In the past 10 days, I have:

• Climbed through insect-ridden mangroves once more to take their measurements
• Began working on my environmental DNA project!!!
• Made a funnel cake (sort-of)
• Abruptly halted my environmental DNA project because I did something wrong again
• Turned 21
• Actually used the kitchen for a proper meal

I feel confident in saying that I have become one with the mangroves. This past week, our group has taken above-ground biomass surveys, root density counts, habitat complexity scores, fish surveys, eDNA surveys, and root lengths. That’s all in addition to the past three weeks of processing the mangrove roots themselves in lab for the living organisms on them. All of these measurements help describe the structure and biodiversity of mangroves so that we can compare differences between sites and ecosystems. It’s crazy to think you can quantify so much in such a small sliver of the Caribbean.

In addition to this, I finally started taking data for my project! I am taking water samples from the ocean at all of our marine sites to see how environmental DNA floating in seawater matches up to the whole organisms we can see when processing mangrove and seagrass samples in the lab. More specifically, I am comparing my environmental DNA water samples to traditional fish surveys. While other scientists are swimming through the water, identifying and counting fish, I am sampling the water to capture the DNA that the fish are shedding. This way, we are all capturing a moment in time in mangroves, seagrasses, and coral when fish (and their DNA) are present. It’s a lot easier and less invasive to take water samples than to spend hours snorkeling through these ecosystems, so hopefully I find that the fish diversity in my water samples is similar to the fish diversity that the other scientists are finding. Plus, it will be interesting to see how fish diversity changes between mangroves, seagrasses, and corals.

Because it takes much longer to do a traditional fish survey than it does to sample water, I filter my water samples while in the field on the boat. To filter a water sample for its environmental DNA, I push water through a filter that is fine enough to trap DNA in it, but not the rest of the water. That filter gets frozen until DNA extraction can be done. In order to force water through such a small filter, I use a pump connected to a drill. This whole system was optimized with the Funnel Cake, a vision of Coll’s and mine. We found a broken bucket and sawed off the cracked top. With the bottom of the bucket, we connected together all the parts necessary for water filtering. Now, the whole system fits into something close to the size of a baking pan…thus the name Funnel Cake.

But then… a small disaster struck. I brought replacement filters to put into the funnels (the cup-like thing on the Funnel Cake), but they were the wrong item. Now, sampling has been briefly halted and I will stay behind at the field station a bit longer to finish. Such is the reality of field work – mistakes may happen, but most are easily remedied. A package from Rice will be in my hands soon and my facial expression will be the same as the one below when another package for me arrived (thanks Correa Lab + BioSciences crew!)

Oh also, I turned 21 last Saturday! I had been celebrating the long overdue start to my project by eating delicious food and legally having a few happy hour drinks after long days in the field. On my actual birthday, I helped decant sediment samples and then went out to dinner and dancing. I ate the best fish burger I’ve ever had, along with a fresh fruit smoothie with a splash of rum.

Today, I made pineapple fried rice for the group and an apple birthday cake was made for me by Rosalyn (and others)! Even though a lot has happened this week, it’s nice to know that there is always a supportive group nearby to keep spirits high! 🙂

 

Our lab just finished processing 160+ mangrove roots, which constitutes the largest mangrove biodiversity survey effort attempted…ever.

(Almost) every day for the past 3 weeks, we have been tirelessly going through mangrove roots from different mangrove forests around the archipelago and quantifying their biodiversity by carefully collecting organisms and processing every single aspect of the root – down to the water that it came in.

Here is the final root I will be doing for a long, long time:

Living on and inside this root included shrimps, brittle stars, crabs, tunicates, amphipods, isopods, flatworms (and other worms), and more. It’s incredible to think that the roots of a tree can support so much marine life on its own.

Some other cool organisms that were found on our roots and collected in the water:

To celebrate the end of processing mangrove roots, I went fishing off the dock. After writing about Rosalyn’s research on microplastics in seafood a few days ago, we are going to try and see if we can examine fish guts here from species that are generalists (not picky eaters). I haven’t been fishing for a long time and stopped after learning about overfishing…but for science, I gave it another shot. To be honest, it was quite fun, especially after I caught a snapper and was able to let it go!

This year’s conservation focus for World Ocean’s Day is “encouraging solutions to plastic pollution and preventing marine litter for a healthier ocean and a better future.”

I think it’s fair to say that we know our oceans are becoming plastic soups. Plastics never truly degrade – they only get broken up into smaller and smaller pieces. Every piece of plastic ever made still exists somewhere in our environment.

Here’s a quick refresher on how plastic moves from our hands to elsewhere (and everywhere):

Here in Bocas del Toro, waste management efforts are fairly poor. There is little to no recycling effort and trash gets burned or dumped into the ocean. This is not a problem of the local residents – rather, the transient flow of tourists makes it difficult to establish a precedent for recycling. In addition, waste management systems largely dictate how individuals are able to deal with trash, so even if someone wanted to responsibly get rid of their waste in town here, they might not be able to here due to structural forces much larger than them.

However, there are people in this area who are trying to raise awareness about plastic usage in Bocas. The Plastic Water Bottle Village (a place still on my to-visit list) is an “eco-residential community” of homes that are built from recycled plastic water bottles. The creator of the village, Robert Bezeau, estimates that he has collected over one million bottles over the course of a year and a half. However, local rumors indicate some skepticism about its actual feasibility. Regardless, Robert also spearheaded a Bocas recycling program in 2012. I hope to actually have a conversation with him about how to reduce everyday waste!

