Tag Archives: soft corals

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I Don’t Mind the Atol At All

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5.17.2017

Today has been another long day in Belize, but I have no complaints. Kenneth, the manager at Glover’s Reef, called this “paradise” and I couldn’t agree more. Middle Caye definitely could make for a good stock photo.

Home of Glover’s Reef manager, Kenneth

I’m also happy to report that it has been another great day for my taxa! On the boat ride to Glover’s, we passed a bunch of islands of red mangroves (R. mangle) with their characteristic stilt roots extending out above the water. I also spotted some smaller ones on the edge of Middle Caye which are growing strong.

Red mangrove propagules off the shore of Glover’s Reef

The shallow waters leading to and surrounding the dock at Glover’s are seagrass beds consisting of the thin blades of manatee grass and the wide blades of turtle grass. While I did see a huge green turtle in the open ocean on the way to Glover’s, I didn’t see one in the turtle seagrass. No need to be sad, though, because I saw some other really cool organisms like barracudas, schools of snapper, some conch, a Southern stingray, and a juvenile nurse shark.

Turtle seagrass (T. testudinum) bed

The patch reef we swam out to was a complete sensory overload with abundant coral cover and fish darting to and fro. My main focus was trying to find all of the items on the scavenger hunt list, but in the process I was able to identify the unmistakable corky sea finger (B. asbestinum) and the common sea fan (G. ventalina). I also saw examples of sea rods (Plexaura spp.) and sea plumes (Pseudopterogorgia spp.).

Patch reef with the common sea fan in the forefront

After a couple of hours of snorkeling, we got out of the water only to look at more corals (because you can never see too many, am I right?). At first glance, the “coral graveyard” appears to be just a pile of rubble, but upon closer observation you can see that it is actually a collection of the calcium carbonate skeletons of stony corals. I learned how to identify some of the main reef-building coral species, and even found a token dried sea fan as well as some unidentified ants!

Dried common sea fan I found in the coral graveyard

Later in the evening, a spectacular sunset fell over the water while I ate too much guava jam and cake for dessert. The day concluded with some entertaining lectures from Jordan on hard corals and Mikey on echinoderms, as well as an arts and crafts quadrat making session.

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store but for now I’ll just revel in the little victory of having warm water to shower in tonight. 🙂

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T-1 Day From Crossing Belize Off My Travel Bucket List

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This morning, I went out fishing on my boat in Miami and it suddenly hit me that the next boat I’ll be on will be headed for Glover’s Reef Research Station. It’s crazy how fast these past two weeks have gone but I am so excited to finally visit Belize. It was on my list of the top two destinations for my high school graduation trip, but I ultimately visited Costa Rica. Now I’ll finally get to go.

These past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of catching up with family and friends, and ultimately procrastinating on my assignments for this course. As deadlines approached, I mustered the motivation to read the textbook, make sense of jargon in about 10 different research papers on mangroves, cringe my way through magnified photographs of ants, and put together three presentations.

Speaking of my presentations, I am kind of nervous to give them. My public speaking skills aren’t too great but I’m hoping that all the preparation I’ve done will carry me through my awkwardness.

Ultimately, the presentations are just a fraction of the course and I absolutely cannot wait to get out into the field. I hope I get to learn more about two ecosystems that have fascinated me: coral reefs and rainforests. Living in South Florida and being just a stone’s throw from the Bahamas has given me the opportunity to snorkel and scuba dive, awestruck at the beauty of reefs. And just the previous summer, as I briefly mentioned, I got to visit the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica which gave me my first immersive experience in a rainforest.

With this trip, I am hoping to see these two ecosystems through the lens of a researcher and gain some practical knowledge about them that I can carry with me when I go diving or on future vacations. I’m also interested to compare what I see in Belize to the reefs of home and the wet season in Costa Rica. If I’m going to be ready, I should probably go finish packing.

No way… next time I post I’ll be in Belize!

P.S. I’m also hoping to take some great pictures like the ones I got from Costa Rica for memories 🙂

 

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Last Day?

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I’m sitting in the pleathery seat of a Southwest flight. It’s certainly strange to not be spending the day in the water. We did this morning, but now, not even being on land, but catapulted into the air, is discombobulating.

This morning’s snorkel was my favorite of the entire trip. We took the boat out with our two amazing tour guides (Herbie and Javier) to Twin Peaks. This is the name of a caye that is made up of mangroves and is separated into two pieces by a sea inlet. We walked through a portion of the land. This was quite difficult due to uneven ground hidden under a layer of seawater. We were falling into holes left and right. I fell in one that went all the up to my mid-thigh.

The best part, however, was when we got to snorkel through the inlet. I was shocked as to the community complexity that was happening on the roots of the red mangrove trees. (Unfortunately, the reign of the soft corals was over. I didn’t see any today.) The sponge symbiosis was so obvious. It was amazing to see something that was mentioned in both a taxonomic briefing and a topic lecture actually flourishing out in the field. The fact that the mangrove is an understudied ecosystem makes me even more interested in it. What if I end up there, studying evolution?

Our other stop of the day made the idea of continuing my studies out in Belize that much more attractive. We visited the Smithsonian research station. Despite being on an island that is only an acre, the facilities were beautiful. I can definitely see myself returning in some capacity. At the same time, there is so much of the world to be examined under the lens of evolution.

