Our last full day at GRRS and in Belize did not disappoint! You may remember that I remarked that parts of Middle Caye, the island Glover’s Reef Research Station sits on, is covered in trash. Our morning began with a proposal from Drs. Evans and Solomon: find a research project that can include picking up trash! We decided to see how currents on each side of the island affect trash deposition and percent coverage. The island, because it sits on the edge of an atoll, is exposed to both the protected waters of the atoll, the open ocean, and the barrier between the two. We decided to use quadrats to measure how much trash was on a protected area (the mangroves,) an exposed area (the coral graveyard,) and an area right in between (the beach outside the dorms.) Our results were inconclusive due to our small sample size limited by time, but we may have been on to something! As always, the research poster is pasted below.
In the afternoon, we had another super fun activity: dissecting a Lionfish. There were 5 available, so Claire and I got out own small one. However, regarding consumption, looks can be deceiving. As the wrasse man, I surely must bring wrasses into my blog. I wasn’t the one to bring the wrasses here though, the lionfish did. The invasive species not only wreaked havoc on the coral reef ecosystem, they (the sex of our lionfish was unknown) wreaked havocon the juvenile yellowhead wrasse population as well. I found not one, but TWO juvenile yellowhead wrasses in our lionfish. And a couple unidentifiable fish that could have been wrasses as well. Our lionfish wasn’t the only one though, as Adam and Sadhana’s ALSO had a juvenile yellowhead head wrasse in its belly. Deplorable. Thankfully, these invasive aliens are no longer wreaking havoc on the coral reef ecosystem of Glover’s Atoll. While I was sad to see the contents of their stomach, seeing these lionfish up close was such a treat and a great way to end our time at GRRS and in Belize!
Images:
“Getting Waste(d)” Trash ProjectWrasses in my Lionfish’s Stomach“I Can See You (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”Our Lionfish <3
Armed with dull fabric scissors, we pressed into the scaly skin of a dead lionfish until we finally cut through. Then came round two; we sliced the stomach itself until tiny fish flopped out. It was a truly gutty process: full of fish guts and requiring real human guts to stomach it.
(Lionfish Dissection – 05/29/25)
Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon had caught wild, invasive lionfish from the surrounding reefs for both science and cuisine. First, we performed dissections to better understand their anatomy, what adaptations make them such ruthless predators, and what native fish they’ve been stealing off our reefs. My group’s lionfish had four small guppy- or wrasse-looking fish in its belly. Sam’s had a wrasse too, which he took as a personal offense since wrasses were his study taxon.
One of the main issues with lionfish that make them unstoppable invasives is that they have no natural predators in the ecosystems they enter. That, and they reproduce rapidly, laying up to 2 million eggs per year. These spiny invaders are ecosystem wreckers. So, we turned them into both a science lesson and a meal.
After we dissected and weighed the lionfish, the professors separated the edible flesh from the guts and cooked the fillets for us, served with lime, tomato, and plantain chips. Dr. Evans used the guts for another demonstration. He threw them off the dock to attract hungry fish and create a frenzy. Bonefish swarmed the remains, and even a nurse shark came by to investigate, though most of the scraps were already gone by that point.
I was feeling a bit fished out when the island staff came to the rescue. They had just gathered a wheelbarrow of…you’ll never guess…COCONUTS! My dream, my only heart’s desire. They were sharing the refreshing treat together, and I sprinted over to see if there were any extras. Luckily, there were many to spare, enough for the rest of the class. The water was so tangy and refreshing from the sun. What a lovely last-day treat and full circle from my day one of coco pleading.
(Coconuts = Happiness – 05/29/25)
Later in the day, we helped the ecosystem in a different, abiotic way. Earlier, we’d seen shorelines littered with microplastics, so we grabbed trash bags and began collecting stray plastic bottles, broken shoe soles, and even a strange little plastic lamb toy. We became frustrated when fragile plastic shards shattered in our hands but were glad to remove them from the beaches before they could break down into even tinier fragments. Even with full bags, we barely made a dent, and this is all fairly recent trash, as they do host beach cleanups.
