AGRRA Team.....Just DO it!!

Clockwise Faegon (boat captain), Ben Wainwright (WCS), Debbie Wang (Peace Corps) and Nadia Bood (Consultant, WWF)

The team members of Glovers Reef AGRRA team were : Ben Wainwright (WCS), Annick Cros (WCS) , Nadia Bood (Consultant, WWF) and Debbie Wang (Peace Corps). 15 sites or over 40 transects later, the team had become extremely efficient in their task. So what did they do to celebrate? Go diving of course....

Presentation of AGRRA by:

Nadia Bood: Consultant, WWF

Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment (AGRRA) Participants
Glover's Reef Atoll Assessment Zone

After an intensive week (May 15th to 19th, 2006) of training in the Atlantic and the Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment (AGRRA) technique in Belize City, we journeyed out to Glover's Reef Atoll to join the WCS team in a regional rapid reef assessment for the Mesoamerica Reef region.

This region-wide rapid reef assessment is being executed to identify bleaching resilient (corals bleach and may die but the community bounces back) and resistant (corals do not bleach) reefs in the MAR region by examining factors such as live coral cover, coral colony size and age, abundance of bleaching resistant species, reefs that survived previous bleaching events, areas with strong recruitment, and fish diversity and abundance.

The World Wildlife Fund and Nature Conservancy are funding this very ambitious project, with the actual execution carried out by a number of national-based organizations. For the Belize reef region, a total of 145 sites will be assessed between May and July 2006. These sites have been divided into eight regions to facilitate ease of monitoring. Glovers Reef Atoll is one such region. From May 21st-30th, 2006 we (Annick, Ben, Debbie and myself) completed the assessment of 15 requested sites for this zone.

The time spent at Glover's Reef, although intensive, has been quite invigorating. The establishment and services provided were above and beyond expectation. I especially enjoyed the great cooking of Martha and Bernice, who I believe are responsible for the extra few pounds I've gained in my waistline ;).

Nadia Bood on a pause after completing an AGRRA site.

Methods

Ben and Debbie were the "fish" team. They counted fish along a 30m transect, estimating size. They completed 10 transects (5 transects each) per site.

Ben and Debbie getting ready for an AGRRA fish survey

Nadia and Annick were the "benthic girls'. They measured all live corals under a 10m transect, measuring size and % live cover. They also measured algae canopy size and the type of benthos on the transect. Any indication of bleaching or disease was written down. They completed 6 transects (3 each) per site.

Annick and Nadia, the benthic girls, ready to jump in.

Glovers Reef was divided by randomly drawn hexagones. In each hexagone a primary and secondary site was randomly chosen in 3 reef classes: reef flat, fore reef and patch reef. Glovers Reef has a total of 15 site with 5 reef flats, 5 coral patch and 5 fore reef. The classes or reef categories used were defined for the Millenium Coral Maps which map out all the reef of the world at a 30m resolution. To learn more about these maps please visit the website: http://imars.usf.edu/corals/index.html.

Map of Glovers Reef AGRRA primary (pink) and secondary (blue) sites. If primary sites could not be used (lack of coral cover for example), secondary sites were surveyed.

For more explanation on method used please visit the official website: www.agrra.org

Preliminary results for Glovers Reef

It is too early to give results for any sites in Belize. This set of measurements were carried out in a period where water temperatures are still low. They will be be used as baseline information for future bleaching events.

However here are a few observations made at Glover's Reef:

There are still areas with surprisingly high coral cover.

The windward and leeward side of the atoll have completely different reef structures with different dominant coral colonies.

There tends to be more fish on the fore reef than patch reefs or the reef flat.

You see more sharks while staying still and counting little juvenile strip parrotfish than when you actually look for them!

Diademas are hiding in shallow water, on reef flats with very low coral cover or relief.

Some random facts of AGRRA by:

Debbie Wang - Peace Corps Volunteer

I could be all intelligent and brainy-like and tell you about what I've learned on my surveys about fish abundance, diversity, and distribution for the 15 AGRRA sites we have finished here at Glover's Reef, but I'm sure everyone else has already dscienceat scienc-y stuff!

