Roatan: Summer 2016
Day 9 - June 12 - Project
Dives and night snorkel
While it was a full day, there really was not
much to write about. Our two dives today
were devoted to the student’s research projects. The projects included looking at the reaction
time of Yellow Jaw fish and Christmas Tree Worms to predators, the coral
preference of Christmas tree worms, the percent of Sharp Nose Puffers with
white spot disease, and abundance of Cactus Coral by depth. The groups did well and collected a lot of
data. After lunch we headed back out to
Bailey’s Key to select coral heads for the night snorkel. While snorkeling,
each buddy pair selected a coral head and inventoried all the organisms present
during the day time. They then marked
their coral head with a color-coded set of glow sticks. After dinner (and dark) we returned to
Bailey’s Key. The students located their
coral head and then repeated the inventory, so they could see how things
changed from the day-time community to the night community. After that it was off to bed as we have the
large animal encounter scheduled for Monday.