Day 11: The Results and Muchas Gracias

The Results

It is our last working day at Bocas Research Station. Our students spent the day working up the data from their group projects and making scientific posters. They have all made significant gains over the last two weeks, grappling first-hand with the challenges, frustrations and rewards of conducting marine research. This evening, they proudly presented their posters.

                   Team Marine Debris: Nina and Alyssa           Team Eelgrass: Katie and Tess

           Team Mangrove Roots: Sofia and Jenna    Team Kursed Koalas: Alex (pic) and Nadia 

Team Damselfish: Adriana and Ryan

A Guest Lecture

This afternoon, Dr. Cinda Scott, the director of the School for Field Studies in Panama gave a guest lecture entitled  “Bocas culture and regional marine/environmental threats.” Her presentation was thought provoking, making us all reconsider the cultural as well as ecological value of mangroves to Panamanians, from indigenous groups to lifestyle migrants, as well as tourists.

Muchas Gracias

The Smithsonian Bocas Research Station is a terrific place to teach a tropical marine biology field course. We've had the luxury of a dedicated classroom, dive boats, knowledgeable drivers, kayaks, and the awesome BRS staff that coordinate the many logistics of our course.  Thank you to the STRI staff, particularly Plinio (BRS research coordinator) and Jose (STRI Safety Officer) for your support and tremendous help. Thank you to our boat drivers, Caito and especially Sebastian for sharing your local knowledge, keeping us safe in the water and showing us your home island of Zapatillas. Last, muchas gracias to our cooks, Desuze and Cholla, who keep us exceptionally well fed with a delicious array of meats, vegetables and desserts, not to mention Desuze's sweet plantains which I've been craving since our 2019 class.

Cholla and Desuze,

our fantastic chefs 

Plinio (BRS research coordinator)

To our students, thank you for your enthusiasm, resilience and support of one another. Thank you to Richard, my co-instructor, for putting so much energy and time into the course and finding so many treasures in the field. 

Nadia (left) and Richard (right) holding a Tulip snail (Fasciolaria tulipa) and its blossom-like egg mass (bottom)

Picture Highlights

It is a pleasure to get to snorkel in seagrass beds, mangroves and coral reefs and call it work. I’ve included some pictures of my personal highlights, including a Caribbean reef squid, a shellback crab, hermit crab, coral and even a green alga and a vertebrate. 

A Caribbean reef squid (Sepioteuthis sepioidea) giving me the eye

Agaricia agracarites (lettuce coral) 

Shellback crab (Dromiidae family, Hypochoncha sp.)

A cowrie laying an egg mass (an excellent Richard find)

Hermit crab in a conch shell

Acetabularia, my favorite green alga (Photo: Richard Emlet)

A two-toed sloth at midnight, minding its own business

An invert nerd feeling awfully luck to be here (Photo: Nina McClellan)

Aclamaciones!,

Maya

Day 10: Five times and counting

 

Healthy Acropora palmata near Zapatillas

Our field course in tropical marine biology has cruised along here in Bocas del Toro; we now have only two working days left.  This is our 5^th time offering this study abroad course and it continues to be a rich and fun learning experience for all of us.  Students have worked hard on their field projects.  They have snorkeled enthusiastically on morning or afternoon boats trips to different sites with coral reefs, seagrass meadows and mangrove root communities.  Acroporid corals, brittle stars, fire coral, Halimeda, Porites, sponges and zoanthids are only a few of the many invertebrates we’ve viewed up close. Fish too draw our attention with outrageous colors, strange shapes, and territorial aggression.  

sand diver: before and after

 With 5 underwater cameras amongst us, I’ve lost count of the photos.  Students have shared their images so we will all have many hours ahead to enjoy and remember people, places, and organisms.

urchin, brittlestars and sponge

 

 

 

For me this has been a great cohort.  We’ve worked as a group since April 2022, when students began presenting weekly readings on topics tropical, Panamanian, and marine.  Over summer, five pairs of students planned their field-based research projects for our time in Bocas.  Student research projects explored fish assemblages by habitat, damsel behavior toward juvenile models, biology of marine debris, mangrove root communities and seagrass biology.    All students have embraced this experience in Panama, worked together well, and developed new friendships.

A very large moon jelly or little people?

The Smithsonian’s Bocas Research Station has been a great base from which to work and study.  All of the BRS staff have worked as hard as our students to make our visit productive, rich, and safe.  We thank the BRS staff for making things move along so well.    Lastly, we also thank the Tom and Carol Williams Fund at the U Oregon for supporting our course since 2013.  With this 5^th offering we have now exhausted these funds by supporting students with financial need and purchasing supplies for the course activities and student research projects.  After 5 offerings we have brought 43 students to Panama for a tropical marine experience!

Cleaner shrimp, Stenopus, at night

 

 

Richard Emlet - Co-Instructor of Tropical Marine Biology in Panama