Lab Work

I know what you're thinking, "did you really go to a tropical paradise to toil in the hot sun and crystal water, and labor up idyllic forested slopes? Don't you ever take a break for some refreshing lab work, replete with the soothing glare of fluorescent lights, the gentle clink of scientific glassware, and the warm radiance of sterile surfaces?" Of course we do, except for sterile part. We're field biologists, the chemistry is upstairs.

I've already mentioned some of the work we do in the lab for processing specimens. First comes the sorting. Since this is year three of the project we really want to focus on getting things that are new and interesting, so people pick through the mass samples (sand sample, leaf litter, etc.) and pull out the animals, which are handed off to an expert to determine what qualifies . Usually one uses a microscope for this, but some larger stuff can be seen with the naked eye. Allow John to demonstrate.

Even an expert IDer needs help every once in a while. For this purpose we have photo field guides that we have compiled over the past two years, comprised of photos of specimens we have already collected. This also help ensure that we are collecting new animals, and not something we have collected many times in the past.

You can see one of the guides open next to Charlotte's microscope. That might be another one in her lap. The experts can also help by IDing animals in the guide whose identity has remained a mystery to us.

The specimens are also photographed, especially those that will be subsampled and will no longer be intact. We have several set-ups for this, including two microscope systems, but the basic system that we used for marine animals is a clear aquarium we built elevated off a black background.

After photography most of the animals are subsampled for DNA extraction. For this, a little snippet of tissue is placed in a 96 well plate which goes into the DNA-extracting-robot. Here, Jenna and Gary are about to start loading the plate in Jenna's hands (Jenna not pictured).

There's also a lot of data entry, as all the information that goes with each specimen (photo, subsample, location, identification, habitat, etc.) must be recorded for the Biocode database as well as for cataloging back at the museum. The lab work is not glamorous, but when we discover something new and exciting it often happens here. Please enjoy this reenactment.

Now that our numbers have swelled to 12, I'll try and keep up with the posting. Science waits for no one!

:) Mandy

Underwater collecting techniques

Each collecting trip we try and take advantage of our numbers by employing a diverse array of sampling techniques. Everyone has their favored technique, usually dictated by the type of animal they are interested in, and the method most likely to yield that animal. I've been doing a lot of rubble brushing which entails picking a suitable rock from the bottom and brushing off the underside into a net. When I get out of the water at the end I empty the net into a plastic bag with water and bring it back to the lab for sorting.

This is me getting a nice, small rock from the bottom. Since I was manning this operation solo, I had three things to hold: the rock, the brush, and the net. A quick calculation reveals that that my two hands are somewhat inadequate. When the water is shallower this doesn't present a problem as I can kneel or stand (for breathing) and prop the rock (for brushing). At this depth I have to bring the rock to the surface to maneuver it (you know, to breathe), but it's hard to stay afloat while brushing and holding a boulder.

Art is a pro with the yabby pump. This device uses suction to draw animals out of burrows. The plunger is pulled quickly and the contents are emptied into a sieve. The sand falls through and whatever animal that was inhabiting that burrow is left in the sieve. Pumping is more difficult in the water because you don't have a nice solid surface with ample gravity to brace against. In this picture Sea is manning the pump and Art is holding the sieve on the lookout for interesting animals.

Art's particular interest is the shrimp that make many of the burrows, but there are often many commensals that come up in the pump as well. Like this cool gastropod (snail) which we're calling the Starship Enterprise, but which some call Phenacolepas.

We've also been doing a lot of sand sieving in our quest for micromolluscs. Since John is one of the resident mollusc guys he's being doing a lot of the sieving. He swims along the bottom pushing the sieve and scraping off the first few centimeters of sand. Then he roots through the sieve to see what he's found. As with the brushing, the contents of the sieve will be emptied into a plastic bag at the end of the dive.

The duration of each sieve push is limited by depth and buoyancy, and once again, when snorkeling, deeper is harder.

We've also been getting a lot of rubble samples now that Charlotte is here with her penchant for polychaet worms. This entails hauling around bags of rocks and coral rubble which will be rooted through back at the lab.

In gathering rocks and rubble there's a lot of sticking of hands into nooks and crannies, but one must be vigilant.

Can you see the eel? It's a dangerous job, but we're just the team to undertake it!

