Final Week UNF

This week has been just as busy as the rest!
We started the week with a river cruise taking water quality samples and data at four different stations. We cruised up the St. Johns river about 20 miles. I have never seen a river with so much industrial development on it's banks. The banks were littered with phosphorous processing plants, dry docks where they paint and restore ships, other shipyards, a cruise ship port, and bright green highly sloped yards. All of these are significant sources of pollution.

Downtown portion of the river, and our catamaran the Osprey.

We stopped at four different sampling stations on the way back down the river. At these stations we took a water sample for analyzing in the lab, we did a plankton tow, and took water quality parameters.

Doing water quality and taking samples.

Ken and Kierstin collecting the plankton

25 hours in the estuary.... sounds kind of weir don't you think?

As part of the last week at UNF we conducted a twenty-five hour study of the changes in an estuarine environment for both biotic and abiotic parameters. The study included factors that were observational such as the variance in tidal height, which was extraordinary, and other factors that were measured like water quality and species composition. There were two stations at the site. The first site was on the lake side, above the weir and the second site was the estuary side below the weir. At each site we gathered intel on the water quality every hour which included reading a YSI meter for air temperature, water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen percent and quantity, and conductivity of the water. Then we used a seine net to capture what we could every three hours. We had to identify and count what species where brought up from the nets. Then just for fun we tried a large 70 foot seine to see what we could find and ended up with a small stingray.
As part of the observational study it was our job to find a pattern of sorts with the information that we gathered. As a result, it is evident that the water changes throughout the day along with the organisms that live there. The salinity and dissolved oxygen decreased as the day went on and was lowest at night. The entire distribution of fishes come and go through the day. For example, on the estuary side in the mid afternoon was catching more silversides in the seine and then at night the lake side was pulling them in by the thousands! (we had to count all 4500 of them) There was a clear difference in when the most fish were present.
Here are some things that were interesting to me.
-we were visited by at least two alligators at three in the morning while seining and one was at least seven feet long. It was scary and cool at the same time.
-The fluctuation of tides at this site was at least a few feet to the point that when we first got there, there was at least ten feet of beach and by high tide was completely flooded.
-The huge distribution change of the fish between night and day was tremendous.
-There are many people who fish there during the day and don't catch anything, but as soon as they leave for the night every fish in that lake will bite a hook.

That's a wrap!

    Wednesday we began our 24 hour diel study. We left campus at 8:30 am and headed to GTM (Guana Tolomato Matanzas) Education and Research Center. We split into groups and did seine nets every two hours, and water quality every half hour on the estuary side, and seine nets every three hours, and water quality every hour lakeside. This is because the lake was not changing as rapidly as the estuary, in terms of salinity, dissolved oxygen (D.O.), water temperature, and turbidity. I had dreaded this 24 hour study thinking it would be absolutely exhausting and miserable - we had been told students say, "It is something I will never forget", and we weren't sure if that was in a positive or negative way! But having completed the study and gotten back Thursday at noon, I can honestly say that I enjoyed myself! It was an amazing experience and I am happy to have had it. We saw the tide come in and out twice - something I have never observed before, pulled up several interesting seines, and were watched by alligators at 4 am, in the very water that we needed to continue testing in! That was an experience! I can honestly say that I would do it again, and enjoy it just as much!

Crab with two fish - love this picture!

Cody splashing to make sure the fish don't escape the net.

Pulling up the 70 foot seine net!

Atlantic Stingray

Blue crab

Lined Sole - a type of flounder - 135 cm!

Jesse and Laura on the job!

4 hours of sleep and soaked from the seine but enjoying every minute!

  We made it through an intense, learning-filled, exhausting, and enjoyable trip around Florida! I can't believe that it is over, and I am going to miss everyone. Thank you to everyone who organized this class and made it possible, all the professors and participating universities, FIO, our amazing TA, Breanna, and everyone in the class! I had a great experience and would definitely do it again if I had the chance.

Group photo on the last day!

A study of the St. Johns

The first day back at UNF we took two boats out on the St. Johns and traveled 20 miles upriver in order to sample water quality and view the anthropogenic effects.