 

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Day 13

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As per usual, actually engaging with an issue gave us perspective today. The issue was marine debris. Yesterday, Stephanie gave us a briefing on the topic. It was a great overview of the many different ways in which trash enters the marine system, persists in the system, and is ultimately washed up onto shores across the globe. In the morning, we conducted an experiment around a beach clean up. Ultimately, we asked a question regarding the composition of trash in terms of its material. As we expected, the trash was dominated by plastics by weight and Styrofoam by volume.

What was staggering was just how little of a dent we made in just the four sites that we picked. Add to that the entirety of the island, the entirety of Belize, and then all of the other countries. The scale is just too large to comprehend.

While collecting trash, I noticed that there were so many dried up Gorgonia ventalina individuals. All of this continues to build up my thought that this species is the dominant soft coral on the Glover’s Reef Atoll.

The best part of the day, however, was the night snorkeling trip that we did. It was very logistically difficult due to the dark, the close proximity of the entire group, and the higher levels of suspended sediment. Nonetheless, the dive was great. The community composition was really different. I also saw a slipper lobster!

Tomorrow marks our last full day. I can’t really imagine going to back to the real world and Rice.

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Day 11

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I think that I am starting to get a much better grasp of how to maneuver on the reef. While I don’t think that I will every really be able to get over my sensitive ears. Depth does still hurt quite a bit. Anyway, I found today’s activities much easier than yesterday’s.

We had two projects to do today. First, we did a similar transect method as we did yesterday to estimate total coral cover on patch reefs inside and outside of the Marine Protected Area of Glover’s Reef. The second task was to collect as many urchin species as we could in 25 minutes for species ID, abundance, and diameter of test.

This has been one of my favorite days on the reef so far. The diversity that we saw was at the perfect depth for both quadrat measuring and for personal observation. I keep seeing so many examples of my taxonomic group, an encouraging sign. Today I saw a couple more examples of sea whips. I also noticed a lot of different sea plumes. I don’t know what exact species they are, but I believe that my taxonomic sheet has them.

Tomorrow we go to the fore reef, a more densely packed area. I hope to see even more soft coral and hard coral. These are encouraging to see because of their high contributions to reef framework growth. However, I’m sure that we will see lower levels of cover and diversity in the non-protected area. All will be revealed in the data tomorrow.

 

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Day 10

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Today was our first complete day on the reef. I can’t really put into words how lovely it is here. Sure I have sand on just about every surface of my body, but I am thoroughly enjoying my time here. The day was centered on two tools: the transect and quadrat.

First, we tried to quantify the percent cover of crab holes on the paths around the station (using the quadrats/transect on land). Honestly, my group did not get that much data (only one half of a square was covered over our entire transect).

This was then scaled up for our afternoon activity, transects searching for two geneses of green algae (Halimeda and Penicillus). We were trying to answer a similar question to the percent crab hole cover. We wanted to know if Halimeda or Penicillus would be more abundant in the sea grass bed.

Again, my groups struggled to find anything on our transect, with it being placed in some of the thickest grass. Either way, our data showed a significantly higher amount of Halimeda over Penicillus.

On the reef I continued to see Gorgonian sea fans, as well as whips and rods. I think that the future challenge that I will face is distinguishing between soft corals that are branching, yellow/brown, with them all being of similar morphology. Tomorrow on the more distant reef, I hope to see more.

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Day 9

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While some may not enjoy days in which we spend most the time in various forms of transportation, especially because they always seem to fail us, I find it to be very calming. After leaving The Education Center Lodge a bit late (classic), we drove across the country yet again to Belize City. I was very surprised as to how small it was, especially seeing as the two cities I live in are Houston and Philadelphia.
Anyway, the next challenge that we had to overcome was the boat ride to the actual marine sanctuary. I was a bit worried about the seasickness. I have previously experienced this on a ferry. In the end, it was not a big deal, a pleasant experience. I am now looking forward to being on the boat as we go on to explore the rest of the patch reefs.
The rest of the day was spent getting acquainted with the research station and the nearby sea grass beds. I immediately saw my taxonomic group (soft corals). My initial impression was that Gorgonia ventalina is extremely common the patch reefs. I also saw many other soft corals, including Briareum asbestinum and several species of sea rod.

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Day 7

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On our last day at the Las Cuevas Research station, we spent most the morning and afternoon retracing our steps from the first day. All of this was in the effort to understand if species richness differed between natural and man-made clearings. I am proud to say that the hike was not nearly as exhausting as it was at the beginning. I also got the change to see an example of epiphytic Encyclia cochleata, the national flower of Belize. I think I have achieved my peak of epiphyte. It was one of the most satisfying moments of this trip to date.

After cleaning up and showering we went over to the classroom for taxonomic presentations, my presentation on NTDs/ethnobotany, and to look at what our camera traps caught. I really enjoyed my topic, especially because I had taken a research seminar in the previous semester on the topic. We then got into an interesting discussion on how Brazil should manage the threat of Zika and the upcoming influx of people for the Rio de Janiero Olympics.

Our pictures from the camera trapping experiment were a bit disappointing until we got the last one. On its memory card, we found both and ocelot and a WHAT WAS THIS. Overall, our data set was way to small to be able to really tell anything about the preferences of animals in the Chiquibul for man-made or natural clearings. All in all, these past experiment (while they don’t yield statistically significant data) are doing a great job of showing me how to trouble shoot ecological/evolutionary experiments.

On to Glovers Reef!