Mo’orea Summer 2023

August 12-19, 2023

For the last week of our trip, we finished up all of our projects and cleaned up our experiments. This meant we spent a lot of time in the water, so I couldn’t take a lot of photos.

However, I’ve taken a lot of non-science photos throughout my time in Mo’orea. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to travel to such a beautiful part of the world, learn about new cultures, engage with other communities, do such cool research, and collaborate with other amazing scientists and community members! I’m also very grateful to be able to share my experiences with others through this blog! Please feel free to use the Contact page of my website if you want to reach out with any questions or if you want to connect. Thanks so much for following along with me this field season, and I’ll leave you all with some beautiful photos of the island of Mo’orea 🙂

Mountains in the background of a bay — *The station has a beautiful view of the bay!*

A dock leading to a research station — *I liked to sit on the dock if I needed to take a quick break from work*.

Sailboats and mountains in the distance of a bay — *There’s a great view of sailing school from a public beach.*

A driveway leading up a hill with a distant mountain in the background — *You have to walk up a very steep hill to get to the bungalows, but you’re rewarded with an amazing view the whole time.*

An ocean view of the sunrise — *I went on lots of morning runs this trip, so I got to see some amazing sunrises!*

A view of the bay — *I loved running around the island, where I was constantly rewarded with views like this, about 4 miles from the station.*

A dog running on the road surrounded by tropical trees — *This is my favorite part of the whole island! Whenever I would run through this section, a dog (pictured above) would run alongside me. I named him Mousse (as in chocolate mousse)!*

August 11, 2023

For the remainder of the trip (including today), we’ll be spearing more fish and collecting environmental samples for the comprehensive assessment of Symbiodiniaceae. This means that we’ll get plenty of time to explore Mo’orea’s amazing coral reefs! 🙂

We also have plenty of photogrammetry photos to take and cleaning up to do, so stay tuned to see how the end of my trip will pan out!

August 10, 2023

We collected more giant clams today! This is really exciting so we can complete more of the giant clam project in a few days.

Two giant clams in a glass aquarium — *We collected two more giant clams!*

While the clams were acclimating, we collected more samples for my labmate’s comprehensive assessment of Symbiodiniaceae across Mo’orea’s north shore. I also took a lot more photogrammetry photos!

August 9, 2023

Today our first clam finished incubating! We moved it into filtered seawater to start collecting fecal pellets. While the clam was in the filtered seawater for five hours, I worked on completing paperwork to allow us to import samples to the US after our trip. We leave in a little over a week, so it’s really important to start working on the necessary paperwork now!

After five hours, we saw fecal pellets in the container the clam was in! They look like really small, brown specks in the container.

A plastic container with brown specks at the bottom — *We collected fecal pellets from the giant clam*

After we collected the fecal pellets, we filtered them and fixed them to 3% formalin, which will allow us to analyze the prevalence of sexual reproduction at a later date.

A 50 ml falcon tube containing about 5 ml of clear liquid with brown cells concentrated at the bottom — *We filtered the giant clam fecal pellets to isolate and fix Symbiodiniaceae cells for future analyses.*

August 8, 2023

This is one of my labmate’s last days here in Mo’orea! We’re so glad we were able to accomplish so much with her throughout the trip, though! We started out the day by going on a sunrise hike with a member from the Vega-Thurber lab.

A view of the ocean and the island of Moorea — *We went on a sunrise hike before we started work for the day since it was one of my labmate’s last day in Mo’orea.*

Then, we started taking photos for photogrammetry. This is a very important process because it allows us to get accurate measures of Symbiodiniaceae density in a coral fragment. First, we take about 140 photos of a coral fragment at two different angles. Then, we put all of the photos into a program that creates a model of the coral fragment. We use the model to measure the surface area of the fragment, which allows us to calculate the density of live Symbiodiniaceae within a coral fragment.