Boat 1: Capt'n Tom

Boat 2: Capt'n Hackney

We conducted a water sample test of the surface and bottom of the water using a Vandorn device. We also used a Secchi disk to test turbidity.

Trying to get the disk to sink was not easy in a ripping current!

 We collected a plankton sample that we brought back to the lab and analyzed for phytoplankton and chlorophyll content.

Determining the chlorophyll content.

Identifying diatoms is no easy task. These ladies make it look easy!

Getting the samples ready!

Overall I had a great time out in the boat all day. It's not every day you get to travel upriver 20 miles and observe the activities. The coolest thing that we saw was the Jacksonville port with a car tanker unloading! It was really cool to see where all of our products come from.

Back to UNF!

This week we went back to UNF for a study of the diversity within the marine systems on the coastline. We looked at the saint johns river and how the water changes as it flows from the mouth of the river out to the ocean and the organisms that live in the different types of water. It was really cool to see how quickly the water changes over such a distance and how each area is colonized with different organisms. We also we to the beach and traveled down the coastline to see the different ways that currents carry sediment and how places that were once full of water are now totally dry. Seeing boat docks on a desert plain was pretty funny. then we performed a 24 hour diel study where we observed the tides, water quality, and organisms that live in the lake and estuary at the GTMNERR over a 24 hour span. One of the things I learned about in this study was the tides. When the tide is going from low to high it is called a flood tide and when it is going from a high tide to a low tide it is called a ebbing tide. The variety of organism that we caught in this study was incredible. It was an amazing experience to be able to see the different parts of the ecosystem function together as one. I think that this taught me the most this week and has really opened my eyes to seeing nature as a whole.

(us on our journey down the Saint Johns river)

(us using the 70 foot sein net during our diel study)

(some of the coquina outcroppings and tidal pools we visited on our beach expedition)

The Final Countdown

   We are finishing up our trip around Florida at UNF, and so far this week has been full of activity and excitement! I honestly have to look through pictures to remember which things were on which days! On Monday we departed in two UNF boats - The Osprey and Genetic Drift - and performed water quality testing along the St. John's river.

The Osprey

At the mouth of the river we found that the salinity was very high, at around 35 ppt (the ocean water itself is normally around 35 ppt). But at the farthest location we went to - about 20 miles down river - the salinity was around 1 ppt! The salinities were so different from each other but we hadn't even travelled close to the full length of the river.

Our data!

Many human impacts affect the river, and we noticed this as we continued down the length of it. Septic tanks - which are supposed to filter human waste - actually stop working after many years, causing both bacteria and waste to be released into the river. Other issues like runoff, and breaking down of iron on shipyards along the river also add to our impact on the river, making it one that you would not want to swim in! Some of the areas along the river are very urbanized, but others have marshes along it's shoreline. Hopefully in the future we can find solutions to having this urbanization but limiting the waste.

We went under many bridges along our route

The Jacksonville Landing is located right off the river

  On Tuesday we went to five very different beach locations. Our first stop was one of the locations that Juan Ponce de Leon is said to have first landed.

This location had very tall dunes, and Guana was visible from the top of the boardwalk, in the opposite direction from the beach. We discussed how Northeasters are actually more damaging than most hurricanes to this coast. Northeasters are huge rotating storms, like hurricanes, that originate in the north and do not rely on development in the tropic region. We also learned about the sand on Florida's beaches being from coquina rock, and at the last site we studied large coquina outcroppings - they were very cool and I had no idea that we had anything like that on our beaches! This first beach was unique because it was on four miles of uninhabited land, which is great for sea turtles nesting, as well as other animals. There aren't very many beaches like this.

The dunes were very tall and house a number of organisms.

Our second site was Vilano beach. This beach was opposite from the first in several distinct ways. First, it was nearer to St. Augustine (right next to the St. Augustine Inlet) and was not in an uninhabited location. As if to emphasize that, cars are permitted to drive and park on the beach! What?! I had never even heard of doing that before, but when we arrived there were several cars parked on the beach and several more arriving and following suit.

 A second large difference was how flat the beach was. The first beach had huge dunes, but this one was very flat (from beach nourishment) and had much less plant diversity and abundance in the dunes. Thirdly, this beach had a jetty, and used beach nourishment programs, dredging, and was on an inlet.

