Bocas del Toro is currently lovely. The sun is shining, the wind is whistling in the palms, the ocean is sparkling as it catches the midday rays, the birds are calling to each other through the cerulean skies, and it is a balmy 84 degrees Fahrenheit. Sounds great, right?
Image 1: Beach road on Isla Colon. (Credit: Alaina Eckert)
Looks great, right?!?
Except if 84 degrees actually feels like 93 degrees because of the 68% humidity, and the UV index is an 11. On a scale of 1 - 11. Which means that you can get burned in 15 - 25 minutes of simply being exposed to the sun. And you burn like a lobster in the slightest of sunshine. So I am currently enjoying the view of a lovely Bocas day in a dark room...with a fan...well three fans actually.
This weather has been pretty typical of Bocas since February when I arrived, but over the last few weeks, we have been receiving torrential rain and cloudy skies in the mornings with bright, sunny afternoons. While I don't always appreciate being soaked with rainwater, I do prefer it to my skin burning off. So I guess I won't complain about rainy mornings anymore. When you're snorkeling under water, the rain doesn't bother you so much either!
Luckily, we were able to go into the field this week to collect a few organisms that I am working with on my latest project. My current project will feed into my master's thesis, so I am extremely excited to be working with different organisms, not just corals. The main focus of my project is "hypoxia," or low-oxygenated events in coral reefs. I want to understand how some of the relationships between organisms will be impacted by low-oxygen levels, as different organisms are more or less hypoxia tolerant. Some organisms are able to tolerate low-oxygen levels, while others are less tolerant and thus, more likely to be at risk of dying because of low oxygen events.
During our field day, my lab mates and I collected flamingo tongue marine snails (Cyphoma gibbosum) and beareded fireworms (Hermodice carunculata) (try saying those scientific names five times fast). While flamingo tongue marine snails are relatively easy and harmless to acquire, fireworms unfortunately live up to their name and are venomous. (If it stings or bites you, it's venomous; if you bite it or ingest it, then it is poisonous -- that was something it took me awhile to internalize!) The worms have small, fibrous bristles that break off easily and can also easily become stuck in the skin, while also releasing venom. Thankfully, I have not experienced this firsthand yet, but I have heard that the experience is generally.... *not awesome*.
Images 2 & 3: Bearded fireworms with their bristles flaring.
Our collection methods are also...unique. Because you don't want to physically touch the worm, even with gloves on, one has to get creative. I like to use a fork and a net. Turns out fireworms don't especially enjoy being prodded or picked up with a fork, so they will "flare" their bristles during the collection, which makes their capture pretty epic. Before you know it, there is a "worm of death" (this is a term I use) floating toward you, mad that you are removing it from it's home, and wriggling in five different directions.
But this is also the perfect position to swoop in with a net before safely putting it in the collection container. At one point, I had 20+ fireworms crawling around my collection tank, or as I like to call it, my "box of death". Overall, these creatures are very beautiful, and I have a lot of respect for them when I go out to collect them. Definitely a marine worm that I would never go near if I was not observing them for science.
Collecting the flamingo tongues is much less of an adrenaline pumping experience. The worst thing they do is slime you, which, compared to a fireworm sting, seems like a piece of cake. We have a running competition in the lab to see who can collect the most flamingo tongues before the end of the experiment. I collected a singular snail. Although, in my defense, it is much easier to collect them via SCUBA, and I am snorkeling + free-diving (snorkeling but frequently diving down), so I'm not THAT BITTER about being in last place. These snails are also absolutely beautiful, and I love seeing them in their natural habitat.
Photo 4: Flamingo tongue snail by Vane Vane on Pinterest.
The "design" on their backs isn't on their shell, which is a common misconception. It is actually their "mantel," which extends and retracts over their shell based on their comfort or activity level. So cool!
After collection, we brought the organisms back to the station, where we set them up in their tanks to rest for the day. When they were well rested, we began to trial them in our respirometry system. This system essentially tracks the animals' oxygen use and breathing over time at different temperatures. They are placed in glass jam jars equipped with a tiny oxygen sensor that communicates the partial pressure of oxygen (the amount of oxygen in the jar) to a computer. Over time, we can observe how the organism uses the oxygen in the jar and after analysis, we are able to visualize when the animal switches from aerobic metabolism (with oxygen) to anaerobic metabolism (without oxygen). This "moment" indicates their relative hypoxia tolerance or how tolerant they are to a low-oxygen environment at different temperatures.
While it's too early to tell what their tolerances will look like, I am incredibly excited to see the results of these trials and learn more about these organisms in the process. I hope to demonstrate a level of respect for these organisms in trying to better understand them, and not simply "use" them for my own personal gain. One of the ways I hope to do that is by sharing my adventures with you all and bringing attention to some of the "little guys" of the ocean, who are also magnificent and beautiful!
That's all for this week folks!
Stay cool,
the miss in (miss)adventures
Shout out to Elizabeth Zerrien for the blog design and emotional support creating this blog!
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