(Trash Pick-Up – 05/29/25)
As a final goodbye to the island, we jumped off the dock for one last swim/snorkel, appreciating the refreshing and inviting crystal-clear water. I cannonballed in, followed schools of guppies and bonefish, and accidentally inhaled a little saltwater as an unexpected souvenir. I stayed near the seagrass beds, so I didn’t spot any sponges, but I took mental snapshots of every organism I could. A salty, perfect sendoff.
Today was a mix of data, discovery, and a little bit of fish guts. We started our morning putting together our research poster on trash distribution around Middle Caye. We compared three areas: the mangroves, the beach by the dorms, and the coral graveyard. The idea was to see where trash builds up the most and what types show up where—like plastic, metal, or fishing gear. Unfortunately, our results were inconclusive. The trash density varied so much, and our measurement method didn’t give us the consistency we hoped for. Still, we learned a lot about how unpredictable (and messy) real-world science can be.
In the afternoon, things got fishy—literally. We dissected a lionfish, one of the most invasive predators in the Caribbean. They’re originally from the Indo-Pacific but have spread rapidly in Atlantic and Caribbean waters. It was fascinating to see the anatomy up close—sharp spines, a big stomach, and lots of muscle. These fish can eat over 50 different species and have no natural predators here, which makes them a huge problem for reef ecosystems.
This dissection hit close to home for me because my lecture presentation is on lionfish, and more importantly, they directly threaten my assigned taxonomic group: soft corals. While lionfish don’t eat corals, they prey heavily on small fish that graze on algae. Without those grazers, algae overgrows and smothers soft corals, which are already sensitive to changes in light, water quality, and space competition. It’s a chain reaction that shows how a single invasive species can impact organisms it doesn’t even touch.
Our last day at GRRS! And we spent it doing some pretty worthwhile things. We started off in preparation for our final ever TFB poster. And our final ever project together… a trash pickup around the beach! Since we’ve landed here, we’ve definitely noticed the waste pile around different areas of the atoll, including some sites by our dorm and the coral graveyard we visited earlier.
Our project ended up focusing on different areas of the island, from more protected mangroves to the less protected and more exposed coral graveyard to observe how trash might vary in this spectrum. Unfortunately, no matter where we looked, trash was trash–the island showed definitive coverage via our quadrant methodology. It was a good reminder of how nothing is isolated in the ocean–things can pile up from anywhere and everywhere with consequential impacts.
On a lighter note, we got to do a lionfish dissection from the fish Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon had hunted earlier. Lionfish are invasive species, which actually makes this a super encouraged practice in the area. We did pretty good with our lionfish even though it was super small, until we had to find these two bulb-like bones in the skull called the otoliths. At which point we gave up and started dissecting the eyes and other parts of our fish that could be salvaged… which also wasn’t much at that point.
the OG lionfish
This and some yummy coconuts later, we began packing and bid our farewell to the islands. A bunch of us went to the dock one last time, which was super bittersweet. Cannot believe our time is over here, it feels like just yesterday when we were at LCRS… but a final travel day awaits…
Taxon update! Just the sand that the parrotfish have definitely excreted, but no actual parrotfish 🙁
Today was the last full day in Belize! If I had it my way, I would never leave Glover’s Reef. This place has been magical. This morning started with a trash cleanup project where we surveyed trash buildup as it had washed ashore from the ocean on various points of the island. We filled six large trash bags to the brim, and had we had more trash bags to store the trash in, we could’ve kept going.
This afternoon we dissected the invasive lionfish Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans had been catching this week. Sam and my lionfish had 7 fish inside its stomach! Then we ate the lionfish as ceviche (yummmm).