Our third site was at Matanzas Inlet. This inlet is different from the last because it is natural - there is no dredging or jettys, and the inlet has already migrated as sediment deposits on one side and erodes from the other. There is a bridge that used to pass mostly over water, but now it goes over mostly sand.

A small piece of coquina rock.

The reddish orange color on the sand is shell hash (lots of tiny broken up shells!)

Erosion on the dunes, and the bridge in the background.

The erosion in the picture above is likely correlated to the "super moon". A few nights ago the moon was very close to Earth, causing more severe tides - higher highs and lower lows. This causes the water to reach the dunes and erode them.

Natural inlets like this one are great for nesting birds. We saw several guarding their nests. Oddly, these birds do not feed in the ocean, but choose to live near it.

Nesting Tern.

Our fifth location was a channel that closed around 2008, leaving several homeowners' docks in the sand, instead of water. At this site there were hundreds of fiddler crabs, and small black mangroves growing in - which means that these houses will not be able to dredge and return the water, because the area has become habitat to natural species.

Hermit Crabs on the move!

A sandy boat dock - bummer!

To finish up Tuesday, we went to one of two natural coquina outcroppings on the east coast of the United States, and it was beautiful! They used to be underwater thousands of years ago, and similar to reefs. We found many different organisms making these outcroppings a home; including barnacles, Sergeant Majors (again!), crabs, algae, and more.

Barnacles on the coquina outcroppings.

Keys Ecosystems

It's safe to say we all had a blast at the Keys Marine Lab this past week. We had the chance to see, learn, and experience so many different marine ecosystems.

 We were privileged enough to see the astoundingly surreal coral reefs off the middle and lower Keys, all of which were at least slightly different from each other. We saw both artificial and natural coral reefs, as well as reefs with different diversity and structure in regards to coral, algal and fish species (we were professionals at identification by the end of the week).

We also were able to explore a mangrove island that made the environment particularly inhabitable for many species due to the structure and protection the mangroves provided. 

It was very interesting to see life teeming beneath the surface! 

We also explored seagrass beds similar to the ones we saw at the FGCU Vester Station, except we saw a lot more macroalgae (although that might have been due to the fact that we KNEW a lot more about macroalgae). Also, one of my favorite spots we went to (besides the coral reefs, of course) were these fascinating tidal pools at Bahia Honda park. If you took the time to look, there was so much life to be found.

A juvenile Sergeant Major

A goby species

Oh, and they were a cool place to just relax and hang out (at least, Ken thought so...)

All in all, we got to see lots of different marine habitats. Some of them housed different species of fish, but most had the same species but at different life stages. Also, the habitats were all constructed differently with various mediums, like coral and algae, or mangroves, or seagrass beds. It was all wonderful to observe, and the Keys Marine Lab will be sorely missed by us all.

The rest of KML

The last couple days at KML included more reefs and some mangroves. On Tuesday we adventured into the world of mangroves and seagrasses. We explored a mangrove island where there was an amazing passage through the middle of the island although it was kind of creepy. Then we surveyed the surrounding sea grass beds for various conditions such as epiphyte growth, canopy height, dominant species and other organisms that were living in the sea grass beds. On Wednesday, we explored some shallow water areas including a place that was inhabited by huge sponges with many lobsters and other small fish inside of them. This place was actually really neat since it never got deeper than about ten feet. During our exploration of these shallow water habitats we collected various algae and invertebrates, On Thursday we went to Looe key and dove some extraordinary reefs. While there we were split into groups of two in order to accomplish RCV's. We floated on top of the water and counted the number and species of various fish within approximately a seven meter radius. This was done for about five minutes and then we counted all of the new species of fish that passed by for another five minutes while diving to see fishes that were hiding under the rocks. Then we went to an inter-tidal area to see what we could find. I found a conch that was the size of my head its awesome. We also found a fuzzy Chiton and some sea squirts attached to the exposed rocks in the inter-tidal zone. On Friday the last day we went to Windley key and viewed the fossilized remains of the coral beds that once inhabited the underwater Florida. During our tour we learned a lot about native and invasive trees that have a variety of uses. The black ironwood is so dense for example that one would have to sharpen their chainsaw twice before cutting all the way through a one foot diameter tree. I don't remember which day at the moment but we visited the Mote Marine research lab. The experiments that they are doing is amazing in the world of coral reefs. They have devised a technique that encourages coral growth to the point where they can get a 30 year old size brain coral in just under a year! Hopefully soon we can begin to regrow the reefs of the world and prevent against collection of natural corals in substitute for grown corals.
All in all the keys were amazing and the staff was just as awesome.

