Tag Archives: Dyllan

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reflections on our adventure

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The past two weeks have felt like some of the longest days of my life, but I can not believe that BIOS 319 is over already. It was truly amazing to experience nature in these tropical environments in full force. I had never been so south before, so it was interesting to witness the latitudinal diversity gradient up close. The biodiversity that we observed in the field was unrivaled by anything I had seen before. The combination of intense, somewhat regular tropical sunlight and abundant rainfall has cultivated impressive biodiversity in both the reef and forest ecosystems. Further, the similarities in both ecosystems also stem from their biogeohistory. The bedrock of the forest is mostly limestone, making the soil pretty nutrient-poor, and leading to a variety of ecosystem adaptations to account for this. We saw the soil horizon on our drive to the forest, and there wasn’t much topsoil. We saw the buttress roots of trees that couldn’t go any deeper because of the bedrock, and we learned about different methods of quick nutrient cycling in the forest, like through nitrogen-fixing epiphytes. This is connected to the reef. With my taxon being hard corals, it was really interesting to learn about the calcium carbonate skeletons that hard corals create, and then to see them as calcified fossils in the coral graveyard. It’s amazing to think how these calcified fossils are what led to the limestone bedrock over millions of years. We also saw methods of quick nutrient cycling in the reef, like the constant feeding and pooping of the parrotfish. In contrast, we also learned and saw a lot of differences between the two ecosystems. For one, the weather it was so windy on the atoll, but in the forest, there was just heat without a breeze. Because of this, I think the days in the forest seemed much longer than the ones on the atoll. While I would’ve expected to experience more bugs in the forest, they actually weren’t as much of a problem compared to the atoll. In the forest, my biggest issues with bugs were huge insects like cockroaches and katydids wanting to spontaneously fly at my face or join me in the shower, but I never got bitten. On the other hand, in the atoll, our insect problem was sandflies. They are so tiny that you can hardly see them, but boy, do they bite. Just a few minutes in the sand around sunset, and I would have dozens of bites.

I honestly thought that living “off the grid” would be more challenging for me, but it wasn’t too bad. The limited access to technology didn’t bother me as much as I had anticipated, and I actually enjoyed the break from screens. I knew that I would be dirty, but oh my gosh, I couldn’t have anticipated how filthy I would be every day. I never felt truly clean while on the trip, so the first shower when I got home really hit.

Overall, my favorite thing about the trip was the ATM cave. I love seeing how biology, geology, and history interact with each other in these caves. I definitely think I could have spent hours exploring the cave, and it was so interesting to hear from our tour guide, who specializes in studying Belize caves. Especially because my family is descended from the Maya, it was really interesting to hear about their culture and relationship with the environment. I think it is so cool how they thought caves were doors to the underworld and worshipped and made sacrifices to the rain and corn gods there.

My least favorite thing was definitely when we had to go off the trail to place our camera traps. The first few times were fun, but after a while, the heat started to get to be and I felt drenched in sweat and I was nervous the whole time that a snake would pop out, out of nowhere.

I definitely learned a lot on this trip, but the three most important things were:

  1. How coral polyps function as a colony and almost like one giant organism.
  2. How plant and insect species coevolve together over millions of years to become extremely specialized and depend on one another.
  3. Even a small pilot study with a limited sample size can help guide further studies in the right direction and offer some insight into general trends.
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5/30- the Journey back home

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This morning, I finally woke up early enough to watch the sunrise on this beautiful island. We left at 6 am so I tried to spend my morning committing everything to memory, from the way the crabs scurry in the sand to salty sea breeze. I feel very lucky that I am not someone that gets seasick because the 3 hour boat ride was extremely choppy and made some of my classmates sick. For me the ride is so peaceful— I put my headphones in and sunglasses on, and I fell asleep. We got our first taste of AC on the bus ride and it was heavenly. After the flight and getting through customs, I said my goodbyes to the group and left for a plane back home. I was so excited to be home and see my family, I took the longest shower ever and fell into the deepest sleep of my life. This trip definitely felt like way more than two weeks long.