Before dinner, I went for one last snorkel. I saw a nurse shark right off the dock, so naturally I jumped in the water and tried to find it. We went a ways into the water where I found another large nurse shark resting next to the reef. The shark was about 6 ft long and just sleeping on the sand. Right as I turned to leave the nurse shark and swim somewhere else, a southern stingray swam right underneath me! It was a medium sized stingray, but it got super close to me! What a great 15 mins for observing my taxon!
After snorkeling a while longer, I found a trumpetfish, a porcupine fish, a tiny pufferfish, and some grunts doing a face off. The rest of the evening was spent swimming off the dock, packing, doing final presentations, and socializing on the dock one last time.
I am sad to be leaving tomorrow but am glad that everyone will be on campus together again in August!
Hello! Today was our last day in Glover’s Reef!Today we began the morning by picking up trash to give back to the island. I was amazed how much trash we found and picked up. We only had 6 garbage bags which unfortunately put just a dent in the amount of trash we found washed up. While we were doing a trash pick up, we came up with a research project. We were looking at the amount of trash and trash distribution around the island. We were curious how the type of beach (mangroves, sandy, or dead coral) would contribute to the amount and type of trash that was on the shore. We didn’t notice a significant difference in this, but we noticed that the unprotected side of the island facing open ocean had more trash then the atoll protected side.
We then dissected a lion-fish! Lion-fish are invasive to Belize so our professors had speared some that we had found snorkeling.We opened up the lion-fish and looked at the sex and stomach contents. Our fish had three digested fish and one whole shrimp!
We ended the day with free time where me and a few others went for a last swim at sunset! While I didn’t see any eels personally, Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans saw a couple green moray eels over the duration of our stay!
Today was the last full day in Belize. It is surreal how fast time flew by during these two weeks. Every day was packed full with numerous engaging activities, and I truly learned so so much about the rainforest and coral reef ecosystems during this trip.
This morning started off with breakfast per usual, and then the class met up at 8 AM in the wet lab for the trash pickup around the island. Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon challenged us as TFBs to extend our scientific critical thinking skills even for trash picking. Therefore, our scientific question was “How does trash distribution differ between unprotected vs. protected areas at Glover’s Reef?” We predicted that the unprotected area would have higher trash density due to the ocean current pushing the trash directly onto the land.
We had 6 giant trash bags, and those bags were quickly filled up, which was astonishing. Also, we had a quadrant to sample 3 sites within each location (semi-protected, unprotected, protected) which we further analyze with our phones after data collection.
We first started off at the semi protected area in front of our dorms, and I noticed that the main type of trash found here was bottle caps. Then, we moved onto the unprotected area (coral graveyard). This area had the highest amount of plastic pollution, with the most prominent types of trash being plastic water bottles and stray sandals. Both of our designated trash bags for this area were all full when we had not even cleaned 1/3 of the area, which was quite unfortunate. I wished there had been more trash bag to fully clean up the pollution, or there to be less plastic pollution emitted in general, but nevertheless we had to stop and move on to our final area, which was the protected mangroves.
After the trash collection, the class promptly met up in the wet lab to start analyzing our data (pictures from the quadrats) and creating the poster. I also adored the title for this poster which was “Getting Waste(d): Trashy Day at Glover’s Reef.” Our results did indeed align with our prediction, with the unprotected areas having the highest proportion of trash. However, the error bars manually calculated and added on overlapped qutie significantly, indicating that no meaningful conclusion could be drawn. Since this is only a pilot study with many limitations, I hope to replicate this set up on a future study with more trash bags and more time duration granted. Although we filled up all six bags to the top, it seemed like we barely made a dent in the trash pile on the island, which was quite disappointing.
Working on poster! We got waste(d)!
