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| Look at that vase sponge. (large cylinder, right) |
Hola a todos from Bocas del
Toro! My name is Katalin, and I’m here to give you an update on what sort of
trouble we got into today! Please sit back and enjoy the next installment of OIMB
Goes To Panamá. (For quick reference, in case you’ve forgotten from the
previous blog posts, Richard and Jan are our UO professors that have come down
to teach and lead this course.)
After a day or two of acclimatizing and
familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings, we dove into the real science
today (pun intended). Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, we headed out to the boat
for a full morning of snorkeling and some “exercises,” as Jan and Richard
called them. (Unfortunately, one of our team members, Nicole, wasn’t feeling
too hot, so she stayed behind for the morning; we sent her good vibes so that
she could jump back in with us ASAP.) Our fantastic boat driver decked out in his
camouflage shorts took us out to a site called Cocos Point, where we found an
exquisite coral reef (in my opinion — not as exquisite as I imagine it was
years ago) that was positively filled with Millepora spp., or various
species of fire corals. Rumor has it that skin contact with these beauties hurts
like the dickens. You'll be pleased to know that my respect for the living creatures
kept me from testing out the truth of this hypothesis (though my lack of
courage also played a role in that decision, too). Anyways, it was on this reef
that we completed our first exercise.
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| Millepora (fire coral, yellow branches) and some Echinometra (black sea urchins). |
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| A common coral, Porites (green fingers) and many little anemones, Zoanthus (blue circles). |
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| Porites, the green coral, another Echinometra (or two??), and a pretty sea anemone (the blue tentacles). |
Using flags that Richard had set out, we worked
in pairs to use a quadrat sampling method that helped us to ascertain the
relative percent cover of particular species, especially corals, algae, and
other common animals like sponges (yes, they are animals!). We photographed
each of our quadrats (each pair had 5 total) and noted our estimations on
slates. While this all may sound quite graceful, believe me when I say that it
was indeed anything but. In reality, there was a lot of floundering around, a
lot of swallowed seawater, a lot of bumping into and kicking partners, and a
lot of struggling to stay in place. And don’t even get me started on writing
underwater. Let’s just leave it at this: no real human walking this Earth can
decipher what I wrote on my slate (I mean, I’m not even sure I can read it).
When we got back on the boat, Richard and Jan sheepishly asked us how that
activity went… we all broke out into laughter because the answer was obvious:
underwater sampling is much more challenging than we had expected. It turned
out that that was really the point of the exercise, alongside getting quality
data to work with later. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies when it come to
marine biology, something that we had already learned in other capacities, but
I suppose it’s good to reinforce it in other avenues.
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| Zoanthus, the many little anemones, and a green algae Halimeda (leafy green in the bottom right). |
For our second exercise, we then headed over to
STRI Point for some seagrass density sampling. As you can imagine, this one was
even more clumsy, since we actually collected some seagrass shoots, and it was
a sandy bottom. Here we experienced similar complications as in the first
activity, including trying to stay underwater to uproot the shoots and trying
to see through all the sediment that we had kicked up. Luckily, to make up for
it, we got some extra snorkeling in after the activity, and saw a large clump
of tree trunk fingers where a huge amount of brightly colored fish gathered.
And, of course, Jan’s boat snacks always help diminish frustration and inflate
positive moods.
Then, in the afternoon came the part where
discoveries are made, hair is torn out (in a good or bad way, it all depends),
and knowledge is truly gained: data compilation and crunching. (This happened
after the “picture review”, where we go through all the photos that Richard
took on our snorkel trips and he and Jan tag-team, teaching us about the
various animals/algae depicted in the photos or quizzing us on names. I think
this part of lab time is probably a crowd favorite.) Though it’s not quite as
exciting as being in the field, lab time and data crunching are both just as
important and certainly have their own place in the life of a scientist.
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| Porites again, and an octocoral or a soft coral (yellow feathers, left). |
Before coming to Panama, I knew that we would
not have a great deal of down time, that our individual projects would present
us with a substantial amount of challenges, and that we would be exhausted at
the end of each day. While those are all possible sources of stress, we all
maintain good attitudes and laugh quite often. I think that the key (or for
any of my chilenos reading this, la mano) for this trip is to
not get overwhelmed, and just try to keep your head above water (pun intended).
Besides, this is day 3. We have 10 days left. Vamos, que se puede!
(“Come on, we can do this!”)
-Katalin
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