Tag Archives: glovers reef

2022

D-4 Impaling my taxa :’(

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Today the day started pretty wonderful, we got to bring many organisms from the local coast to the wet lab and have the many experts in our class identify them and tell us a little about each species. From this activity I really liked looking at things under the microscope, specially I got to look at a cool coral fragment that someone found! I also got to see a mantis shrimp for the first time!

Later in the day, we came up with a new question and went out to test it on different corals than those we had explored earlier in the week. With our research we want to understand if there is some sort of correlation between the amount of sea urchins observed and the amount of live coral. Our question originates from how sea urchins burrow into the corals which may weaken the coral and leave them more susceptible to disease. During our time on the reef patch we collected enough data, yet collecting that data was sure an adventure. The waves were way stronger than we had anticipated and we were constantly pushed into corals or our partners before we got to get the information we needed. Yet thankfully we were able to get data and also collect some urchins which we later examined back in the lab. (Don’t worry, we are taking good care of the sea urchins and will return them home tomorrow!)

We then went to a second patch this time not to work but to do some relaxing snorkeling. It was during this second snorkeling that I was shocked to see a lionfish flopping mid air on a stick. I was sad to see a member of my taxa of interest (piscivorous fish) that way, yet I also know that these can be really damaging to biodiversity, so I am glad that our team could contribute to improving the probability of many other species to survive via this kill of an invasive species. Also I am glad that some member of our group who really really want to try them will have a great dinner tomorrow(?)!

Also regarding tomorrow, I’m nervous but I also can’t wait to continue researching our question about corals and sea urchins to see what we discover!

2022

D-3 Marine Quadrats and a Coral Gravesite?

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Hi everyone!

Today was pretty great, we got to do a bunch of new things as a group! For example today we worked with transects and quadrats under water for the first time. At first it was a little challenging, specially with two new devices and a clipboard to carry while swimming yet working as a team definitely helped. With a little bit of practice it got easier for me and my partner to place the quadrats correctly and then assess the amount of green algae in that patch. Although we were all able to gather data, our data ended up not proving our initial hypothesis. Originally we predicted that we would see a decrease in green algae as we moved further from shore, yet the opposite appears to be true. Although we do not know why, we infer that it could be due to over-competition from the sea grasses.

Later on in the day we went to what Dr. Correa called the coral graveyard. I thought it was so amazing how well preserved so many corals were after being fossilized. We had a small learning activity there in which we learned to pair some corals with their species name. Although many people got the names down quite quickly I can’t say I was one of them. Yet, I took photos of them and their respective names and plan to study them! I really enjoyed everything we did, yet I think working on our poster to present our data was my favorite part!

Regarding my taxa, I didn’t get to see any of them today. I am sure I will have a greater chance of seeing piscivorous fish whenever we go to greater depths!

2022

D-2 The mangroves of death

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Hey everyone!

Today the day began fairly early for all of us, with breakfast at 7. The breakfast was so great, I specifically loved the banana pancakes! Then we suited up and got ready for our first dive. It was great to finally get into the water, specially because it was so refreshing and because we got to see so many amazing species. I got specially excited when I saw a Highhat (a piscivorous fish, my taxa) eat another smaller fish! Sadly I didn’t have the camera with me on the first swim so I didn’t get to take a photo (yet, even if I had the camera I am not sure I would have been fast enough!)

After swimming for a while we came back onto land and got lunch. As always the food was great, I got some french fries, cole slaw, and two raisin cookies. After lunch we went for another swim, yet this time it was a completely different experience: we went through the mangroves of death. There, we all got aggressively bitten by the blood thirsty mosquitoes. We all ran into the water hoping it would stop, yet they followed us in. Thankfully, as we moved further in they left us alone and we were at peace to take photos (and attempt to complete the scavenger hunt!) I personally did not finish the scavenger hunt yet I got to see so many cool fish, sponges, and many hard and soft corals. After a while we got asked if we wanted to run back through the mangroves of death or swim a much longer route. Without a second thought we all chose to swim back. After we got back many of us took the chance to shower. Then we watched two presentations about hard corals and soft corals. Afterwards we got a much needed break before dinner. Later at dinner we got really tasty rice and cheesecake! To conclude our day, after dinner we all listened to a few more presentations, this time about coral reef framework and growth, sponges, ctenophores, and jellyfish. Today was very fun and also a little tiring, yet I’m more than sure that we will all be ready tomorrow morning after a well deserved 10 hour nap.