A coral fragment on a colorful stand — *We take about 140 photos of each coral fragment so a program can create a model of the fragment, which allows us to calculate the surface area of a coral fragment*

After we took photos of each fragment, we put the fragments in bleach to store them. It’s important to keep all of the fragments even after we’ve taken photos so we can retake photos in the future in case the program is unable to create a model.

Bleached coral fragments labeled with zipties and paper labels on a paper towel — *After we take photos of the coral fragments, we soak them in bleach for storage.*

August 7, 2023

Today, we finished sampling for the menthol bleaching experiment. So, we analyzed each fragment using the iPAM fluorometer, Amscope, and color watch card. Then, we airbrushed off the tissue from the coral skeleton so we can do more analyses after the trip. We’ll be looking at the density of Symbiodiniaceae between treatments, so we expect to see the greatest density of live symbionts in the fragments that received fresh fish feces treatments if the fish feces transmit Symbiodiniaceae to coral.

We spent the rest of the day taking down the experiment and cleaning up the room we were using.

August 4-5, 2023

For the past couple of days, I’ve been collecting samples from other sites for the project we started on August 3. This means I’ve been collecting more environmental samples and spearing fish!

However, today (August 5) we started our fourth and final project! I’m mentoring an undergraduate student on a project investigating meiosis in Symbiodiniaceae found in giant clam fecal pellets. After 40 minutes with the hammer and chisel, we finally collected our first clam today!! We’re all super excited to get this project started and I can’t wait to see what results we see. The clam is currently acclimating to the tank, but we’ll start collecting fecal pellets very soon 🙂

A giant clam in a glass aquarium — *We collected our first giant clam today to start the fourth and final project of this trip!*

August 3, 2023

Today we started collecting samples for my labmate’s experiment, which is a comprehensive assessment of Symbiodiniaceae across Mo’orea’s north shore. To do this, we went to one site to do a transect to assess coral cover. Then, we collected environmental samples (i.e., water, sediment, macroalgae, and coral). We tried to do fish follows and catch a few fish to collect their feces, but we couldn’t find the species we were interested in. This means we’ll have to return to the site in a few days to do the fish follows.

After we collected the samples and brought them back to the lab, we started processing all of the environmental samples. The first step was filtering the sediment samples through a 120 µm followed by a 25 µm mesh.

Sand in a mesh filter — *I sampled sediment samples through different sized meshes.*

Then, we filtered the water samples through a very small mesh using the vacuum pump.

A vacuum pump attached to a filtering device — *I also helped filter water using a vacuum pump.*

A filtering device with water on the top — *To filter the water, the vacuum pump pulls it through a filter in the middle of this contraption. All of the Symbiodiniaceae cells we’re interested in are caught on the filter!*

We also scrubbed epiphytes off of the macroalgae samples.

A person holding macroalgae and a toothbrush — *I helped scrub epiphytes off of the macroalgae samples*

A person scrubbing macroalgae with a toothbrush — *I used a toothbrush to scrub the macroalgae*

Last, we used an airbrush to remove the coral tissue from the skeleton.

A coral fragment in a whirlpak and an airbrush — *We processed the coral samples by using an airbrush to remove tissue from the skeleton of the coral fragment*

Overall, it was a successful first day of sampling, and we have a lot more to do to finish collecting samples from all eight sites. Stay tuned to see how sampling goes tomorrow 🙂

August 2, 2023

I spent today helping my labmate apply the final treatment for her menthol bleaching experiment. First, we went out to catch a fish for the feces treatments while our other labmates went out to collect more crabs. This time, we collected a different butterflyfish species, Chaetodon lunulatus.

A fish on aluminum foil — *We caught one fish (*Chaetodon lunulatus) for the final fish feces treatment of the menthol bleaching project under DRM permit number 2022030 and APA permit number 2022012.

After we dissected the fish and extracted its feces, we spent the rest of the day applying the treatments to the coral fragments for the menthol bleaching experiment. Before we applied the treatments, we checked the status of each fragment by comparing it to the coral watch card, which is a standard card used to evaluate coral bleaching.

