Tag Archives: coral graveyard

Uncategorized

Day 12: Catch of the day

Leave a comment

Today we got together in the wet lab and went through all of our findings from the parrotfish study yesterday. On the striped parrotfish, we found that they usually swim in large, informal groups that re-convene at the edge of the coral or in the sea grass. We mostly observed juveniles, although there was at least one male spotted in both of our groups. On average, it was around 5-6 fish that we would see swimming together. Usually the fish were eating algae off of grass, but sometimes they would also eat off of coral.

When all of the parrotfish groups got together, we found that all of the species had been eating algae, and only a few of them would appear to actually be eating pebbles or the seagrass itself. Also, all of the species primarily lived near reef edges.

Later on, we went out into the shallow waters to try and collect any creatures we could catch and birng them back to the wet lab to analyze. I was really impressed with how some TFBs could just snatch them right out of the water. I successfully caught a fish too! I’m not even sure how I did it, it practically just swam right into my tray. The creepiest catch was definitely the box jellyfish Elise caught near the mangroves. Apparently it was just hanging out near her leg! I don’t think the box jellies here are nearly as dangerous as the Australian ones, but it was still horrifying to hear that we were just standing that close to them the whole time.

In the water I also saw a lot more needlefish! They were super fast and too smart to get caught in our meagre trays and buckets, but I observed them swimming near the surface in groups of 3-4 and darting around, presumably catching smaller fish just like us.

For our poster on the parrotfish today, I took the job of illustrating our observations-the fish! It was really cool to put them on the paper and try to match each of their unique colors to the reference pictures we had.

This afternoon, we went on a walk around the island and spent a good amount of time in the coral graveyard. It was fascinating to observe the gradient of color, starting with the living coral in the sea, and finally progressing to the grey, dead coral that had been fossilized and is now fully exposed on the shore. We also picked up many little creatures that lived in the shallow waters along the coast.

I gave my presentation on piscivorous fish tonight, and we learned about sharks and rays in addition to angelfish. Angelfish also practice protogynous hermaphroditism, which I really did not know about before this trip, but seems to be quite common among the reef fish.

Tonight, instead of going for a night snorkel due to precarious wind conditions, we fished off of the dock! The highlight BY FAR was Claire D catching a squid! It was absolutely unbelievable-she somehow captured the (not so) little guy on the first try in a tiny net and successfully transferred it to one of the buckets we had set up. Once in the bucket, the squid inked! In addition to the squid, we also collected fish, shrimp, and a glass eel! It was one of, if not the most, memorable nights of the trip thus far.

Screenshot

-Emily

Uncategorized

5/27- Exploring a graveyard

Leave a comment

After spending the past few days mostly in the ocean, it was nice to spend today doing some non-snorkeling activities.  We waded in the shallow parts around the dock, just trying to catch anything and everything we could. Our coolest and scariest find was definitely a box jellyfish, which has one of the worst stings. Somehow, no one got stung, and Elise caught it! It’s crazy how something so unassuming can be so powerful. 

We also walked to the coral graveyard. The whole island is covered in fossilized corals, but this part is a particularly large mound of them that has built up over a long period of time. These calcium carbonate fossils are still in very distinct shapes, so you can kind of tell what species they are. I saw elkhorn, staghorn, finger coral, lots of brain corals, maze coral, mound corals, and others that I couldn’t even identify. Hard corals secrete calcium carbonate to make a skeleton, which builds the coral reefs. This process has been happening for billions of years, and when they day, they become fossilized and eventually get compressed into limestone, which we see as the predominant bedrock of many areas in the Belize forests. It’s this limestone that led to the formation of the giant cave structures that we explored. The geological time is incomprehensible to me, and it’s amazing how it is all connected.

At night, we all went to the dock and shined light into the ocean to watch sea creatures. We found a really cool squid, which we caught, watched ink, and messed with it to see it change colors. This was so fun, but I wish it had jumped out at us, which is apparently one of their defensive mechanisms.