Comparative Analysis of Different Sites During KML Week

This week we visited over 8 sites, carrying my experience beyond my wildest expectations. We visited 5 coral reefs, a mangrove island, a sponge covered region, and a seagrass substrate site. Each site was unique- even among each coral site.


Coral reefs

We visited three different coral reef sites on Monday: the 11 Foot Mound reef, Long Key Ledge, and the "Elbow" Reef. 11 Foot Mound, as the name suggested, featured a mountainous like region of hard corals that was approximately 11 feet deep. The second location, Long Key Ledge, featured almost a ecotone, or a place where two biomes meet: the open ocean, and a coral reef. The third location, "Elbow" Reef, was different still. Characterized by the greater depth, we saw more open ocean fish. Based on observation, we decided the biodiversity increased throughout the sites, respectively. 

On Wednesday, we visited an artificial reef, which had a surprisingly high percent coverage of coral, covering the pieces of the old Seven Mile Bridge almost entirely. However, where there was not concrete, the bottom substrate was sand, so the reef could be considered "patchy." This site was similar to the "Elbow" Reef we visited on Monday, and we saw a 9 ft Nurse shark! 

By far, the most impressive reef was that of Looe Key. It was far more diverse, extensive, and had the greatest coverage of any site. We performed a quantitative assessment of the fish species there, but never got to analyzing the data. Visually, however, the increase in diversity was obvious. 

In general, coral reefs are highly productive due to the large base of primary producers due to the symbiotic relationship that the corals have with photosynthetic zooxanthellae. Because of this, coral reefs support the greatest diversity we saw in any of the sites we visited. 

A butterflyfish and characteristic substrate of Looe Key
Photo taken by Lauren Wiley 

Picture shows a good representation of the ocean floor of the artificial reef

Mangrove Forests 

The mangrove forests of Koch Key were vastly different from coral reefs, marked by the differences in primary producers. While the primary producers in the coral reefs were microscopic zooxanthellae, the base of the food chain in the mangrove community were vascular plants, or the mangroves themselves. A staple component of this environment is the detrital food web, and it serves as a nursery for juvenile fish. There were far less colorful fish here, and there was less diversity. Most of the fish we saw were schoolmasters and juveniles of other species. The water is significantly more murky, a byproduct of the detrital processes, and there was significantly more macroalgae. While the clear waters of the reef make the environment almost oligotrophic, the turbid waters characteristic of the mangrove community are nutrient rich.

The murky, tannic acid stained waters underneath the mangrove prop roots provide a perfect habitat for many juvenile fish.
Photo taken by Lauren Wiley 

Others/Sub-Components of the Habitats

The site we visited on Tuesday, Big Sponge, was characterized by high wave energy and, as the name suggests, sponges. There were large amounts of macro algae, especially Penicillia, Halimeda, and Udotea. My classmates and I were surprised at the diversity of this sandy bottomed habitat, and many species including angelfish, butterflyfish, trunkfish, and more were identified. Additionally, numerous juvenile lobster were seen hiding in the massive vase and barrel sponges. Because of the large amount of macro-algae found in the site, this site could be characterized as a macro-algae habitat, along with the site just off the coast of KML, which also contained a lot of seagrass. Seagrass and algae compete with one another, and as we learned at the Vester Marine Lab, each group has specific preferences and advantages over one another. Seagrasses prefer clear water, and they are good at trapping and holding sediment in place. Macro-algae, on the other hand, thrive in nutrient rich environments and are more short-lived. Both habitats were seen at these sites throughout the week.

Lots of Lobster at Big Sponge!
Photo taken by Lauren Wiley 

Seagrass Bed and a Trunkfish!
Photo taken by Angelina D.