...so I figure I'd share a few of the many weird and random things I learned during my time here at Glover's:

-Composting toilets can be a cool thing! Especially when you go to the bathroom 3 times more than you normally would.
-Peeing in a shorty wetsuit several times while diving is fine, but apparently peeing in a long wetsuit several times while diving can get a little gross, even if you are doing it to get warm.
-It doesn't matter if you're a hot shot diver who has a gazillion dives under your belt and can name all the scientific coral names, when you jump in the water and you've forgotten to turn the tank air on, you're still a big dumbass.
-If you stay in the dorms that Nadia and I stayed in, there is a mythical morning gecko who will come to your door and wake you with his highly disturbing croaking.
-Both Annick and Ben are very well traveled. Put them 2 together and you have the United Nations.
-Annick sure joked a lot about purposefully ignoring coral she was supposed to be counting, or placing her transect on strategically coral-less areas....hmmm! but was she really joking?!
-If you go to enter your fish/coral data on Nadia's computer, bring a book to read while you wait for the Excel program to load up, a thick one.
-Don't ever sing the "I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie worl" song while doing AGRRA surveys, you'll never get that song out of your head, and I'm pretty positive that singing that song completely negates our validity as scientific data collectors
-Singing the A-team theme song while on the boat does this as well, actually it's worse.

Debbie Wang, Peace Corps, helping out with the fish AGRRA

More Pictures of the AGRRA Survey

Annick and Nadia: Coral reef acrobats

Debbie looks like she's doing underwater construction but is counting fish

Stann Creek Ecumenical High School

or "How not to lose any of those 18 students while snorkeling"

Keep you life jacket on at all times!!!

Yesterday, Glovers Reef Marine Station was happy to welcome the 4th form students from Stann Creek Ecumenical High School based in Dangriga. Their teachers Ms. Cayetano and Mr. Onyia accompanied them.

On the programme: snorkeling the reefs of the atoll and discovering their natural heritage as Belizeans.

For some of the students, it was their first time out snorkeling and discovering the wonders undersea. For us, it proved quite challenging to keep afloat 18 students and keep the corals intact. However thanks to loads of help from all the neigbhouring cayes we had plenty of Dive Masters and life jackets to go around.

Snorkelling back to the boat.

Carlos Martinez, Fisheries ranger for Glovers Reef explained what his job was about and why it was important to respect certain rules out on the atoll.

Annick Cros, Manager of the Station, gave a quick talk about the coral reef ecosystem leading the students to understand the role man played on this fragile environment.

Annick and Carlos giving a talk to an attentive audience.

The team at Middle Caye would like to give Special Thanks to Becky Lamont for having generously lent us all the snorkelling equipment and half of her family to help us with the snorkellers!

More pictures

Ms. Cayetano coming up from her snorkel and probably wondering how she's going to make it back on the boat.

Who said snorkeling was tiring? A quick game of volleyball after lunch!

Koolie Gial was a good launch for some acrobatic dives.

After a snorkel.

Sex changes in Bluehead Wrasses

Erica Marsh and John Godwin inserting a hormone inplant

They may look a little strange, but Erica Marsh and John Godwin are doing quick precision dissection on bluhead wrasses to insert hormone implants.

Erica is a PhD student at North Carolina State University. This is the second time she is out at Glovers Reef to carry her work on the mechanisms regulating male bluehead wrasses sociosexual behaviour.

Jon Godwin, professor at the same university (http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/g/godwin/www/jrgindex.html) is also of the trip this year to see if the wrasses are responding according to their hypothesis.

The research topic

Tagged blueheadwrasses which have undergone the implant operation

The bluehead wrasse, Thalassoma bifasciatum, is a protogynous or female-to-male sex changing fish that also exhibits two discrete, alternate male phenotypes. In this species, sex and role change is under social control, with females changing into males after becoming socially dominant. The bluehead wrasse is an excellent system in which to study the neuroendocrine mechanisms driving the regulation of male sociosexual behavior. The behavioral changes associated with a change in social dominance are dramatic, take place rapidly, and can be manipulated in the full complexity of the natural environment.

These experiments will generate about how social environment regulates neuroendocrine changes in the brain associated with striking changes in behavior.

(Erica Marsh and John Godwin, 2006, Research proposal submitted to WCS).