A weigh boat with a coral fragment and crab sitting on a card with different labeled, colored boxes. — We checked the status of each fragment by comparing it to the coral watch card. Here, you can see a fragment with a crab on it as we take photos to document how the fragments progress throughout the experiment.

Tomorrow we’re going to start sampling for the other two projects we’re working on this trip. Fingers crossed we can find some giant clams and spear enough fish for my labmate’s project!

July 30, 2023 – August 1, 2023

The last couple of days have been really hectic! I helped my labmate get another fish for the second treatment for her menthol bleaching experiment on July 30.

On July 31, I checked on the corals for my heat stress experiment in the morning. Unfortunately, several colonies were showing signs of bleaching and mortality. This meant that I had to quickly prepare for immediate sampling. We started sampling at noon on July 31 and sampled every two hours for 24 hours, with 10 am on August 1 as the last timepoint. Unfortunately, I’ll have to redo the experiment due to issues relating to coral mortality and improperly fixing certain samples for my analyses. Though this is disappointing, this is common in the field and I’ve learned a lot for future iterations of the project! I didn’t have much time to take photos, but here are a few of me sampling during the 24-hour sampling day 🙂

A woman holding bone cutters in one hand and a coral colony in the other — *The first step of the sampling process was to collect a small coral fragment at every timepoint.*

A woman holding an airbrush and a whirlpak with a coral fragment in it in a fume hood — *After I collected the coral fragments, I used an airbrush to remove all of the tissue from the coral skeleton.*

July 29, 2023

I spent today mostly preparing to process samples for my experiment. On August 6, we’ll sample every two hours for 24 hours. To streamline the process, I’ve been working on labeling all the equipment we’ll need. Today, I labeled all the whirlpaks and sorted them by timepoint. We’ll use these when we airbrush off all of the coral tissue. I also started labeling 50 mL falcon tubes which I’ll use to fix the tissue slurry in. However, I didn’t get too far with this since I have to label 600 tubes.

An empty whirlpak that says " zoox sex 23 B0200H" — *I labeled whirlpaks for my heat stress experiment with the project name, colony ID, timepoint, and treatment.*

12 rolls of whirlpaks held together with zipties labeled with orange tape that says the timepoint — *I sorted all of the labeled whirlpaks by timepoint.*

I also checked on the corals for my experiment. They seem to be doing well, which is great! The water is slowly heating up to the ideal temperature for my heat stress treatment. I did have to lower the water level, though, to allow the water to heat up enough.

A glass aquarium with corals in it that is about half full of water — *I had to lower the water level in the tanks to allow the temperature to raise enough for my heat stress experiment.*

I ended the day by helping one of my labmates troubleshoot some filtering processes for her project. She wants to do a comprehensive assessment of Symbiodiniaceae across the north shore of the island across different nutrient gradients, so part of her project involves collecting environmental samples (i.e., water, sand, and macroalgae). I was helping her troubleshoot a gravity filtering system for the sediment samples. First, I filtered sediment through a 120 µm mesh before filtering through a 25 µm mesh. Then, she used a vacuum pump to filter through an even smaller mesh.

A PVC tube on top of a green stand — *I helped one of my labmates troubleshoot a filtering setup for gravity filtering of sediment*

July 28, 2023

The corals for my heat stress experiment are acclimating today, so I helped my labmate with her menthol bleaching experiment. She’s interested in whether corallivorous (i.e., coral-eating) fish feces transmit Symbiodiniaceae to corals, so she is applying fish feces to the bleached coral fragments. Today was the first treatment day, so we went out and caught three fish so we could dissect them for their feces (DRM permit number 2022030; APA permit number 2022012).

*We caught three fish (*Chaetodon ornatissimus) for the menthol bleaching experiment under DRM permit number 2022030 and APA permit number 2022012.