Uncategorized

Day Dozin’ (Dozen): Docking Down and Dillydallying Deep

Leave a comment

A little break from snorkeling! After the classic eggs, beans, and bread, we went out to the seagrass patch by the doc, adding things into buckets that we could potentially observe under a microscope. Dyllan and I got a pair of tongs each, while Elise and Claire D. got some small fish nets, and other people got buckets or an assortment of the tools. It was so so fun! I clipped up so many different types of seagrass to put in the buckets. I also caught a few hermit crabs and some random insects on the surface of the water. Others were able to catch some really fast larval fish, a lot more hermit crabs, some sea snails, and even some shrimp. Best of all though, Dr. Evans caught this yellow-purple land crab in the mangroves, and Elise caught a box jelly! It was even cooler watching them all under the microscope. I saw black spots on the clear coverings of the larval fish, epiphytes on the various sea grass, and cool miniature structures on some of the algae. 

After that, it was time for the temple of lunch, which was this really yummy fried egg sandwich with lettuce and tomato. Also the softest bread I have ever eaten, it must’ve been homemade. Soon after, it was time for the temple of the dock. Tanning on the pristine dock, listening to folk music and ocean waves, it was such a divine experience.

It was then time for a walk on the coral graveyard, which makes up the perimeter of the GRRS Island, Middle Caye. Walking across these fossilized coral, it was astounding to see just how dust settled atop the dead coral. It was a sea of grey and white, representative of debris and sun bleaching respectively. We identified at least 6-8 different forms of hard coral settled in the area. We also saw some soft coral like the purple sea fan slowly fossilizing, which was interesting because it would consistently retain its structure and color, just drying out to eventually turn into dust. In millions of years, this area will likely become a cave, or something else that may karstify. But if it does, it might have a layer of thin, colorful rock interspersed, composed of the plastic litter within the area. Among the dozens of bottles, slippers, and bags, it was a stark reminder that no matter how isolated the islands seem, the ocean connects all.

In the rocky sea nearby, we got to see and pick up a bunch of purple and red sea urchins! They moved all across my hand, it was crazy. Claire C. also picked up a brittle sea star. Walking down across the rest of the beach, I also noticed the various trees and logs across this area.

Mangroves grew along the coastline, with coconut trees and decomposing logs everywhere. Something interesting about the coconut trees–the coconuts themselves are shallowly attached to the sand, splitting open for tendrils and roots to emerge. I had never realized this before, but makes sense given the poor nutrition and loose texture of the soil. It could be the reason why the coconut is so big and nourishing. Also, the trees grow really really slanted because of the strong sea winds, which I thought was really cool. It’s common across all trees, but the extent is unlike anything I’ve noticed. Another fun fact, there were some really cool bright red shelf fungi on the logs which I’d never seen before. Not my beach taxon, but still really cool.

After a yummy dinner and the classic taxon and topic presentations, it was time for a night fish! This was so so cool. We put some lights into the ocean and watched the jumpy larval fish team around. I was even able to catch a couple! We also caught some shrimp, and Claire D. caught a squid. Eventually, we did try feeding the squid some shrimp. It squirted a bunch of its black ink, changing colors to match the ink, the white bucket, and the speckled nets. Didn’t catch any of the shrimp though, which was kinda lame. But I was a big fan of the night fishing catch otherwise. That’s my first fish ever caught, which is kinda crazy. I did lose a slipper though, so sorry to contribute to that big pile of slippers on the coral graveyard.

Taxon Spotting: Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any parrotfish today. But we saw so much sand across the trails, and 70% of Caribbean sands come from parrotfish excrement. So putting two and two together, we saw a lot of evidence of all of the prominent species across the beach. 

Uncategorized

Rest in (Calcified) Pieces (5/27)

Leave a comment

Hey y’all!

Woke up to a brand new day in paradise along with the Blue Crabs, Hermit Crabs and Spiny Iguanas that call Glover’s Reef home!

Today, we got to work together to make a poster and present what we found about what Parrotfish prefer to eat in the coral patches around Glover’s to the professors. It was really cool to see the poster come together with such excellent illustrations (credit to Emily and Zoe).