Methods

John observing the behaviour of the bluehead wrasses after the operation

The fish are caught in a net in the morning and quickly brought back to the station for operation. After giving them different hormones and in some case removing ovaries the fish recover quickly and are set free on their orginial coral bommies. Dominant males are then either relocated or not depending on the drug used.

Most of the reseracher's time in the field is spent on the surface looking at the change/lack of change of the behaviour of the fish. Does the female bluehead wrass now think she's a dominant male???

Some of the fish are sacrificed and the brain are kept for later analysis to understand the exact process and retrace the events.

Erica at the helm, going to observe "her" fish.

More Pictures...

Erica operating a bluehead wrass

Precision work....

Heather Heinz, undergrad helping Erica with her field work and computer pro!

Bye for now!

More Pictures From the Shark Group

Daytime

Tinkerbelle is ready for Captain Hook

But he's too busy looking for the Croc

Lost boys or Pirate's mates?

That's not a shark Vera....

This is a Shark! (a Caribbean Reef Shark)

The shark is held by the tail and is hooked on the line to allow for surgery.

More Pictures From the Shark Group

Nightime

Big hook for a small Reef Shark. Although it was unphased by it and still trying to bite the hands off the researchers.

Archie Carr, Senior Scientist from WCS is helping Demian Chapman tag a big female nurse shark.

Demian is making an incision to insert the marker that will allow to see where the shark swims.

After tagging the shark Demian gives it a little jump start to help it get back on its fins.

Norlan Lamb remains unphased by all this activity. Notice top right: he already has secured diner...

Presenting the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Team

From the Oceanographic Department, left to right:

Chris Linder: Chris is not only a oceanographer but also a professional photograph. For all those who love nature and spectacular scenery, visit his personal website: http://www.chrislinder.com

Andrey Shcherbina: We figured if he could programme a half million piece of equipment (REMUS) surely he could help us repair our internet connection!

Glen Gawarkiewicz: Leader of the Oceanography expedition at Glovers Reef. Glen usually works in polar waters but seems to have addapted quickly to the tropical weather.

From the Biology Department, left to right:

Jesus Pineda: Jesus works on larvae dispersal . Although he usually work on barnacle larvae ("because they are easy to study") he found a new interest in Rum confection. Just ask any cab driver in Belize City.

For more information on his lab: http://science.whoi.edu/labs/pinedalab/

Harvey Walsh: A quiet biologist (or was that because we had 2 kiwis on the station at the same time and no room to manoeuvre?) . Harvey also works on larvae dispersal.

Simon Thorrold: Leader of the Biology expedition at Glovers Reef. Simon will be continuing his work on Glovers Reef, tagging Nassau Grouper larvae and looking at the implication of larvae dispersal for management of these populations. Simon spent many hours testing the wireless from his balcony and chasing after ghosts.

For more information: http://www.whoi.edu/hpb/Site.do?id=1892

Photo by Chris Linder (copyright)

Pirates of the Caribbean

James Bond Gadget or Scientific Instrument?

Photo by Chris Linder (copyright)

The Woods Hole Team with Middle Caye staff and of course the REMUS

Glovers Reef Marine Research Station was full last week with visiting researchers. And although the work of the Shark Group (see previous post) was excitingly dangerous (!!), the Woods Hole Institute (http://www.whoi.edu) team had the coolest "toys". Hearing Glen Gawarkiewicz and his team from the Oceanography department of the Woods Hole Institute explain what the REMUS autonomous underwater vehicle system can do, it certainly sounds like (and is) a very expensive and rare piece of equipment worthy of the best James Bond gadgets.

In tandem with the Oceanography group, Simon Thorrold was leading the team from the Biology department of the Woods Hole Institute. The objective of both teams was to collect data on the physical oceanography of water around Glovers Reef, in particular the water movements around the passes where Nassau Grouper aggregation are observed and studied.

Methods

Photo by Chris Linder (Copyright)

Deploying the REMUS from Slippery.

The Oceanographic group deployed the REMUS to collect high spatial resolution data on temperature, salinity and current velocity. This torpedo-like instrument has multiple sensors such as side scan sonars, CTD (Conductivity-Temperature-Density) and ADCPs.

They are also planning to create a high resolution bathymetric map of Glovers Reef to help model the water movements near grouper spawning sites. This will be done using the REMUS, which has an extremely precise internal navigational system and sensors measuring depth and vertical distance from the vehicle to the bottom.