One of the first things I noticed when I snorkeled along mangrove roots here was the amount of trash that got caught in them. Even deeper in the mangrove forest, high tides swept whole plastic items and stuck them in-between roots. Although items like plastic bags, beer bottles, and other unidentifiable garbage may seem integrated into the ecosystem since marine organisms live on and around them, there are less conspicuous consequences that are also taking place. Even today, it didn’t take much effort (maybe 30 seconds?) for me to spot bits of garbage entangled deep within the mangrove roots and forest.

One of those consequences is that our waste into the ocean is making its way back to our dinner plates. My friend and lab mate Rosalyn actually did research on the prevalence of plastics in seafood that was marketed for human consumption.

After collecting seafood on sale for human consumption in Makassar, Indonesia and California, it was found that anthropogenic debris was present in 28% of individual fish in Makassar, Indonesia and 25% of individual fish in California. In Indonesia, the majority of anthropogenic waste was plastic debris while in the US, the majority of anthropogenic waste was plastic and synthetic fibers. Rosalyn explained that this is probably due to the different waste management infrastructures present in both countries – in Indonesia, 30% of solid waste that is generated is not processed and directly discarded into waterways while in California, more advanced waste management systems prevent large plastic items to be discarded in the ocean, however waste water outfalls result in plastics ending up in about the same percentages for seafood intended for human consumption in both places.

Would you feed plastic to the seafood you’re eating? Sounds pretty unappetizing to me.

Check out the awesome paper she co-authored in Nature Communications here: Rochman, C. M. et al. Anthropogenic debris in seafood: Plastic debris and fibers from textiles in fish and bivalves sold for human consumption. Sci. Rep. 5, 14340; doi: 10.1038/srep14340 (2015).

Back in the US, I am able to freely disassociate from myself from the waste I produce. Once my waste ends up in a trash can or recycling bin, it’s out of sight and out of mind. Here, I am literally swimming in garbage most times I enter the water. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the people in Bocas del Toro, Panama are more negligent when it comes to their wastefulness  – if anything, it just means that local impacts are more visible.

Ideally, studying the biodiversity of nearshore marine ecosystems and their means examining unaltered and untouched marine habitats and communities, but that no longer is the norm. In contrast, more and more scientists will have to account for human impact (like pollution and waste) in their research and data analyses.

We choose to bring more plastic into existence on this planet, and there’s not a lot we can do about it (currently) once it enters prolifically into our oceans and environment. Being conscientious about the consequences of convenience is a great first step, and one that can make a huge difference!

Here’s a link to 51 ways you can reduce your plastic usage, courtesy of Reef Relief: https://www.reefrelief.org/2013/01/51-ways-to-reduce-plastic-use-or-completely-eliminate-it/ Continue reading →

Today, I spent three hours identifying shrimps for fun with our expert decapod taxonomist, Paulo!

In particular, my friend Coll and I were able to get to the species level of a snapping shrimp, which make up the most distinctive sound on coral reefs and most of the ocean. The crackling and popping noises you hear underwater are due to the loud sound that they are able to make with a dominant claw, which emit a powerful wave of bubbles that can stun fish much larger than them in size.

Snapping shrimp are in the family Alpheidae and can be found worldwide. The species we identified was from one of two prominent genera, Synalpheus. In our mangrove root samples, we end up finding more Synalpheus shrimp than any other genera of shrimp! You know you have one in your mangrove root sample because you can hear each one snap in your tub. If you have large sponges that kind of have Swiss-cheese like holes, it’s very likely that you’ll find many Synalpheus shrimps finding shelter deep within them. A large orange clionid sponge encrusting on one of our roots had over 40 of them!

Apparently, there have been studies showing that Synalpheus shrimp can live in large colonies (up to 300 members!) and exhibit eusocial organization. All of the members are the offspring of a single large queen female and tend to /defend her as male soldiers. Only a single male (or a lucky few) are able to directly pass on their genes by mating with the queen. This unique social structure has been hypothesized to exist because members in the group are able to get more benefits (like division of labor) this way instead of each trying to reproduce themselves. These benefits are known as inclusive fitness benefits.

Anyways, identifying any type of shrimp is no easy task. Even while using taxonomic key with a diagram of all the potential visible parts of a shrimp, getting down to the (correct) genus took close to an hour for each shrimp. The shrimps we were looking at were semi-transparent, which meant some of the small hairs and “teeth-like” structures on their heads were close to invisible. It definitely takes a trained eye to be able to quickly work through the step-by-step nature of taxonomic keys. Once Paulo gave us a satisfied thumbs-up at our educated guesses, the puzzling looks on our faces turned into relieved high-fives. Coll and I identified a Synalpheus dardeaui after looking at very specific parts of the legs, mouth parts, tail, and more of a shrimp no more than three centimeters.

I definitely came to appreciate the hard work that it takes to describe species and relate them together enough to create step-by-step taxonomic guides. Taxonomy is no longer a “hot” field to pursue, so there a fewer specialists in sometimes cryptic and under-described groups who are taking on species identification challenges from all over the world. But the ability to describe and classify an organism in relation to others is still extremely important – phylogenies can’t die with the few specialists who currently study them!