We then waded around the seagrass beds by the dock and mangroves to see what kind of fish, crabs, grasses, and other cool organisms we could find. We found a bunch of hermit crabs, a really cool red and purple crab, and even a Box Jellyfish (this guy has a really nasty sting and is super hard to see, so I’m glad we found him and walked away unscathed!). And don’t worry, we put them all back in the water close to where we found them!

After lunch, we walked to a coral graveyard on one of the island’s beaches. Coral graveyards are areas where dead coral pieces get washed up and left in the sun as calcium gets into the coral tissues and makes them to hard and gray that they look like rocks.

We then walked to an open beach being built up by young mangroves, which are called “Island Builders” because their roots are really good at holding onto sand and other sediments.

I find it so amazing how, as small as Glover’s Reef is, there are so many wondrous things all around us!

Bonus Bit: We put a night light into the water this evening at the end of the dock to see the kinds of fish that would come by. We caught three anchovies, a herring, and a shrimp by 8 pm, which is when I turned in. But almost an hour after I left, the group caught two glass eels (fish larvae) and a Reef Squid! They totally squealed when it squirted ink in the bucket before we released him.

Uncategorized

Day 12: Gotta catch ‘em all

Leave a comment

Today, in the morning, we got together as a group and analyzed our data from the fish follow surveys we did yesterday. One thing that was a little surprising to me was that the parrotfish were not regularly eating coral, but instead seemed to be scraping or pulling algae off the coral. I had thought that their diets would be primarily coral, but we learned that most parrotfish don’t actually eat living corals. We made a poster with some illustrations and tables showing what we had found and presented it out on the dock. At this point, by our third poster, we know the procedure by heart.

Working on the poster!

Later in the morning, we waded out into the shallow sea grass beds to collect critters for observation. We had to learn the stingray shuffle for safety—instead of taking big steps, take little shuffling steps, so that you don’t accidentally step on a stingray. That kicked up a ton of sand, so it was hard to see the bottom of the sea grass beds, but it still was possible to collect little sea creatures. We didn’t have to go far to find interesting things, and very quickly we were picking up small fish, crabs, and little arthropods. I was particularly won over by a larger snail we collected, which would intermittently shoot water at us out of the bucket. On our way back in, Elise caught a box jellyfish by accident, thinking it was something else. We quarantined it in its own tray for safety. We all came away unscathed, if a little sunburned.

Back in the lab, we broke out the microscopes to look at them closer. The seaweed samples we collected were teeming with life in the form of tiny epiphytes, and the creatures looked so interesting under the microscopes. We separated the crabs into an observation bucket as well—we couldn’t put them under the microscopes, of course, but we had little hand lenses we could use to look at them closer. We observed them until lunch and then, after lunch, released them off the dock.

My snail friend

In the afternoon, we hiked the interpretive trail around the island. It took us to the coral graveyard, a beach absolutely covered in fossilized coral. There were so many different types, although the branching corals did not survive as well as the mounding corals—because of their more fragile structure they tended to be more broken up. There were also fossil shells, including conch shells. Because they became more brittle when they fossilized, they were often broken and you could see the internal structure, which was super cool. I also found one which still had some of the original shell poking through the fossilized portions, which was neat. Unfortunately, the beach was also covered in trash, possibly from large storms. That was true for a bunch of the trail, which was a bummer because it was otherwise quite beautiful.

Half-fossilized conch in the coral graveyard

In the evening, we had planned to do a night snorkel but it was too windy and conditions were not safe. Instead, we dropped flashlights off the dock to attract fish and other interesting sea creatures. We caught some of them and put them in a bucket temporarily for closer observation. These included glass eels, the larval stage of the bone fish we had been seeing. Eventually we started to attract predators, including a small squid. We were all impressed, and started joking thst we should try and catch it. It was swimming close to the dock, but I assumed we wouldn’t be able to do it. Claire D gave it a shot and pulled it out of the water first try! It was super impressive. We observed it in the bucket for a little while watching it swim around, change colors, and even ink. Eventually, we decided it was time to release it and call it a night. What an experience! It’ll be hard to top.