2022

Day 1: An Ocean Rollercoaster

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First official day of the trip completed! After a slightly hectic beginning at the airport, including me losing my credit card (… sorry Dad…), we were all able to make it onto our three hour flight into Belize. Riding in two vans to get to the dock for our boat to Glover’s Reef Research Station, we stopped by a small supermarket to grab some snacks to bring onto the island. My haul included Doritos, plantain chips (even after a whole semester’s worth, I will never be sick of them), and some yummy Melacotón juice.

Afterwards, we made it to the dock where we had lunch and loaded up the boat. The boat ride was about 4 hours and a literal roller coaster. Once we broke the reef barrier and made it into the open ocean after an hour or so, the “small” swells (according to one of the crew) were big enough to make us catch some air – and it was SO. FUN.  Apparently the swells can get up to 20 feet and I am okay with not experiencing them. During this long boat ride, I was able to take a nap, see some beautiful ocean (sadly no sightings of Red Algae or tunicates but I am determined I will find them), learn about Belizean culture, and even learn some Kriol/English Creole (I’m totally going to be fluent at the end of the week just wait)!

When we made it to the Caye, we brought our stuff up into our bunks and had some free time before dinner. All of the commodities here are sustainable: composting toilets, rainwater showers, and open windows for natural air-conditioning. There are also SO many crabs. Hermit crabs and what I believe to be the Common Land Crab are literally everywhere. Someone mentioned that they are like the squirrels at Rice and I couldn’t describe it better. So many crab jumpscares. For dinner we ate delicious coconut rice and chicken, with the best mango I have ever had for dessert.

I am about to have the best sleep of my life – goodnight!!

-Sophia

2022

A Harsh Introduction

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Day one in Belize has almost come to a close, and boy was it a long one!

We managed to get to the airport no problem, but once we did, it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride to get on to the plane. There was the issue of finding the terminal, extra paperwork, lost boarding passes, lost credit cards, and an impossible-to-find drinking fountain! But somehow the group made it on to the airplane in one piece! For the flight, I downloaded books from z-library, which I would definitely recommend, especially if you don’t have space in your bag for books.

The people next to me were an adventure as well, since they were on their honeymoon, and they were sure to make it my problem. Just kidding-they were perfectly nice.

Once we landed, we went through customs, got our bags, and then headed to the marina. We got lunch and got on the boat, expecting a two hour ride to the Glover’s Reef Research Station. It ended up being double that. We also encountered very choppy water after passing the reef barrier (which used to be Belize’s coast before sea levels rose!), and in order to fight the sea sickness, I had to stare at the horizon for the remaining 1.5-2 hours. On the bright side, I saw some floating sargassum (which belongs to the brown algae taxa!) and one of the water safety officers told us about Belize culture and language. For example, in Belizean kriol, “humoch aklak” means “what time is it.” Also, since Belize was colonized by the English until 1981, the kriol language, spoken in central Belize, is a mix of English with African language, while native/Maya languages are more spoken in the South, and Spanish in the North. Last fun fact, the population of the entire country of Belize is about 400,000, making it the population of Sacramento in an area the size of New Jersey!

When we got to Glover’s Reef, we got to look around the station area a bit. The bunk rooms, kitchen, and toilets are all on stilts, while the wet lab, classroom, and showers are not. We had a delicious dinner of rice and beans, chicken, salad, and fresh mango, and then we had a short debriefing about tomorrow, before breaking off to do our journal entries and blogs.

The island is literally crawling with huge hermit crabs and common land crabs, which is very cool. There are a lot of palm trees and some little mangroves. There were also a lot of bugs, but the wind came in so they haven’t bothered us since dusk. I can’t wait to see what else is going on on the island, and in the reefs around it!

I will update you all again tomorrow!

-Elena

ps happy birthday to my dad 🙂

 

2022

D-1 Our Belizean adventure begins

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Hi everyone!

Today went pretty smoothly in terms of travel!