:) Mandy

Waterfall Hike

We've had a couple new arrivals, and starting today our numbers are going to start increasing by leaps and bounds. This means a lot more trips to the field, with lots of different sampling techniques going on at once. And that means a lot more time in the lab for processing: anethetizing, photographing, subsampling, preserving. It's going to start getting crowded in here.

For one of our trips, Vetea (who lives and works here) took John, Yasunori, and I to look for terrestrial and freshwater molluscs in the area around Afareaitu Waterfall and the stream it feeds. The foliage was very dense in places, and we hiked around for about 4 hours fighting our way uphill through the vegetation.

But we did eventually make it to the waterfall.

Where we did some collecting around the pool at the base. Yasunori has a special interest in the nerite group of freshwater snails. He even found one that he had described as a species eight years ago.

While we were poking around the waterfall several more groups came and went, which was surprising considering how much of an effort it took us to get there. Then we realized there was a trail, which we weren't too proud to take on the way back to the car. Taking the trail down did nothing to diminish my sense of smug superiority over those who had taken the trail both ways!

So far every collecting trip has yielded new species for the biocode project, and my collecting skills are improving daily. Things are starting to get busy!

:) Mandy

My first Moorea snorkel

So on our second day we decided to get wet. Our focus was going to be micro organisms, mostly molluscs, so we were going to be doing brushing and sieving and sediment sampling in addition to general hand collecting. We headed out to a mud/silt flat with occasional coral bommies. Here is John looking for a suitable rock to flip and brush.

So, maybe I'll do some sand fanning, see if I can't find any...holy crap! Look at the size of that sea cucumber!

Wow, these guys are thick on the ground, I can see why Gustav likes it here. Ok, so, sand fanning. Maybe I can find some small snails or shrimp. Hey, is that an urchin!

It is an urchin! Those are pretty big too. They are crowded into every crevice in the coral. I can't believe how much coral is on this mud flat, and so close to shore. Looks like the fish like it too.

The colors are amazing! There are even picasso triggers (not pictured), my favorite! I wonder if this algae growth is hiding any...christmas tree worms!

I mean micro molluscs. I wonder if that algae is hiding any micro molluscs. Hmmm, so far nothing. Except a baby giant clam!

Is that a blue one!

This is pretty much how my snorkel went. I eventually began scouring the rocks along the jetty, and was excited to find several micro molluscs! Which turned out to be hermit crabs. So, there's a lot to see in Moorea and my first snorkel was full of new and exciting stuff. Next time I vow to do better. Maybe I'll help John with the brushing.

:) Mandy

We're in Moorea!

This month begins the third and final installment of the three-year Moorea Biocode project. When our flight arrived yesterday at 5:30 am it was already full daylight. I can tell this will be something to get used to. The first wave to arrive was me, John, and Art. Art has been here before so he showed us the ropes. One of the first things we did was set up the lab (did you think I was going to say sleep, or eat, or shower...so did I).

Over the course of the next seven weeks we will be joined but twenty researchers coming and going as their time allows. We will be relying on their expertise to help us identify the animals in the groups that haven't been as thoroughly documented in years past. One of the holes in our knowledge is in phylum Mollusca, and one of the experts, Yasunori Kano, has already arrived to help out. So what does a group of scientists do after 13+ hours of travel, little to no sleep, inconsistently scheduled meals, and already having shown our dedication by setting up our stuff in the lab? We go collecting of course!

"Hmmm," you're thinking, "I thought you said you were in Moorea, you know, beaches, palm trees, coral reefs, all that jazz?" How right you are, but for our first collecting foray we decided to hit up some freshwater habitat which hasn't been as extensively sampled. John also found some interesting land snails in a tree on the edge of the stream, and Yasunori took a look around the estuary where the stream empties into the ocean and found some interesting animals as well. The estuarine area was full of these crabs:

But, we didn't collect any, they are so large and abundant that it's impossible that they were missed in the previous two years. After collecting we headed down to the grocery store to stock up on breakfast and lunch food. Sometime in the store I hit my wall and entered a quasi-zombie state. We put the food away and hit the lab for a while and then staggered off to our bungalows.

Only it was night. And now, please enjoy a picture of that jazz you were asking about earlier. We'll hit this up next.

:) Mandy

New Genus!