Squid!!
Uncategorized

Day 12: Parrotfish Eating and Middle Caye Exploration!

Leave a comment

May 27, 2025

GRRS Day 3 

Today was a bit more of a chill day… all 16 of us I think are a little tired. Excited and happy to be here, but definitely tired. Luckily, there is amazing tropical field biology to be seen from the comfort of Middle Caye (the island GRRS sits on.) In the morning, we made a poster for the parrotfish experiment, presented it, then explored the shallow seagrass beds and found little snails, crabs, fish, and all sorts of cool things. I got sunburnt :/ 

The afternoon saw some cool stuff too, as we walked along the trail to the “coral graveyard” where Pleistocene-era corals are all fossilized on the beach. It was interesting to see how the graveyard faded into the water and eventually into a living reef, a testament to the geology of how the island came about and could possibly grow as those corals die and trap sediment. I also loved to see the life under these corals, as their fossils made a perfect habitat for snails, little crabs, and sea urchins! I saw something I’ve never seen before, a Bryozoan! The one thing I didn’t like about the coral graveyard was the amount of litter and rubbish everywhere, that was obviously washed up by the ocean. Made me sad to see it all, and wonder if there could be some volunteer project hosted by the WCS to clean it up. We also happened upon a beach, where we found an entire (open, full of seawater) bottle of gold rum. Also, an important note about the beach: all that sand is Wrasse (parrotfish) poop! Even though I didn’t see wrasses today, I certainly saw their effects!

At night, we were supposed to go snorkeling, but that did not happen due to weather conditions. We didn’t let it get us down though, as we had a great night of “night lighting” off the dock. Basically, we tied a light to a dock post and had it bobbing around for about an hour. We saw all sorts of cool things attracted to the light, including little shrimps, larval crabs, glass eels (larval stage of tarpon, bonefish, and eels) and a reef squid we named Angie (after our amazing cook at LCRS.) 

As we complete day 3, I realize we’re already more than halfway through the GRRS portion of our class. It is crazy to think that we will be landing in Houston in just a couple days! 

Images

Bryozoan found on flipped over fossilized coral
Parrotfish Eating Behaviors Poster
Angie the Reef Squid
2022

Day 3: Penicillus Project + Coral Graveyard

1 Comment

Today we started to think more like field biologists by using tools such as our quadrates and transect tapes to measure densities and volumes of objects such as coral heads! We came up with a scientific question and hypothesis to test about the green algae, penicillus. We wanted to test how the penicillus density would change as we got into deeper waters. Our class could perform this data collection if we all went vertical by shoring using our transect to measure our 100 ft from shore, and then using our quadrat to search for and identify penicillus among the sea grass. Our hypothesis was that penicillus would be more abundant in shallower waters, due to higher sunlight and more nutrients, but we were wrong. Our data supported the idea that penicillus was more abundent in deeper waters and was typically seen not solitary but in groups. We presented our evidence and conclusions to our professors and they seemed impressed for our first field biology project. Maybe some day in the future we’ll try to experimentally determine the reason for this (possibly competition with sea grass or other factors).

Here’s us working and discussing our presentation of our data

While we were working on our presentations Nyala and Caio brought us coconut meat which was a delicious snack!

Later we visited our Professor Correa’s favorite place on earth- the Coral Graveyard. The coral graveyard has all different specimens of corals that seem to be very well preserved.  There was stag horn coral, different species of brain corals with cool patterns and ridges, and there was also a type of coral that is so rare that there has hardly been any sightings in the last 40 years (before the coral disease epidemic). It was very important that we know learn to match these corals up with live species that we may encounter in the reef! We also discovered a fossilized palm tree species which Dr. Solomon is pictured holding!

I spotted a coral specimen that had  a possible annelid boring mark. This was probably a type of worm hole! It was perfectly preserved and I wonder what type of annelid could have made that mark.

There was also some specimens of Bladed Fire Coral (millepora complanata) which is a common hydrozoan reef-building coral in Glover’s reef! Bladed fire coral has very small hair-like polyp holes compared to most other species I have encountered.

I can’t wait to see more of Glover’s tomorrow and hopefully go on a boat snorkel trip!

