It’s tricky but I’m getting the hang of it. We also got the chance to walk to a part of the island covered with thousands of fragments of old, fossilized corals. This was really helpful in practicing identifying them based on their corallites and overall shape. I am ready for what tomorrow has to bring!
We started off this morning with a refreshing snorkel session at 8:30am. This time we brought out more gear, specifically a clipboard with waterproof paper to take notes of what we saw. There was a general feeling among all of us that the waterproof paper had to be some sort of black magic, but it worked so we stopped questioning it. Holding the clipboard and trying to take photos and write notes while avoiding being pushed into the coral by the currents took a long time to get used to, and I definitely haven’t mastered it.
Gathering data in sea grass beds
To make everything more confusing, we added more gear after lunch. We performed a short experiment to practice using transect tapes and quadrats. The question that we were trying to answer was whether Halimeda or Penicillus species had a higher abundance and density in the sea grass off of the pier at Middle Caye. We worked in 6 groups to run transects across the beds of sea grass and counted the number of individuals of each species in quadrats along the transects.
In the end, we found 153 Halimeda individuals and only 1 Penicillus individual in the 216 square feet that we measured. We noticed that even slight differences in the composition of the sea grass bed, such as the density or length of the grass, changed the likelihood of algae being found in the plot. To quantify these differences we would have to run another experiment that focused on the different zones in the sea grass bed. Our experiment was limited because of the small area that we covered and difficulty that we had counting the individuals. Even though we were in water that was 8 feet deep at most, it might have been easier to run the experiment using SCUBA so we wouldn’t have to keep surfacing, which made counting confusing when we had to see under blades of grass.
Halimeda and Penicillus are interesting green algae because they are calcareous. Halimeda incorporates calcium carbonate into its thallus in flat chips, whereas Penicillus has calcium carbonate in the brush-like filaments at the top of the algae. The different forms of calcium carbonate lead to different types of sand. Halimeda creates large, flat grains of sand. The sand from Penicillus is finer and muddier.
Today we left land and moved out to sea. I enjoyed our long boat ride out to Glover’s Atoll, its been a while since I’ve been on the ocean and the waves felt great. It’s a beautiful place out here. After orientation we hopped in the water for a quick snorkel on the patch reef. I ended up having a few technical difficulties towards the end that hopefully practice will resolve.
I am already having more luck with this taxonomic group. I saw two orange Pomatostegus stellatus (star horseshoe worms) growing on a coral, and apparently Grace found Spirobranchus giganteus (christmas tree worms) as well. Besides annelids I saw staghorn coral, a queen conch, a ray, and a ton of fish, soft coral and sponges I couldn’t specifically identify.
Today we left Las Cuevas Research Center and traveled to the Belize Zoo. After a long morning, we arrived at the Zoo’s Tropical Education Center. The center was really interesting because it consisted of a large property with multiple ecosystems, such as pine forests. The director of TEC warned us to watch out for wild snakes and other wildlife around the cabins, but the only wildlife that I saw were birds.
After dinner at TEC, we went for a night tour of the zoo. We only visited nocturnal animals because the guides didn’t want to disturb the diurnal animals. We got to visit two jaguars out of the 18 that the zoo has. The zoo has so many jaguars because they rescue animals that are in danger of being shot by farmers. One of the jaguars that we saw was a black jaguar named Lucky Boy who was rescued from a Belizean resort that had been abandoned. Black jaguars are extremely rare. They are the equivalent of the opposite of albino animals; they have too much melanin.
Lucky Boy (Photo creds: Lucrecia)
We also got to feed a tapir and saw an ocelot. The ocelot was entertaining because it wouldn’t stop growling, even when the zoo keeper fed it. The only difference was the change from a growl to a growling “nom nom nom” sound.
Because of all of the travel time, I didn’t get a chance to observe specific tree species. We passed through multiple ecosystems, and I saw many of the same species that I observed over the past week.
Today we experienced some unforeseen vehicular complications but we all came our the other side as weathered tfb’s (tropical field biologists). We’re spending the night at this beautiful lodge right next to the Belize zoo. Last night we were taken on a night tour of the zoo to see all the nocturnal animals at their most active. This meant jaguars, a puma, an ocelot, a margay, paca, and a tapir. It was truly incredible, I feel very lucky to have gotten to get so close to these beautiful big-cats. The jaguars have huge heads to crush their prey’s skull, but you can’t appreciate how big and powerful they are until they’re right in front of you. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
Tomorrow we make our way out to Glovers reef! Soon I will be updating you on annelids rather than amphibians (still no more of those by the way). If you are curious as to what those are, I’d look up christmas tree worms and social feather dusters. Those are my favorites and they are not at all what you would expect worms to look like, they’re actually quite beautiful.
We finished out the last day with another 13 mile hike to pick up all our camera traps. It took us about half the time it did on Thursday and I wasn’t nearly as tired. It’s amazing what your body can adjust to after just a few days. Even though I’m running on less sleep I feel great because of all the exercise and activity.