In addition to this, two bottom-mounted acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) were deployed, one near the Northern grouper spawning site, the other at the Southeast Channel. They will be left for 9 months to record depth-specific current velocities.

Photo by Chris Linder (Copyright)

Programming the trajectory of the REMUS before deploying it

What is the link to conservation?

This work will allow to predict where planktonic Nassau Grouper larvae are traveling:

Are they staying in the vicinity of Glovers Reef and larvae are recruiting with the protected area, or are they being exported to areas where there might not be any management or protection?

Finding answers to these questions will give managers the knowledge to efficiently protect Nassau groupers by protecting the site where grouper larvae settle as well as the

spawning site they come from.

Future work at Glovers Reef

Both teams will be coming back to Glovers to complete their work. The oceanographic group will concentrate on the area near the Northeast spawning site to create a detailed map of the area.

The biology group plans to tag larvae to test the model created from the data previously connected and see if it can be applied. This would require chemically tagging female groupers at spawning sites, then catching larvae after spawning and tracking where they come from.

Photo by Chris Linder (Copyright)

Watching the Shark Team come back.

Looking for Sharks at Glovers Reef

Shark Team

Demian Chapman from Nova Southeastern University ( http://www.nova.edu/ocean/ghri/) and Beth Backock from the Pew Institute of Ocean Science (http://www.pewoceanscience.org/projects/Glovers_Reef_/intro.php?ID=54) are back at Glovers Reef for their annual survey of Shark population. Helping them and also from the Pew Institute are Vera Agostini and Neil Hammerschlag.

Almost a full team, coming back to Middle Caye after setting the longline.

But the Shark group couldn't do their work without Norlan Lamb, the only boat captain to drive at night with sunglasses, Randolph Nunez and Ashbert Miranda, fishermen catching the bait for the longline.

The Shark group started their survey of the population of sharks at Glovers Reef in 2000. At the beginning their goal was to estimate and monitor the shark population. However their survey got more elaborate and they are now fitting transmitters in the sharks they catch. Once released they can follow the activities of the sharks to see how effective the no fishing reserve at Glovers is for these top predators.

Methods

The sharks are caught using longlining. A set of baited line hang perpendicular along a main floating line. The longline is checked every 3 hours to minimize the number of shark dying when caught. Where there is a shark on the line, the shark team measure it, tag it and if the shark is in shape they perform surgery to insert the radio transmitter.

Tagged Reef Shark

A few results

The most common sharks caught around glovers are nurse sharks (Ginglymostoma cirratum) and Caribbean Reef Sharks (Carcharinus perezi).

In a recent presentation Demian Chapman was careful when saying that unlike most other places in the world, the population of sharks around Glovers Reef is stable. Because sharks take a long time to mature and females only give birth to a few sharks, the impacts of overfishing are not immediately obvious. However the shark team did notice an extinction of lemon shark pup around Middle Caye and they believe that the few large lemon shark females that came to pup have recently been fished out.

Another observation was that these shark were not restricted to the no take zone of the marine reserve and that in fact some one of the reef shark was observed to travel all the way to Light House reef about 35 miles from Glovers.

The implication of these observation is that the marine reserve as it is is too small to provide protection for these top predators.

On the other hand the ban of longlining and gill net in a much wider region seems to be favourable for the shark population in this area.

Demian Chapman and his team are working towards elaborating management strategies to help protect the population around the work which are quickly declining.

LightHawk Flight, April 6 2006
Part II

More pictures from the LightHawk flight over Glovers Reef (see previous post).

You can see a few of the 850 patch reefs which characterize Glovers Reef's lagoon.

(Photo by Madeleine Lomont)

Middle Caye from the air. Most of the island is kept in its original state, with its native vegetation. This helps maintain habitats for migartory bird species and resident bird species such as the pelicans, kingfishers and ospreys as well as wishwillies and other reptiles.

(Photo by Madeleine Lomont)

Three happy neighbours. From left to right Madeleine Lomont from North East Caye, Jim Schofield from Long Caye-Off the Wall and Annick Cros from Middle Caye.

(Photo by Jim Schofield)

Thank you LightHawk!