Sarah McPherson has become our expert in collecting the hidden organisms in the vast areas of sand around Moorea. The habitat is one that is frequently overlooked, and turns up all manner of surprises. You will see her patiently fanning, stirring up huge clouds of sediment, and revealing one pale tan critter after another. After today's dive she came back with a collecting bag full of creatures new for the project including one inconspicuus, transparent, Alpheid shrimp. Art Anker, a post doc in the Paulay lab and one of the few world experts in the identification of shrimp in this group, was on hand to announce that Sarah had found a very special shrimp. Not just a new species, but a new genus! He also promised to name it after her.

-Seabird

First Impression = heavily parasitized

First impressions of the Southern Great Barrier Reef: Diversity is high, with a few species familiar to us from Polynesia, but most are new. Decapod abundance seems lower in comparison, but that could just be the microhabitats that we dove on yesterday. One thing does appear to occur in serious abundance: parasitism. In the samples from Biocode on Moorea, it is an unusual occurance for us to encounter a parasite on a crustacean or seastar- perhaps one in one hundred. Here in Australia the rate seems much much higher- perhaps one in five.

Here is an externally parasitic snail, Thyca, on the seastar Lincka multiflora

And here is an internally parasitic snail, Stylifer, on the same species of seastar.

Understanding the pattern behind these differences is the trick. Part of it may be that diversity begets diversity, creating what Phillipe Bouche has called "the russian dolls of biodiversity." This is where one organism may have a commensal organism living with it, that commensal may have a parasite, and that parasite may have a parasite. We certainly see it with coral, where one species of coral may host many symbionts and each of these may have their own set of commensals and parasites. By increasing the number of species of structural species (corals in this case, but could just as easily be trees in a rainforest) by one, we increase the over-all diversity by many.

This Pink Coral Guard Crab (Trapezia serenei) is a good example. It lives exclusively in one family of corals. If you look at the carapace, you can see that it is asymetrical. In this case that is indicative of a Boporid- a crustacean parasite on crustaceans that has infected the crab.

-Seabird

Hide and Seek

What can you find in the photo above? Many of the organisms that our group studies are cryptic- hidden in their environment. Sometimes a trained eye can spot them- a slightly different texture, motion slightly out of sync with the rest of the setting- but most of the time we swim right past, just like everything else. When people think of the biodiversity of a coral reef, most think of colorful fish, or the corals. Yet the real bulk of diversity, and some of the most amazing creatures are the little things, the hidden things.

An interesting idea to think about is the coloration of reef creatures. Out of their habitat, some appear very colorful- almost psychedelic. But when placed on the reef with it's complex colors and shapes, they disappear. A good example of this is the shrimp Saron, photo below.

Both crabs and shrimps are very good at hiding, and several families of each group have specialized in crypsis, or camoflaouge. The family Majidae, or 'spider crabs' are a great example. Some members of this group are known as 'decorator crabs' because they gather material from the world around them and attach it to their shell and legs in order to hide.

Others, such as the shrimp family Crangonidae, rely on the coloration of the body itself to provide the protection. Can you find the shrimp in the photo below?

So how are you doing with that photo at the top? Here's a photo of the Leucosid crab that is in sand. See it now?

-Seabird

Assassin Worm

The Marine Invertebrate Team of Biocode has been joined by Dr. Jon Norenburg, a specialist on Nemertean worms from the Smithsonian Institution (http://invertebrates.si.edu/staff/norenburg.cfm). During a recent outing to a shallow area in the lagoon, he found a small, pale Nemertean in his samples of the sand. It didn't look like anything special until he got it under a microscope, when the eyes at the tip of the snout were visible.

It turns out that it belongs to a group of nemertean worms that are active predators on crustaceans such as crabs. The original discovery of the group was made in Panama where a researcher studying the behavior of fiddler crabs repeatedly saw crabs suddenly freak out, making erratic motions. When he waded through the mud to get the crabs, they had been emptied- sucked dry. It turns out that a nemertean was lurking in the sand. When it detected the shadow of a crab passing overhead, it would harpoon it with a sharp stylet borne on its proboscis, enabling delivery of a dose of neurotoxin.

The worm secretes, through the same hole, digestive enzymes into the prey, rapidly liquifying the internal tissues. It then sucks out the resulting soup, leaving nothing but the exoskeleton sitting on the mud.

Now we know they are in Moorea. Crabs be warned!