After we caught and dissected the fish, we added the appropriate treatment to each fragment. Some fragments received raw seawater, others received an ectosymbiont (a cute little crab), others received fresh feces, and some even received sterile feces. The final setup looked something like this:

Two plastic bins filled with tripours and hosing on top of a wooden table — *This is the final experimental setup for the menthol bleaching experiment! Each treatment is color coded and we have been really careful to avoid cross-contamination between treatments.*

July 27, 2023

Today was the official start of my experiment!! I’m super excited to get things started and can’t wait to see the results down the line. As a reminder, I’ll be doing a heat stress experiment to see whether elevated temperatures induce shifts from asexual to sexual reproduction in coral-associated Symbiodiniaceae. I started out by troubleshooting the tank heaters. I tested two smaller heaters and one large heater to decide how I want my final experimental setup to be once I’m applying heat treatments.

A large tank heater in a glass aquarium — *I tested out one large heater…*

Two small tank heaters in a glass aquarium — *…and two small heaters*

Once I got an idea of how the heaters affect the temperature, I created some labels for our sampling. Sampling will take place every two hours for 24 hours, so each label has the project name followed by the colony ID, timepoint, and treatment. Once we sample, I’ll add the date to each label.

A sheet of sticker labels — *I created labels for our sampling day*

Then, in the afternoon we collected six coral colonies for my project!! They’re currently acclimating in their flow-through system. Tomorrow, I’ll move them to their treatment tanks so we can prepare to start applying the heat treatment.

A far-away image of three snorkelers in the ocean with boats in the background — *Here’s an action shot of our team sampling the coral colonies! 🙂*

Six glass aquariums with corals in them — *The coral colonies for my experiment are acclimating to the flow-through system before I start applying the heat treatment*

July 26, 2023

Today we started the day by scouting out some sites for my labmate’s project. She needs eight sites around Mo’orea’s north shore with specific fish species. We located two potential sites with shore access!

A view of the ocean and a mountain — *This is one of the sites we scouted for my labmate’s project!*

A view of the beach and a tree — *This is another site we found today; you can’t beat those shore access views!*

After that, we moved the coral fragments for the menthol bleaching experiment into tripours, which is where they will receive their respective treatments. We followed the same processing protocol as we did on July 24 (i.e., iPAM, Amscope, airbrush, etc.). However, I had to spend a lot of time figuring out the tripour setup with all of the bubblers! I connected each bubbler to a glass pasteur pipette inside each tripour.

Two plastic bins containing many tripours with hoses coming out of them attached to bubblers — *I spent hours troubleshooting this complex bubbler system to supply air to each tripour, which contain coral fragments.*

I spent the rest of the day preparing for my heat stress experiment, which we will start tomorrow! First, I siphoned out the glass aquaria to clean them.

A dirty glass aquarium — *The glass aquaria were very dirty!*

A clean glass aquarium — *The tanks were looking much cleaner after I siphoned out the sediment that had settled at the bottom!*

Last, I ended the day by putting in a tank heater to test it out before applying the heat treatment. My goal is to elevate the heat by 3°C, so I’m going to monitor the temperature in the tank with the tank heater overnight to ensure I know the proper settings. To do this, I put in a temperature/light monitor called a hobo tag, which will allow me to collect this data every 15 minutes! I can’t wait to collect corals for this experiment tomorrow! 🙂

A tank heater in an empty glass aquarium — *I ended the day by troubleshooting a tank heater, which will allow me to apply the heat stress treatments in my experiment!*

July 25, 2023

This morning, we applied the second menthol treatment to the coral fragments. We also had to move to a bungalow at the research station, so I had to say goodbye to my favorite island cat, S’mores! However, I’m excited to wake up to the beautiful bungalow view every morning for the remainder of the trip.

Someone petting a cat sitting on a patio — *I’m sad to say goodbye to S’mores! We’ll miss him!*

A view of trees and the ocean — *The bungalow has a beautiful view, which makes the trek up the steep hill worth it!*

Once we finished moving to the bungalow, I spent the rest of the morning troubleshooting our bubbler system for the menthol bleaching experiment. These are important to supply airflow to the corals since they will be in tripour containers without flow-through to avoid cross-contamination between treatments. I figured out a system to generate air for three tripours with one bubbler, although the system isn’t perfect.