~Maegan

2022

The Best Place on Earth (Day 3)

Leave a comment

Hi all, it’s Faith with Day 3 updates from the 2022 Belize trip!!!

Today we started off with a new activity where we learned how to use the quadrats and transect tapes.  On the reefs, quadrats are used for making standardized measurements while fighting the wave currents. You can count them using  the individual squares or their cross-sections!!! We took on two tasks, one as a duo and one as a whole group, that challenged us to use quadrats and transect tapes to answer a scientific question.

As a pair, Maegan and I tried to measure the heights and widths of young palms (we called them coconut palms because they still grow out of coconuts) on the Glover’s island, but Dr. Correa told us to change it, so we ended up measuring the volumes of two random coconut palms. We used the transect tape as a tool to decrease the bias in our samples, and we used the qaudrats squares as a unit of measurement.

After this test-run, our entire group created a scientific question, hypothesis, and procedure for collecting data. Here are the details:

Our question was, “How does the density of the green algae Penicillium change with distance from the dock?” Our hypothesis was that the density decreased because “algae are light dependent and nutrient depended,” and we *assumed* that there was more light and nutrients towards the shore.  For our actual experiment, our pairs lined up horizontally at the doc, and then layed out 100ft of transect tape in a line straight ahead of us. Then, every 10 feet we counted the number of Penicillium in 1 quadrats range on either side of the transect tape. Our findings actually conflicted with our hypothesis because the distance with the highest Penicillium density was actually 80ft away! We concluded that our hypothesis may be wrong because 1) seagrass was outcompeteing the algae in shallower waters, 2) the waters by the shore might not be more nutrient rich or provide more light, and 3) we may have gotten better at finding the algae the more we practiced (therefore reporting more at deeper depths). However, we kinda ruled out #3 because Maegan and I did the experiment backwards, and even though we reported the algae from 100ft to 0 ft, our data aligned with the trend (we found 6 Penicillium at 80ft. which was our highest density). Another group also did a backwards collection and had similar data. To finish off this trial research, the professors made us present it just like I said it to you now!!! So, look below for pictures of our beautiful poster!

Then data collection dive was challenging in many ways. I found out how difficult data collection is because of the currents and carrying materials. Because of this, I ended up leaving my camera behind, so of course, the worst thing happened– 2 echinoderms showed up! First, Professor Correa brought me a Oreaster reticulatus more commonly known as a cushion sea star. I was not sure where she found him, but I assume it was in the sea grass where we were collecting data. I had a difficult time identifying this star because it had pillow-star depth, but the spines were the same color as the bodice and the legs lacked a prominent “fused” appearance. Most guides show pictures where their spines are lighter than the bodice color and their legs are very fused. Nevertheless, I got to hold him and feel his spiny tube feet prick my fingers. Because I didn’t have my camera, someone else took my photo, so hopefully I’ll be able to get the picture and upload it for the next blog!

Next, I saw a West Indian Sea Egg (Tripneustes ventricosus) just sitting in the sea grass, but Ruth, our marine safety guide, picked him up before I could. So, alas, I did not get to name him “Fluffy,” and I cannot cross this off of my goals list! Anyways, we got to see the interesting sea urchin suction mouths because he suctioned to us while we held him. Shortly after seeing him, messing around with plastic-bag jellyfish, and trying to grab upside-down jellyfish, we went inside for lunch.

For our last activity of the day, Dr. Correa brought us to “the best place on Earth” where we identified washed-up coral skeletons based on their coralite and polyp structures. It was a very informative talk, but I don’t think I can cover it all here. You’ll just have to visit the coral graveyard yourself with a coral guidebook! I did go a littttttllllleeeee conch crazy and collected every conch that had color in it (about 5 or so). I also found a walking stick!!!

Till tomorrow!