We all met pretty early at Rice and traveled to the IAH to board our flight which departed at 10:07am and arrived in Belize at 11:30am. We then got picked up by our tour guides who took us to a local supermarket where we all stocked up on a variety of things. I got bug spray, a local brand of chips and also a bag of cookies that seemed tasted really great! Then we were sent off by our guides on our next adventure: a boat ride that would take us to our final destination for the week: Glover’s reef. Yet before that we got some lunch from our guides which included tortillas, chicken, cheese and vegetables. During our boat ride, some of our team felt a bit sick due to the constant movement of the boat, particularly once we left the safety of the reef and were in open ocean. Thankfully once we reached land it appeared that the symptoms subsided for most people affected. Once we all reached the Glover’s reef, beyond a doubt we were all very exhausted. Yet even when exhausted we were all mesmerized by the beautiful sunset we got to see! Although I really liked the sunset (and even attempted to take a photo), my favorite part was dinner! The food was amazing! I remember during our first meeting we were told the food was great, at the time I remained skeptical, but that was not an overstatement. The mash potatoes and rice were so delectable! I also really appreciate how Hortence and Ashley cared about my vegetarian dietary restrictions, it was super nice of them! Before the night ended we all reconvened and met our three safety officers: Claudius, Adrian, and Ruth and also captain Eli.
Although today was tiring for all of us, it was also really exciting. I can’t wait to see what is in store for us tomorrow! Although I did not get to see any piscivorous fish today, I hope that tomorrow I get to encounter some of these!

2022

D-0 Belize here we come!

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Hello everyone!

My name is Maggy, and I am a rising senior at Rice!

Coming into this trip I am so excited to get to learn even more about Belize’s biodiversity. I learned about this class my freshman year, yet due to Covid-19 I thought I wouldn’t be able to participate during my time at Rice, yet thankfully I was wrong! Going to a whole new country and getting to learn about its great biodiversity seems like a dream come true.

One of my goals of this trip is to become much more acquainted with both of my taxon groups: piscivorous fish and bees! Both of these groups have so many amazing organisms, I hope our group gets to see at least some of them up close.

I can imagine that this trip, in addition to being fun, will also be challenging at times, yet I’m looking forward to working with my classmates to overcome these challenges, just like researchers do out in the field! One personal challenge that I am a bit nervous about is swimming. I have never been a very fast swimmer, yet I hope that a few days in the water will help me improve my speed! Another personal challenge is working out in the field and putting to use my research skills. To me this is a challenge because most of my research has been lab-based, with me spending lots of time working with my laptop or at the bench. I believe that with just a bit of practice I’ll be able to quickly adjust! I think some of the classes I’ve taken at Rice will definitely help, for example I took a Conservation biology lab in which we worked with transects to estimate the biodiversity of the Harris Gully Natural Area at Rice. Another class I think can come in handy is a Plant Diversity course I took; since this course took place a few semesters ago I am not too sure how much I remember, yet I think seeing things first hand will help jog my memory. 

Regardless of the challenges all of us will probably encounter, as a group or as individuals, I am sure that this trip will be a success and that we will all learn a lot more about the great biodiversity of Belize!

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Day 9: See the Line Where the Sky Meets the Sea?

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Blog Post #9

Day 9: See the Line Where the Sky Meets the Sea?

Written May 23rdat 10:07 pm

DISCLAIMER: There was a storm last night that knocked out the wifi. But it has returned! So here is the post for May 23rd.

To answer the question in the title—it calls me! Today, we made our transition to Glover’s Atoll, specifically Middle Cay! With the familiarity of a boat, the wind, and my (metaphorical) sail staying behind me, I felt so incredible happy. (Also, gready for a week’s worth of Moana and The Little Mermaid references!)

I was less than happy when I found out that I forgot to put sunscreen on my right arm… (Literally remembered everywhere else including the tops of my feet!) I will now be toasty red more so on one side. But oh well, I’ll hopefully get a nice tan!

When we arrived at Middle Cay and had eaten lunch, we got in the water for our introductory snorkel. It was fun to rediscover snorkeling alongside those who had never done it before. I also now officially change my taxon away from amphibians and on to sponges.

I spotted lots of encrusting sponges, and my favorite tube sponge. The water was decently murky from the seagrass beds with sand and people’s flippers kicking it up. We also found a yellow stingray, baby nurse shark, barracuda, trumpet fish, parrotfish, and lots of brown algae.

baby nurse shark!

Then I enjoyed our free time by journaling and talking to the other workers on the island on the pier—we saw a lemon shark swim by, as well as a school of bonefish. The pelican dive bombing the sardine patches definitely caught me off guard because I was looking at my journal. It was a beautiful end to an incredible Reef Day 1.