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5/29- Leaving it better than we found it

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Like two days ago when we explored the coral graveyard, we noticed how polluted the shores of this island is. We all wanted to leave the island a little better than we found it, so today, we spent the morning cleaning up the beach. We had 7 huge trash bags and we filled them up so quickly. We could have spent days collecting all of that trash, because in just about an hour, we filled up all the trash bags we had. As we picked up trash, we collected data on where the trash tended to be most dense on the island. We found that on different sides of the island, the amount of trash was similar, but the distribution was different. On the edge of the atoll, the collected trash was more concentrated in one area, while on the iside of the atoll, the trash was much more spread out due to thte currents.

Then, in the afternoon,  we dissected some lionfish. Lionfish are invasive to this area, and a huge threat to coral reefs, so our professors have been spearing them throughout the week. My llionshidh was very small, so there was nothing in its stomach, and I couldn’t tell the sex. However, it was still interesting to examine the gills and anatomy.

In the evening, we had an optional last snorkel, so obviously, I had to go. Swimming and snorkelling has been my favorite thing to do on the island, and I loved being able to explore the beautiful reefs one last time. I saw so many maze corals, fire corals, and finger corals. I also saw a nurse shark, sting ray, and lion fish.

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5/28- Marine Protected Areas

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Up until today, we had only explored reefs in marine protected areas. But today, our project centered around how biodiversity is impacted by MPA status. We visited two non-MPA and two MPA reefs. There was an obvious difference between them. The non-MPA reef had fewer fish, and they seemed more wary of human presence than the fish in the MPA. We just learned about MPAs last night from a representative from the research station, a marine biologist, and a member of the Coast Guard. These people together protect the precious ecosystems here, and it’s cool to see how their efforts have a tangible impact on these endangered habitats. Besides this, we had some downtime today to just soak up the sun on the pier. We leave soon, so I’m trying to enjoy every moment.

This is me when I had to jump in to retrieve my sandal.

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5/27- Exploring a graveyard

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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.

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5/26 Hunting for Parrotfish

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I spent the day with my dive buddy Claire today looking for redband parrotfish. We tried to follow them around the reef for a survey on parrotfish diets. At the first site, we didn’t see any. We thought we had found some, but when we got to shore I realized that all I had were videos of wrasses. At the next two sites, we actually did spot a few! Parrotfish are difficult to spot because the same species can look completely different, so it was definitely a challenge. We ended up finding 6 total, but we only saw the two females eat because the males typically patrol and don’t eat as much. On our parrotfish hunt, I also noticed so many christmas tree worms living on brain corals. These guys are so cute!!! If I were to send a wave vibration towards them, they would sense it and shrivel up immediately. Likewise, we played with some sea anemones, who would also shrink up when u got close to them. It was adorable! I also got to see some yellow pencil coral and lettuce coral here!!! The lettuce coral was much smaller than the pictures I have seen. It seemed to grow in small patches around the reef, so I hadn’t noticed it before.

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5/25 on the hunt for coral

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Today we had our first snorkel!! Our morning snorkel was pretty chill. We swam out to the reef patch and just explored and practiced snorkeling. I saw a lizard fish and parrotfish and LOTS of hard corals! After lunch, we took a boat out to this other reef patch called the aquarium for how big and clear the water is. Here I saw a nurse shark, a yellow sting ray, a sea cucumber, hard corals and so many damsel fish. I also saw a large terminal male stoplight parrotfish, which I followed around for a bit. A lot of fish change gender as they age to balance the population, and when they do they can change their appearance to look completely different. Because of this, there are so many variations of what different fish can look like, so it’s hard to ID them. This parrotfish appeared to be eating the coral or scraping algae off if the coral to eat. Parrotfish are known to have very strange diets. They appear to eat anything from coral to algae to rocks. They frequently poop all of this out which actually create most of the “sand” that we see. In the next few days, I definitely want to follow some more parrotfish around to see them eat and poop. Then we went over to another site, where I saw even more hard corals and fish! I think this location by far had the most hard corals. All the locations seemed to have mustard hill coral, branch fire coral, blade fire coral grooved brain coral, finger coral,  possibly massive starlet coral. The last location also had symmetrical brian coral and smooth star coral, although these are difficult to identify for me, so it’s just my best guess.