Three tube splitters connected by tubing — *I came up with a contraption to allow one bubbler to supply air to three containers by attaching hosing to the free ends of the splitters shown above.*

Tripours in a tub with bubblers in them — *I started setting up the tripours and bubblers for the experiment*

Before we left for the day, we moved the coral fragments out of the menthol solution to let them rest before the next treatment tomorrow morning. We’re monitoring how bleached they are after we apply each treatment, and you can see some of the fragments below. They are looking a lot whiter, which is indicative of bleaching! Tomorrow, we plan to apply the next menthol treatment and scout out some sites around the island for my labmate’s project.

Coral fragments in a plastic rack in a glass aquarium — *The coral fragments are starting to bleach after two days of menthol treatments!*

July 24, 2023

Today was the official start of the menthol bleaching experiment! I woke up early to help apply the menthol treatment to the coral fragments so they will bleach. The treatment has to sit for eight hours before the fragments are moved out of the menthol treatment. We’ll apply menthol treatments for the next few days, too.

A woman holding a micropipette over a plastic tank full of coral fragments — *I applied the menthol treatment to the coral fragments this morning!*

After the menthol treatment, we sampled one fragment per colony for our initial timepoint. This will allow us to have base measurements at the start of the experiment before the application of the treatments so we can see how the treatments affect the corals. This consisted of multiple steps. First, we used an iPAM fluorometer to measure the photosynthetic capacity of the Symbiodiniaceae in the coral fragments. Then, we used the Amscope to take a photo of each coral fragment before taking a clip of each fragment for DNA extractions to analyze the microbial community in the coral. Last, we airbrushed the tissue off of each fragment so we could take samples to measure the macromolecules and Symbiodiniaceae density in the corals. You can see some of this setup below!

iPAM fluorometer on a table — *We used an iPAM fluorometer as the first step of the sampling protocol*

Amscope microscope on a table — *We took photos of each coral fragment using the Amscope*

An airbrush being used to remove tissue from a coral fragment — *We used an airbrush to remove tissue from the coral skeleton*

A coral fragment without tissue in a whirlpak — *After the tissue is airbrushed from the coral fragment, it looks white*

A homogenizer in someone's hand — *We used a handheld homogenizer to mix the tissue slurry we got after airbrushing*

Six tubes in a plastic rack — *We collected the tissue slurry in tubes like these!*

July 23, 2023

Today, we prepared a tank system for the first portion of the upcoming experiment. We set up bins with bubblers in them so we could apply menthol treatments to the coral fragments. This causes them to bleach, a process where they expel the Symbiodiniaceae living inside of them.

Three-liter plastic bins with bubblers in them next to six glass aquariums with corals in them on a water table — *Here you can see the system of smaller tanks that we’ll use to apply menthol treatments to the coral fragments!*

After that, I made labels for each rack full of coral fragments. This will help us keep track of each fragment so we know which one we are sampling from throughout the experiment.

A zip tie with a tag on it — *I made labels for the coral fragments using zip ties and underwater paper.*

A plastic rack containing two coral fragments — *We attached each label to a rack.*

Then, I helped feed the crabs that we’ll be using in the experiment! To do this, we gave them spare small coral fragments.

A crab eating a small coral fragment — *I helped feed the crabs by giving them small pieces of coral!*

We ended up finishing all of that around lunchtime, so we spent the rest of the day snorkeling and working on our coral and fish IDs. Tomorrow, we’ll start applying the menthol treatments for the official start of the menthol bleaching experiment!! Check out the photos below for some of the local fauna here in Mo’orea 🙂

July 22, 2023

This morning, I started the day by helping set up some of the tanks for upcoming experiments. We’ll use six tanks with flow-through to maintain coral colonies. The photo below isn’t the final product, but you can get an idea of what the setup looks like.

Six glass aquariums on a water table — *This isn’t the final product, but you can see the general setup of the tank system.*

Then, I set up the microscope that we use to take close-up photos of coral fragments. This helps us monitor the coral fragments throughout the experiment so we can see whether or not they have Symbiodiniaceae living inside them! You can see an example of what a close-up photo might look like below.

