Day 10: Crunch Time

Hola,

Crunch Time:

Our students have two more days to finish their 2-week long research projects. This morning they are hard at it, collecting their last bits of data. Mitchell and Natalie launched their kayaks for House Reef to complete their project addressing whether sea urchins “dress” themselves in mangrove leaves to avoid UV exposure. 

Mitchell and Natalie

Our brittle star chefs, Casey and Ella, continue to determine the relative palatability of two brittle star species (one spiny and one spine-less) to local fish by preparing brittlestar puree in bit-sized agar cubes. Hmmm. 

Ella and Casey

Vanessa and Gabby continue to take damsel fish abuse as they observe these fish gardeners aggressively defend their algal gardens growing on the local seagrass Thalassia testudinum. 

Vanessa and Gabby

Last, Genevieve and Tralee paddled to STRI reef and House Pt. to document the association of symbiotic shrimp with the cork-screw anemone Bartholomea annulata. Tomorrow they will present their project results to the group and create a scientific poster. I’m excited to see the fruits of our students’ months of planning and weeks of the trials and triumphs of research.

Genevieve and Tralee

Muchas Gracias:

We are grateful for Smithsonian Bocas Research Station for hosting our course. It is a terrific place to teach a tropical marine biology field course. We have the luxury of a dedicated classroom, dive boats, knowledgeable drivers, kayaks, awesome BRS staff and two talented cooks preparing us three meals a day.

Our classroom

Sebastian, our boat driver

Plinio and Erick

A special thank you to Plinio, Cynthia, Urania, and Nitzia for all your help in organizing our stay, course needs and excursions. To Sabastian, our expert boat driver, thank you for sharing your local knowledge, keeping us safe in the water and showing us your home island of Zapatillas. 

Urania and Nitzia

Last, muchas gracias to our cooks, Desuze and Cholla, who keep us exceptionally well fed with a delicious array of meats, vegetables and fruits, not to mention the homemade hot-sauce we’ll be craving for months to come. The hardest part of the trip was honoring Desuze’s request that we all not profusely thank them at every meal.

Our amazing cooks, Cholla and Desuze

 In addition to the awesome facilities and staff, BRS has a number of cool terrestrial vertebrates, including sloths, howler monkeys, and iguanas.

Howler Monkey (photo credit: Vanessa)

Early Morning Sloth

My Highlights:

It has been a pleasure to get to snorkel in seagrass beds, mangrove roots and coral reefs from nearby BRS all the way over to the Islas Zapatillas. It truly is a paradise for an invert nerd like myself. Our students, Richard and I have taken pictures at each snorkel site. I’ve included some pictures of my personal highlights, including a sea hare, a sacoglossan, tubeworms, many corals including sea fans and even a few vertebrates.

Me and a nurse shark (this one is for Rook and Rowan)

A sea fan with my dive partner Richard

Sacoglossan sea slug Elysia crispata

Spotted seahare Aplysia dactylomela

Staghorn coral Acropora palmata and ocean surgeonfish

Social feather duster worm Bispira brunnea

Staghorn coral and glassy sweeper Pempheris schombrugkii

A final thank you to my co-instructor Richard Emlet and Jan Hodder (who previously taught the course) for creating such a fun and well organized field course. I feel awfully lucky to be here. Here is hoping for a return in 2021!

Aclamaciones!,

Maya