Quotes of the Day:

“This place is amazing!!! *points at coral* And this is Agaricia”

“Signing off in another language would be a very suburban mom thing to do, ‘like I learned a few new words today’ would be too ‘mom’ of me”

West Indian Sea Egg (sadly not named Fuzzy)
Tripneustes ventricosus
Our presentation poster with a quadrat heart <3
Labeling Coral from the coral graveyard
Fossilized Palm Roots from the coral graveyard. This one stumpted us at first; we knew it wasn’t a coral. All we could do was ask Prof. Solomon, “Is this a land thing?” We found out what it was by finding dead palm roots that looked very similar.
2022

today powered by coconut

Leave a comment

Today was a big day. I know you were all waiting in suspense after the cliff-hanger ending to yesterday’s blog post. Well, wait no more.

We started out the day by practicing using out quadrats (which are actually 2×2 feet-oops!). We had to come up with a scientific question that we could answer by using the quadrat. Sophia and I chose to ask what percentage of the sand is occupied by live foliage. We laid out 30 feet of transect tape, then placed the quadrat on either side every five feet, and counted the number of squares that contained a live plant. The answer we came up with was 22.7%.

The next step was to figure out a scientific question that we could answer with the quadrat in the reef, collect data, and present our findings to the professors. You can read all about it below!

Also, I must note that throughout our scientific process we were being supplied fresh coconut by the kids. #sponsored

After that, we went on a walk to the coral graveyard-Professor Correa’s favorite place in the world! It looked like a beach full of gray rocks, but upon further inspection, it turned out to be fossilized corals! We were able to identify the corals based on the shape of the calyxes (the little spot that the coral polyp inhabits). In live coral, the skeleton is covered by the tissue, so in these fossils, we could easily see the identifying markers. Some of the fossils belonged to corals that have been nearly wiped out by disease and are rarely seen in nature, so the coral graveyard was truly a special place.

I also saw some sargassum that had washed up on the shore of the coral graveyard. I think it was sargassum natans VIII, but it was hard to tell because most of it was dead. There were also some floating sargassum patches out at sea, which was cool because there aren’t any that I have seen within the lagoon.

We then came back to watch the presentations for the night. I delivered mine on nutrient pollution, overfishing, and the future of the coral reefs.

And that was it! Tomorrow we are looking to go further out via boat to see new reefs, weather allowing of course. Stay tuned!

-Elena

ps. happy graduation to my brother! (although I doubt he’s reading this)

2022

Day 3: A Coconut Paradise

1 Comment

Feeling like a true field biologist! Today we practiced using our quadrates and trisects, first on land and then in the water. For the water experiment, the whole group came up with the research question: how does the density of the green algae Penicillus changes the further you go from shore? We also brainstormed a hypothesis (that they’d become less abundant) and a method to carry out our question. In the end, our hypothesis was wrong, but it was still really fun to be able to look closer into the seagrass and find all of the other organisms that reside in it (corallomorphs, anemones, and conchs).

Before, as we were working on our experiments and waiting for everyone to be finished, we were all treated with 10/10 service from Dr. Correa and Dr. Solomon’s kids Calliou and Nayala. I learned how to husk a coconut and also how to get the water out from it. I now believe that I could most definitely survive on a deserted island. No doubt.

After lunch, we went to the wet lab and worked on our group poster about the green algae experiment (during which we were graciously treated with even more delicious fresh coconut from Calliou and Nayala) and  then presented it to Dr. Correa and Dr. Solomon (we totally aced it too ;)). We then went out to Dr. Correa’s favorite spot in the whole entire world: the Coral Graveyard. Once you get there, you can totally understand why too. Here, it was a section of the old reef that re-mineralized and all of the coral skeletons are super clear and really easy to identify as they are all now stone. This also includes the conch shells which I thought was pretty crazy. Some corals that we identified include Fire Coral, Symmetrical Brain Coral,  and Pillar Coral (which sadly isn’t very common anymore). Also! I was able to see some Crustose Coraline Algae (my taxa) mineralized. It was super cool to be able to see the skeleton of the hundreds of pieces corals before they corrode into sand, something that you don’t get to see everyday.

-Sophia

A full group selfie!
Re-mineralized Psuedodiploria strigosa (left) and unidentified coral (right)
A re-mineralized conch shell
Re-mineralized Crustose Coralline Algae