In the afternoon though, we got to dissect the lionfish that Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans had been spearing and gathering for us to dissect (and eat). It was quite gruesome opening up the stomach lining and the organs, as well as decapitating it, but I feel like this really gave me a better sense of anatomy in fish. Once we cut open the stomach of our lionfish, there were four small fish inside it, one of which Sam suspected to be a juvenile yellowhead wrass. The rest of them were pretty digested though, we made it pretty difficult to tell, but they were all about 2 cm in length.
While dissecting the lionfish, I thought about how cool it would be to dissect a surgeonfish — my taxon group. However, I know it won’t be possible on this trip, since only lionfish are able to be speared due to them being an invasive species. Perhaps in the future, a surgeonfish dissection opportunity will come to me!
Lionfish dissection!
After dissection, Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans made a filet with the lionfish mixed in with dip ingredients such as lime and onions and chips. It was pretty delicious, but I could barely taste and notice the lionfish, as most of the flavor was coming from the citrus itself. Also, as a further bonus, we discovered the staff cutting up coconuts, and they kindly sliced up many coconuts for each of us to try (+ the professors)! Although I don’t really like coconut, the coconut water was refreshing and the flesh was yummy.
(lion)fish & chips!
Before dinner, a lot of us went to the dock to enjoy the last sunset before we leave tomorrow, which was quite bittersweet. The view of the water and sky from the dock is truly surreal, and I know I will not be able to forget this view. These two weeks have been filled with so much memories, and I will miss Belize and being altogether as TFBs so much.
Today was Day 11 in Belize and our second full day at Glover’s Reef. The day started at 7 AM as per usual with breakfast. Then at 8 AM, the class met in the wet lab to discuss the project for our day, which was to examine the feeding behavior of parrotfish. Our class split into several groups, with typically 2 groups examining one species, such as spotlight, red banded, red tailed. Lily & I and Sadhana & Adam were responsible for surveying the seagrass patch near the dock to look for red tailed parrotfish. Sadhana & Adam took on the left side, while we took on the right. We snorkeled from 10 AM to 11 AM, but Lily & I were unsuccessful in finding redtailed parrotfish. However, we were able to see swarms of the smaller fish and a shark lurking around the seagrass which was astonishing! We did see a couple of vertically striped fish swimming around though, but they did not look like parrotfish. We got pretty desperate and started chasing them around and recording footage though. Also, since the fish were quite translucent and a little far away, all of the video footage did not turn out too well.
Redtailed parrotfish!
When everyone returned from their respective surveying area, we washed all of our gear, rested a little bit, then headed into lunch. During the transition period to lunch, Sadhana, Elise, Claire C, Ian, and I went out into the dock and had a relaxing time. However, random items (such as Sadhana’s peanut cap, my Haribo jelly wrapper) kept being blown into the ocean, and Sadhana kindly kept taking one for the team and jumped into the ocean to fetch those items. Next time, I promised to be the one jumping into the water to retrieve something.
Although I was feeling fine initially before the snorkel, my nausea emerged immediately again after lunch. Since the class was meeting back up at 1:30 PM for snorkel part 2 (way longer, on a boat), I informed Dr. Evans of my condition, and then napped for an hour to see if I would feel better enough to go out to snorkel again. Spoiler alert: I did not make it to the second snorkel because my nausea stayed at a constant level.
From 1:30 PM to 4 PM, I slept to recover while the others snorkeled in two spots for 45 minutes each on a boat ride. I’m sad I missed it, but I really don’t think I could have physically made it through the 2.5 hour session. I’m really hopeful for the future activities though. I will be drinking plenty of water and electrolytes to manage my physical state.
On the positive side though, I got to observe the dissection and freezing of the lionfish that Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon had spearheaded from the snorkel while we were analyzing the footage we had collected. The mature one was pretty wrangled with the spear, as Dr. Evans had speared the fish through the head. The juvenile one was still flopping around, so we put them both into the freezer. Dr. Evans said we will be eating them sometime, so I’m intrigued by that. If I see a mystery fish in the menu at one point though, I will know what it is.
Speared angelfish!
