The lionfish are ready for their GoPro camera close-ups!
As the crew from Mark Hixon’s lab at Oregon State University round the halfway point of their summer field season here at CEI, the team has already logged almost 200 dives while conducting their underwater research. Ph.D. student Tye Kindinger has started a brand new project this summer investigating the interactive effect of invasive lionfish predation on competition between two native species of basslets. Fairy and blackcap basslets are popular fish in the aquarium trade due to their bright and beautiful color.
Brightly colored blackcap and fairy basslets may be small and cute, but their aggression towards each other could lead to increased vulnerability to lionfish predation.
Off of Eleuthera, these basslets can be found on coral reefs, where they live under the same ledges and potentially compete for plankton (food) that is passing by. Invasive lionfish could affect these populations of basslets depending on whether lionfish prefer to eat one species of basslet over the other. In addition, aggressive behavior between the basslet species due to competition could cause one basslet species to be more vulnerable to lionfish predation, depending on where lionfish prefer to hunt under ledges. Continue reading →
Seven undergraduate students from Newcastle University have been on campus since July 1, assimilating with various research groups at CEI. Each student is working on an individual project for their undergraduate thesis. Click below for a summary of the projects:
Jocelyn and Kate recording fish along their transects.
The lionfish team has recently finished their fish abundance surveys, which are undertaken every three months. They visited sixteen reef patches in the Exuma Sound over three days. There are generally two or three recorders (who need to have top notch fish identification skills!). Two team members jump in onto the patch and do roving surveys and record all the fish they can see. Since the patches are part of a lionfish removal versus non-removal comparison study, they also record the number and size of both lionfish and competitors for lionfish, such as groupers.
A speared lionfish
Next, they lay three random transects over the reef and record the species and size of all the fish within one meter of the transect tape. The third recorder lays two transects on the sand on either side of the reef – there’s much fewer fish out there! Finally, if the site is a lionfish removal site, they spear all the lionfish on the patch and take them back to the lab for dissection.
A Caribbean two-spot octopus
The team was out on the boat the couple of days before tropical storm Chantal was supposed to hit Eleuthera and the weather was crazy! It could change from bright sunshine to lashing rain and waves crashing over the bow in minutes. Despite those moments, the team had a fun time and saw some pretty cool stuff; there was an octopus on one transect, as well as a Dwarf seahorse and a pipefish near different patches. Continue reading →
Lillian Tuttle is a PhD. student from Mark Hixon’s lab at Oregon State University, who is working at CEI for 90 days this summer studying the lionfish invasion. Broadly, Lillian is interested in the interactions among invasive lionfish, native parasite communities, and native cleaning symbioses. Her past research demonstrates that invasive lionfish have escaped the threat of parasitic infection here in the Atlantic, especially when compared to native fishes that are chocked full of parasitic worms and crustaceans. Without the need to fight infection, lionfish might be able to put more energy into growth and reproduction, perhaps explaining some of their success as an invasive species. But if lionfish don’t have parasites, might they still change the way that native fish get parasites?
Lillian’s hand getting cleaned at an underwater fish cleaning station!
This brings us to Lillian’s project this summer. Thus far, Lillian has logged many hours of observation and deployed many GoPro cameras to detect what lionfish are doing at cleaning stations, locations on the reef where small “cleaner” gobies and shrimp pick the parasites off the skin of larger fish “clients” (think, car washes in the sea!). Are lionfish eating cleaners? Are lionfish eating clients? Or might the slow, stalking, hunting behavior of lionfish interrupt cleaning somehow? These are all questions Lillian hopes to answer this summer at CEI.
SFU undergraduate researcher Sev counts yellow stingrays on a patch reef.
In order to better understand the ecological role of the Yellow Stingray, Urobatis jamaicensis, team SFU has been performing some baseline stingray surveys each Saturday. What happens on Stingray Saturdays? There are sixteen survey sites (patch reefs) total. At these sites two SCUBA divers record the number of individual rays, sex, total length, substrate, refuge, and where they were found on the patch. In addition to this they also take their picture!
A photo of one of the yellow stingrays.
This data will reveal more about the habitat use and site fidelity of the rays. If time permits, the team may even test whether or not the rays can be reliably identified based on their spot patterns. If photo ID were a feasible option it would mean no tags necessary – a noninvasive and cost effective way of identifying individuals!
Currently CEI is overrun with lionfish researchers; it’s an invasion!
The Oregon State University has a team of 6 here. The renowned lionfish researcher Dr. Mark Hixon was also on site for 2 weeks. We also have a group of 3 researchers from Simon Fraser University, as well as 3 researchers from the University of the West Indies. And, of course, the CEI team is always here.
The week of May 20th we had four senior students Ian, Kyle, Annie & Cyrus, join us at CEI to work on their senior projects. Three of the four students were Island School alumni and returned to this place where they had learned so much about the marine environment and ‘living well in a place’. Cyrus said that he came to “expand [his] horizons, experience a breadth of marine research and see the world through a different lens.”
The students spent time learning about and helping with three of our research projects – shark research, lionfish research and beach plastic pollution. They had opportunities to work with local students at the Deep Creek Middle School, capture lionfish, scuba dive (Cyrus completed his Open Water Certification here!) and relax at local beaches and restaurants. Continue reading →
Through perseverance and teamwork, the SFU team, stationed at The Cape Eleuthera Institute, has made great progress in gathering biological samples to assess the effects of the lionfish predation and other stressors on food webs of local reefs. So far they have sampled 7 out of 16 sites, catching over 300 different fish of different species. The structure and complexity of some sites greatly complicates the sampling effort, so as with any other fishing activities, “some days are better than others”.
Atlantic spadefish getting a fin clip for later stable isotope analyses.
SFU researcher Luis releasing fish after recovery.
It is important to note that their sampling effort is completely non-destructive (yay!)… But what does this mean? Well, they bring the fish up to the boat, fin-clip them, let them recover in floating cages hanging from the boat for 20 min, and then release them back to their home. Continue reading →
Last October, Hurricane Sandy caused a dilemma by shifting the off-shore aquaculture cage. Last week the aquaculture team, along with the help of a number of CEI and IS faculty members, successfully moved the off-shore cage back into its pre-Hurricane Sandy position. The move went off without a hitch and has been a long time in the making after months of prep work.
After a few dives, with a large team of helpers, new anchor lines have been installed and we are now in the process of re-positioning the anchors in order to prevent a repeat of last year’s unfortunate events. With the cage back in its original position, preparation can now begin for a new batch of Cobia fingerlings in the coming months. Continue reading →
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