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5/24 Paradise???

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We have finally arrived at glover’s! Most of the day was spent traveling, which was a much needed rest after our week of activities. We took a 3 hour, windy, sunny, beautiful boat ride. It was so cool to pass by islands and see the start of the laguna and the atoll. The barrier reef made the waters really choppy at some times, which made the ride extra fun. I can’t wait to see those corals up close in person tomorrow!!! When we got here, we hung out on the dock for a long time because it was so gorgeous and peaceful. The weather is a hige upgrade from Chiquibul, because there is a lovely salty breeze, and even fans in the rooms! The main issue is the SAND FLIES EVERYWHERE. I already have so many bites. Now i know to avoid the sand as much as i can and where a jacket and bug spray. After just being here for a few hours, we have already seen so much life including pelicans, a nurse shark, bone fish, and more ginormous crabs than I have ever seen in my life. Tomorrow morning is our first snorkel! I’m really looking forward to getting the hang of snorkeling in the reef.

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5/23: Sacrifices and Speckled Owls

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Today was my favorite day so far!! I thought it would be on the more boring side, since it is a lot of traveling, but OMG. First off all the bus ride is so beautiful and peaceful despite all the bums. I could stay on it forever just listening to music and imagining I’m in a music video. When we arrived at our destination, the ATM caves, I didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be the most amazing experience ever! we spent over three hours exploring a HUGE Maya cave. There were parts so deep that we had to swim through and parts so tight that we had to climb and squeeze through a small hole one by one. We learned about the natural processes that created the cave formations from limestone and saw several bats and their homes. Most exciting, we saw several human bones, including skulls! These skeletons are thought to be remains from human sacrifices made to the gods for rain and abundance. We also saw the pots and “fireplaces” they had and learned how they use them in ceremonies. Its crazy to think how different their lives were from anything we can possibly imagine.

After the caves, we went to the education center to stay the night. We got a night time tour of the zoo and got to see so many iconic animals of the belize forests, including jaguars, tapirs, and kinkajous.  We saw a wild iguana with its tail bitten off and it jumped and ran after us! My favorite animal that we saw was hoodwink, a speckled owl. we was bred and kept in captivity until a few years ago when a hurricane hit and he escaped. Missing his pampered lifestyle, he returned 4 months later, but with a girlfriend. Now the girlfriend visits him every mating season, even though they can never be together because he is domesticated in a cage and she is wild. So cute. Tomorrow we leave for Glover’s reef! I can’t wait!

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Sunsets and butterfly nets 5/21

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As you can guess from the title, today was indeed the first day that I have successfully caught a butterfly in my net!!!  I caught a Dirce Beauty at the top of our toughest hike yet. My feet are still aching from this STEEP incline, but it was so worth it because not only did I catch a butterfly at the top, but we also got to go to the top of the bird watch tower to see the sunset. It was such a beautiful view, and I got to see a big group of dirce beauties all huddled in a corner. I think this reinforces my theory that these butterflies prefer open areas.

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We also had another cool night hike on the way back. I got to see a lot of moths on our path. I noticed that when there is not a big light around like there is at the field station, the moths can actually be pretty still and like to rest under big leaves. I think one of the moths might have been a tetrio sphinx moth, but I don’t think the others are on my taxon ID sheet.

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Earlier in the day, we got to get a tour of a huge cave. You have to get special access to enter this cave and we can’t post any pictures from inside. We saw how the stalagmites and stalactites get formed via the acidic water and limestone. It was cool to see how small little drops turn into huge structures over millions of years. I also enjoyed learning about how the Maya used the caves and seeing the archeological finds.

After lunch we analyzed the invertebrates that we collected in our pitfall traps and presented our findings. We found hundreds of bugs, so it took us a while to tally them all up, but once we did, we were able to see how vertical stratification in rainforests impact nutrient limitation in invertebrates.

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Tomorrow is our last day! I can’t believe that we are almost leaving Las Cuevas.