A microscope on a table — *I set up this microscope today, which allows us to take close-up photos of corals!*

A close-up of a coral fragment — *This is what a close-up photo of a coral fragment might look like!*

Lastly, I ended the day by helping my labmates collect six coral colonies for an experiment. Then, we split each colony into at least nine smaller fragments that will be divided among different treatments. I can’t wait to get the experiment started, but until then we’ll let the corals acclimate to their new environment. 🙂

A coral colony in a plastic bin with a numeric tag above it — *One of the six coral colonies that I collected today!*

July 21, 2023

I got started this morning by greeting Skippy, one of the station dogs!

A dog laying in the grass — *Skippy, one of the station dogs.*

Then, we got to work finding some old samples to continue troubleshooting our method to preserve coral fragments.

Coral fragments in bags hanging from a fence — *I found old coral fragments we need to preserve.*

After that, I started prepping our experimental setup. We’re going to put 36 coral fragments in individual containers.

*I started prepping our experimental setup for the menthol bleaching experiment.*

In the afternoon, we took the boat out and collected two coral colonies for the experiment! Tomorrow, we’ll get four more colonies, so stay tuned for some cool coral pictures.

July 20, 2023

Hello again! Today we started setting getting ready for our first experiment, which will test whether coral-eating fish feces supply symbionts to corals. I spent all morning troubleshooting our tangential flow filtration system to generate filtered seawater that is free of microorganisms like bacteria and Symbiodiniaceae. To do this, raw seawater is pumped through a 0.2 micron filter as shown below.

Lab setup showing tangential flow filtration. — *I finally got our tangential flow filtration (TFF) setup to work!*

Then, I had a quick lunch break where I found a furry friend borrowing my shoe. I love all of the animals here at the research station!

A cat with its paws in a shoe. — *I found a cat using my shoe!*

A dog laying down — *My favorite station dog, Skippy!*

A dog sitting under a table. — *Another amazing station dog, Chewy.*

After lunch, I cleaned out some tanks for the upcoming experiment. Fingers crossed we can collect some corals tomorrow! I also started troubleshooting a protocol to preserve coral fragments using one of our samples from a previous field mission, shown below.

A coral fragment sitting in the sun. — I started troubleshooting a protocol to preserve old coral fragments by soaking them in 2% bleach before leaving them in the sun. This fragment (Porites lobata) is from a previous experiment, so we already removed all of its tissue.

I also started troubleshooting other protocols for the upcoming experiment. I started setting up the bandsaw so we can cut coral colonies into smaller fragments. That’s all for today! I’ll leave you with my view as I write this blog! 🙂

A view of the Gump Research Station. — *My view from the Research Station as I write this blog!*

July 19, 2023

Hello everyone! I’ll be documenting my fieldwork in Mo’orea, French Polynesia at the Gump Research Station on this page. This summer, I’m spending a month in Mo’orea with three of my labmates. We’ll be working on four different projects, one of which is for a chapter of my PhD dissertation! I’m interested in microalgae that lives inside reef-building corals in the family Symbiodiniaceae, so I’m performing a heat experiment to test whether environmental stress triggers shifts from asexual to sexual reproduction in the coral-associated Symbiodiniaceae.

Yesterday, I flew from Houston, Texas to Papeete, Tahiti. I stayed in a hotel in Tahiti overnight before taking the ferry from Tahiti to Mo’orea this morning. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain today, even though it’s the dry season in French Polynesia.

An image of the island of Moorea taken from a ferry. — *View of Mo’orea from the ferry*

*The Aremiti ferry from Tahiti to Mo’orea*

A view of the island of Moorea from the ferry station. — *It was very rainy while I waited for a ride from the ferry to the research station!*

After we arrived at the research station, we spent a lot of time unpacking our six bags of research equipment! We’re getting organized to start working on our experiments tomorrow.

Five large duffel bags stacked on top of one another. — *It was very difficult to transport all of our bags with research equipment!*