Checking the photos from camera traps was more exciting than you could possibly imagine. Most of it was nothing but when something popped up on screen we were elated. One of our cameras got a picture of a Tapir (!!!!) and another of an Ocelot (!!!!). Even though we only had a little taste of it I think I am starting to understand how difficult field work can be, but also how rewarding. I will miss the rainforest and all of its colors and scents and noises.
Even though we didn’t see many amphibians out here I didn’t feel too disappointed or bored because it meant I got to bounce around and look at everyone else’s taxonomic groups. The end of the dry season can be tough for herpetology but getting to watch birds, ants, mammals (I saw an agouti this morning), reptiles, and insects made up for it. Not to mention the plants! The diversity was incredible and I saw many more organisms than I was expecting.
Sophia Streeter
5-23
Happy birthday Mom! You too Elena, sorry I missed them.
Life in the canopy is very different from life on the forest floor. There are differences in water, sunlight, vegetation, other organisms, the affects of gravity and access to food and nutrition. Nitrogen is an important nutrient and decomposers on the forest floor are essential parts of the nitrogen cycle. With this in mind we hypothesized that the forest floor would be more nitrogen rich than the canopy. Specifically, that arthropods in the canopy are more nitrogen limited. We tested this using pitfall traps both in the trees and in the ground. We used control traps filled with water and traps full of nitrogen-rich liquid (our own urine). Tomorrow when we collect the traps we expect to find more arthropods in the urine filled traps, and more arthropods in the tree traps than the ground traps.
This afternoon we went spelunking in a cave at Las Cuevas that was used as a ceremonial chamber by the ancient Mayans. The Mayans believed that caves were entrances to the underworld and that at the end of the day the sun turned into a jaguar and entered hell through a cave to battle demons all night until it reached the other side. This cave had nine bottlenecks that represented the nine layers of a hell a Mayan hero fought through in their mythology. We belly-crawled through the mud-guano cave floor to several hard to reach spots. There are many Mayan artifacts in the cave and areas are still being excavated by archaeologists. We found a lot of pottery, but also a human femur and an animal skeleton. Most excitingly, we saw wrinkle-faced bats roosting. Other animal sightings included glow worms and whip scorpions. Of course the formations are almost alive themselves, with huge chambers swallowing you up.
I have been searching for amphibians in damp areas like the cave entrance and inside bromeliads but I haven’t had any luck today. The leaf litter can also shelter cryptic amphibians, like toads, but I haven’t found any so far.
Today we focused on some of the many ant species that habitate the Chiquibul forest. The cecropia tree has a symbiosis with azteca ants, which protect the tree from predators in exchange for shelter and food. We spent the morning testing a few hypothesis about how the cecropia trees avoid herbivores before they are colonized by the protector ants.
This afternoon we excavated three leaf cutter ant colonies of different maturities. Once a queen colonizes a nest after a nuptial flight she can live for 20 years reproducing, expanding the colony until there are millions of ants at any given time. There are tunnels underground leading to chambers full of the ant’s fungus garden and pupae. The youngest ones are fairly small, but once they are 10 years old they get huge, with tunnels the width of your arm full of soldier ants ready to come out and attack you when you disturb them. They have quite a pinch and we were all thankful for our rubber boots today.
We had an unexpected amphibian sighting once we got back to our housing; one of the bedrooms had a large frog on a bedpost. I caught it and took it outside to get a closer look and try to identify it. It hiccuped in my hand, puffing out its chest, in protest to its capture. The frog was dark green and brown, with some stripy markings around the forelegs. I couldn’t examine its back without it jumping from my hands so I didn’t get a clear look. It was about 2.5 inches long with horizontal pupils, bronze irises and toe pads. The toe pads indicate that its a treefrog and since there aren’t many in the area I would have to guess that it was another common Mexican treefrog, based on size and color. I released it into the trees after a minute or two to not cause it too much distressed and it leapt from my hands with a defiant squeak.
Our 13 mile hike in the rainforest, up and down hills, was the most physically exerting thing I’ve done in a long while, but it left me full of endorphins and with pleasantly sore muscles. We hiked all this way to set up 12 camera traps that will take pictures every time they detect movement over the next 5 days, until we collect them again. Hopefully this will let us see some of the more shy animals of the rainforest. We also found several interesting insects, spiders, and birds over the course of the day.
Amphibian update: we found some tadpoles in the muddy reservoir left by a car tire. Not an ideal spot but the dry season is coming to an end and there aren’t many options left for frogs and toads in the area, who need water to reproduce. More excitingly, I saw my first treefrog of the trip this afternoon. Adrienne masterfully caught it and held onto it long enough for me to snap a picture and identify it. After some consideration we positively identified it as a Common Mexican treefrog. It was large, at least 2.5 inches, and a shade of grey with green tinges. Once we were able to see its back, its species was obvious. It had the telltale darker splotches on a grey-brown body. At first its dark-eye patch threw me off but amphibians can be highly variable in coloration within a population and aren’t always a reliable form of identification.
