Days 2-5 at FGCU Vester Station

The last four days in Bonita Beach have been stressful, jam-packed, crazy, and most importantly- educational!

On Tuesday, we worked on physical oceanography, examining residual circulation in the estuary. We did so by splitting up and collecting data on one of three parameters that control the overall acceleration of currents: surface slope, density gradient, and force due to friction. I was part of the friction group, so we set out on canoes with a grapefruit, as our "floater" and placed it in the channel at a predetermined coordinate and measured how far it traveled with the current in ten minutes. Below are some pictures from the day.

This Navier Stokes Formula is what we used to evaluate the residual current in the Imperial River 

A picture of the other group working on the density gradient portion of the equation 

The "floater" aka grapefruit

On Wednesday, we worked with Toshi, the microbiologist of the week. On Monday, we had set up ecoplates with different samples of sediment from our coring exercise, and wanted to see the different microbes present in different layers of soil. Unfortunately, it appeared as if the 48 hour incubation period was not enough to produce readable responses in the plate wells (a "good" plate example is shown below), so we learned how to use the computer programs that analyze such data by watching Toshi perform a example. That afternoon, we went out in the field and collected mangrove leaves to analyze their stages of degradation, and soil samples to view the microbes under microscopes. Below are some pictures from Wednesday.

What a properly developed well plate looks like

                                                                         

Side by side comparison of mangrove leaves, showing the degradation process

Looking at microbes in the soil 

On Thursday, we studied seagrass beds. We learned the main types of seagrass beds found in our area, and then we split up into groups to conquer 3 different tasks at 2 different sites: one group used a quadrant method to measure the diversity and abundance of seagrass; another group used a net to capture and identify organisms in the area, and the third group helped Dr. Douglas collect samples of seagrass to analyze in the lab. That afternoon, we spent a grueling several hours tediously analyzing the samples and data collected. It was a long day!

Kenneth counting the amount of seagrass coverage in each sub-quadrant 

Back in the lab, looking through the seagrass sample. 

Larval blue crabs under the microscope, taken by Arien! 

Friday was a nice relaxing day where we did more of a show-and-tell type study of oyster reefs. We traveled to an extensive oyster bed location in Estero Bay and just explored around for about an hour. it was nice not having to worry about a lab write up, and I still learned a lot! That afternoon we took our final exam, which concluded our week at the Vester Marine Lab. It was such a cool location, and my biggest complaint is that we didn't have a lot of time to explore the facility and surrounding area on our own.

Walking on the oyster reef! Those things are sharp

Hermit Crab!