Tag Archives: Seagrass Beds

Chasing the Last Day at Glover’s Away

5.22.2017

I haven’t quite accepted that today is the last full day here at Glover’s. Although I know the rainforest will be a great experience, the Floridian/Cuban in me wishes I could stay here by the ocean forever. We took full advantage of the day, hitting three reefs over the course of about three hours. My favorite was “The Channel” by Long Caye. I saw at a spotted eagle ray from the boat, chased a Southern stingray across the sand, and glimpsed a spotted sun eel in the rocks. I saw a lot of soft coral on the reef, noticing that many of the fan corals (G. ventalina) were encrusted by fire coral.

“The Channel” in Glover’s Atol
Sea fan being encrusted and killed by fire coral

After that, we went to another part of Glover’s Atol called “The Aquarium” which is undergoing a phase shift and becoming overrun by algae. It was still beautiful, though. While there, I chased a nurse shark that had a remora on it and even saw a pair of Caribbean reef squid.

Nurse shark with remora under coral ledge
Pair of Caribbean reef squid swimming in “The Aquarium”

In the afternoon, I gave my lecture on mangroves and seagrass beds in preparation for tomorrow’s excursion. Then, I dissected Azlan the lionfish with Sarah T; in the spirit of full disclosure, having my hands full of fish guts wasn’t the most enjoyable.

Azlan the lionfish prepared for dissection

Afterwards, we as a class made our poster presentation quickly which gave us time to ride over to the resort at Long Caye. There, we ate delicious ceviche and (after bargaining with a fisherman for his shirt) came away with a class signed t-shirt that will (hopefully) hang in the cabana bar for memories. It has been such a fun afternoon full of laughing that ended with a beautiful sunset. I’ll be sad to leave here, but I’m really excited for all that’s still to come in the rainforest.

Sunset at Long Caye

The Quad(rat) Pack

5.18.2017

I finally got to use my quadrat today on land and in water. We started the day looking at crab density on Middle Caye and then snorkeled through the seagrass beds surrounding the island to determine the diversity of life in that particular ecosystem. Success was limited. I saw zero crabs or crab holes in my sampling area on land, and I only saw a couple of small snails and one anemone in my sampling area in the water. On the bright side, I got to closely analyze the seagrass bed which is one of my taxonomic groups. I noticed a lot of juvenile snapper and other small fish roaming around the sea bed, which is indicative of the ecosystem’s importance as a nursery.

Sun anemone in seagrass bed

The best part of the day was by far the patch reef – I’m pretty sure I died and came back to life in soft coral heaven. Although I didn’t bring my clipboard and identification sheet with me into the water, I was able to recognize a variety of groups including sea fans (G. ventalina), sea plumes (Pseudopterogorgia spp.), and sea rods (Plexaura spp.). The reef was absolutely stunning and I found myself constantly looking around amazed while working with my quadrat.

Patch reef by Southwest Caye in Glover’s Atol
Sea rod (Plexaura sp.)

While on the reef, we were also tasked with collected sea urchins to bring back to the wet lab for further data collection. One of the urchins I was able to find and successfully retrieve was a beautifully patterned pencil urchin. I also saw a long-spined urchin but got a bit too excited trying to pry it off the rock and ended up with a souvenir spine in my fingertip. The excitement didn’t end with a prick of my finger, though. I also got squirted by the aptly named Donkey Dung sea cucumber.

Me holding a Donkey Dung sea cucumber

The day ended late with a guest lecture by Alex Tewfik of the Wildlife Conservation Society, two 15 minute taxon briefings on sponges and soft corals (the former given by yours truly), and another 30 minute topic lecture on microbes. All in all, it’s been a really productive day but I’m most definitely ready to head to bed.