After dinner, we had a presentation from the manager of Glover’s Reef regarding WCS (Wildlife and Conservation Society) and subsequent presentations from the residing marine biologist and the Coast Guard. I was intrigued to hear about Glover’s Reef’s history and the conservation work associated with WCS and Glover’s. Also, I was fascinated by how Glover’s serves (though at a lesser extent than other islands) as a nesting site for sea turtles due to the availability of sand.
Then, we dove straight into class presentations, starting off with my taxon presentation about surgeonfish. After, Sam briefed the class about his taxon, which was wrasses, and Noelle presented about the ecology and evolutionary biology of surgeonfish. I was fascinated by how although I thought surgeonfish changed colors primarily for mating, Noelle found that the surgeonfish changed colors to transition between day and night.
Although I did not get to see surgeonfish today, it was really fun to talk to my classmates about surgeonfish and listen to Noelle’s topic lecture about surgeonfish as well.
Tomorrow, we are planning to do a seagrass hike and visit the coral graveyard. Well then, I will see you guys tomorrow!
Today’s been a bit more messy than usual. We started our day by coming up with a small study to try and see which side of the island would have more trash on it while we did our island clean up. It was sad to see how much trash gets washed up on the beaches, but it felt pretty good to clean up not just for the island’s sake but especially as a thank you to our gracious hosts at the island’s station.
This afternoon was a huge tropical treat! Our professors have hunted a bunch of lionfish for us to dissect and learn a bit about. Since lionfish are invasive to this side of the world and are almost impossible for native fish to hunt, people are allowed to hunt and eat them.
Speaking of eating them, they made a pretty great snack, not just for us in the ceviche, but also for the fish as the harbor, including a cool Nurse Shark!
Then, we got to speak to some of the gentlemen who work on the island as they were chopping up coconuts and collecting the water inside. They kindly offered us some coconuts to taste, and I personally felt like we were experiencing peak island vibes!
Today was our last day at the Glover’s Reef research station. I can hardly believe it! Today, we combined doing a little bit of cleanup on the island with our final experiment of the trip. we looked at the density of trash in several places on the island, hypothesizing that the regions facing into the atoll would have less trash on the beach than the areas facing outwards, towards open ocean. We went to three sites and took pictures and then cleaned them up a bit. We filled six large trash bags in total, but if we had had more we probably could have kept working for days. Lots of plastic had accumulated. When we got back, we analyzed our photographs and made our final poster. Looking at our pictures, we didn’t see a distinction between the different beaches on average. We estimated percent coverage of trash using evenly sized squares and still couldn’t see a difference, but it’s possible that our methods were imprecise or biased.
Working on our final poster
After lunch, we dissected lion fish. Lionfish are invasive to the Atlantic and can pose a huge threat to reef ecosystems, so removing them is actually doing a service—it’s another type of cleanup, in a way. It was cool to look at all the different internal structures of the lionfish. My group had a medium sized lionfish so we were able to make out all the organ. We even looked at what was inside our lionfish’s stomachs, and my group’s fish had four smaller fish partially digested. It was hard to make out what they were, as some were in a pretty broken down state, but there were a lot of them. One of them might have been a wrasse based on coloration. It was very cool to see. We removed the head and got a lesson on how lionfish suction feeding works as well. After, we turned them over to the professors, who made them into a delicious ceviche.
Our lionfish, de-spined and ready for dissectionTrying lionfish ceviche
After that, all that was left to was pack. It’s incredible that the trip is drawing to a close—it feels like it’s gone by so fast, but it’s also been jam-packed with tons of cool and interesting activities. I got to refine my scientific skills in a beautiful location. There were some uncomfortable parts, sure, but overall it was an incredible experience. Tomorrow we’re leaving at 6:00 AM. I’ll have more to say in my final blog, but my impressions now are definitely that this experience was something I am lucky to have and something that will be tough to top.