-Seabird

Jurassic Scallops

We spent most of the afternoon in Opunohu bay, brushing the underside of reef overhangs and cavelets with a brush and collecting the stuff that fell off. It is mucky work, stirring up clouds of silt and urchin spines. The results however are worth it. These habitats hold all sorts of specialities, some of which are limited to very specific areas of the reef.

This parthenopid crab matches the silt and algae covering the rocks perfectly, but fell into the net when brushed off.

The real find of the search were of propeamusid bivalves called Chlamydella. These little "proto-scallops" are living fossils that had their glory days back in the Mezozoic. During the Jurassic these were one of the dominant bivalve groups, before being replaced by modern scallops. Now, they survive only in the deep oceans, and in caves, where they have taken on a miniaturized existence. Like many other cave taxa, they brood their eggs, instead of releasing them into the water column, and have young that crawl away to set up shop near their parents.

-Seabird

Getting Muddy with Art

Arthur Anker, a Postdoctoral Researcher with the FLMNH Invertebrate Zoology department, has a knack for finding the unnoticed things, the creatures that everyone else somehow misses. Here in Moorea, French Polynesia, Art has specialized in the muddy, mucky habitats that most marine biologists wouldn't stick a toe in. Art, however, thrives here, and has brought back a steady stream of new records, new species, and just plain amazing animals that don't seem to live anywhere else. Tools of the trade include a "Yabbie Pump" for pumping small animals from shrimp burrows, a range of fine dipnets, and the patience to work in two feet of muddy water for most of the day.

A few of Art's finds follow, but many more can be found on his flickr stream.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artour_a/

-Seabird

Flat spell=opportunity.

The swell on the North side of Moorea has dropped to almost nothing. These days of flat, glassy water are very rare here, and allow us to get into some remarkable places. The 'avas' or small channels that funnel water off of the reef crest are rarely searchable, as is the reef flat itself. These 'crash zone' habitats are home to some of French Polynesia's endemic species, including a species of Coral Guard Crab, Trapezia globosa, that is found nowhere else. This habitat is among the most likely places to find new species in any coral reef ecosystem due to the extreme inaccessibility.

-Seabird

Bluewater

Dr. Steve Haddock of MBARI (www.mbari.org/staff/haddock) has joined the Marine Invertebrate Biocode Team to explore the gelatinous zooplankton, or 'gelata' of the pelagic, open water habitat that surrounds Moorea. After bringing the scientific divers up-to-speed on the specialized equipment and methods used to dive safely and productively in this 'extreme' habitat, Steve has immersed us in a completely blue world with a seemingly alien fauna. At a second glance however, most of these animals have relatives or connections much more familiar to us.

Pteropods for example, are highly modified gastropods, or snails- some of which have given up their shells in trade for a 'flying' lifestyle, with two beating fins or wings. Salps are the open ocean forms of ascidians ("sea squirts") that use the powerful water pumping system evolved originally for filter feeding, for 'jet propulsion' in the open waters.

The system truly belongs to the jellies- both the Medusae ("jellyfish") and the Ctenophores ("comb jellies"). In the deep water, without obstacles to bump into, the jellies have taken on a diversity of form unrivaled in the blue. Some are 'traditional' and have a rounded body with hanging tentacles. Others are not so conservative, and resemble nothing so much as actively moving lotus blossoms, fanning open 'petals' as they drop and recoil tentacles in an effort to catch even smaller members of this world.

-Seabird

Good Night for the Marine Biocode Team.

The Marine Invertebrate Biocode Team did the first of this collecting season's night dives tonight, bringing back a rich assemblage of nocturnal animals from the reefs surrounding Moorea.

Several beautiful crustaceans were new for the inventory, including a species of Slipper Lobster (Scyllaridae: P.holthuisi), and two species of Swimming crab (Portunidae), while others were much more cryptic, including two species of Decorator Crab (Majidae) and a Penaeid shrimp.

Conditions were exceptionally calm, allowing the divers to get into the 'avas' or shallow water channels that run through the reef. Under normal conditions, this would be near-suicidal, so the fauna represented in these areas are under-represented in museum collections. The team spent most of the dive working very small areas of habitat, finding 'rare' and undescribed taxa and completely unknown ecological patterns among the cephalaspidean gastropods, brittlestars, xanthid crabs. Everyone is ready to spend all the time we can diving at night and taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

-Seabird