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Until Next Time, Belize

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Scrolling through pictures of both corals reefs and the tropical rainforest, it’s clear that both are incredibly lush environments that host diverse sets of organisms. But through this course, I’ve realized that there are more subtle similarities between the two. In the Chiquibul, we studied how the tropical soils are somehow able to sustain a diverse ecosystem while being incredibly poor in nutrients. These soils are paralleled by the oligotrophic, or nutrient-poor, waters of Glover’s Reef; both inexplicably provide a home for thousands of organisms while seemingly offering no sustenance. However, both of these habitats are characterized by rapid nutrient turnover. For every fish or insect we see, there are millions of others living organisms like microbes that exist outside of human view. The key to both of these habitats’ success seems to be this system of efficient nutrient cycling, which leaves the area nutrient-poor but the animals themselves nutrient-rich.

 

Perhaps even more importantly, these two ecosystems are tied together by their impending destruction. Both Glover’s Reef and the Chiquibul are faced with problems of illegal extraction and habitat loss for a number of organisms. The biology of deforestation and coral bleaching may act in different ways but the cause is the same: humans. Conservation issues plague ecologists in both areas, as they attempt to battle the overexploitation of natural resources. Poaching and overfishing are one in the same in that they sustain a desperate human population with no other livelihood, while depleting these environments of their incredible diversity.

 

With that said, I did notice that human intervention in the rainforest seemed much less obvious. Since Las Cuevas was so removed from civilization, the biggest indicators of human presence were camera traps and the occasional logging truck. On the reef, however, we saw a huge amount of marine debris, acting like a red flag for mass consumerism. It’s harder to see our effects on the rainforest in a short amount of time, but the 90 lbs. of Styrofoam and bottle caps serve as a pretty blatant reminder of what we’re doing to the natural world.

 

Overall, this course has completely surpassed all of my expectations (entirely thanks to Scott and Adrienne and all of their hard work). Ihoped to come out with a better understanding of fieldwork, but I didn’t expect to learn nearly as much as I did about conservation or how to deal with unreliable transportation. My favorite part was probably going through our camera trap photos. After 26 miles of hiking and anticipation, the payoff of that single ocelot picture was fantastic. It really made me appreciate how hard field researchers have to work. And even now that I’m back with air conditioning and wifi, I can’t say that I had a least favorite part of this course (not even the sand flies). With every van we missed and blister we added, I think we learned to be better TFBs, and that’s not an experience I could’ve gotten anywhere else.

 

In five years, I may have to consult my field notebooks to brush up on specifics, but I’ll definitely remember these three things:

1. Make bold choices, and live by the motto “Screw it, let’s do it!”

2. Field work takes patience and a whole lot of sweat, but it’s worthwhile in the end.

3. Never underestimate the power of a good pair of rubber boots.

 

I realize that I’m writing my final blog post in the very same seat I occupied two weeks ago to hurriedly write my pre-departure post. It’s incredible how much has changed since the last time I sat here; I’m a little bit tanner and covered in a whole lot more bug bites, but more importantly, I’ve returned with a whole new appreciation for the natural ecosystems I visited. Conservation is a multi-faceted and complex process with no easy solution, but with every bit we learn about the diverse habitats of the tropics, our understanding increases.

 

In the words of a true Belizean, “You’ve got to see it to Belize it.”DSCN4432

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Return to Civilization

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DSCN4436
Smithsonian research station at Carrie Bow Caye.

Our final day in Belize dawned bright and early, as always. With sandwiches and snorkels in hand, we said our final goodbyes to the palm trees and composting toilets of Glover’s Reef and made our way out of the atoll. Our first stop before Belize City was Carrie Bow Caye, a Smithsonian research facility housed on a speck of an island in the Caribbean. We were able to meet a crab researcher that’s been studying the incredible diversity of Belizean reefs for over 30 years at Carrie Bow.

We then stopped at Twin Caye, an aptly named mangrove island that’s split in two by a channel. We first walked and then snorkeled through the muggy mangroves, carefully picking our way through their stilted roots. Mangroves may just look like odd trees from above the surface, but underwater they’re an important habitat for sponges and act as fish nurseries. I wasn’t able to identify any herbivorous fish species, but the mangrove roots were swarming with tiny juvenile fish for this reason. I even saw an adorable baby barracuda! (I think this trip has given me a new definition for cute).

And with that, we were off to the marina in Belize City. After an incredibly long lunch at the infamous Calypso restaurant, we made our way to the airport. Before I knew it, we were waving goodbye to this beautiful country, several bottles of hot sauce heavier than when we arrived.