Results tagged “biodiversity” from Bahamas Project

Today we began our first researching mission as we set out to study the creatures living in the shallow, sandy areas around Bimini. We had just finished our first snorkel (in the reef filled area known as La Chance Rocks), and were fully ready to take on a new adventure. After a few of our group members carried the equipment to shore in the skiff (small boat), the rest of us snorkeled over the grassy bottoms until we reached white-sand shore.


We immediately began the process by having all students grab a side of the collection net, known as a seine, and forming a straight line along the beach's shore. Then we slowly walked out into the salty ocean water remaining in a single file line. When we reached shoulder-deep tides, we made a ninety degree turn so that we were parallel to the beach. The most challenging part was bringing the net back to land. Four of the students grabbed the corners of the long net and began to carefully walk towards the shore, as the rest served as "splashers", who splashed waves inside the net to make sure all of the marine life in our vicinity stayed within the net's boundaries. With the help of a student who served as "the snorkeler" to keep the seine from tangling, and our mentors coaching us through the process, we were successfully able to bring the net back to shore and begin identifying the wide range of species.

The most exciting part of our researching mission was searching through the net for sandy beach creatures. While keeping the net submerged in water we carefully sorted through the sea grass for tiny crabs and many different fish. We found conch shells and many mojarra fish, as well as swimming and blue crabs. After recording our data we set the creatures free and shook all of the sea grass out of the net, and conducted a second trial. We then hauled the net into the skiff and snorkeled back to the boat just in time for dinner. We hope to use our data to determine the biodiversity of marine life in the different ecosystems around Bimini.

Pasama and Erin

Today on our snorkel at Turtle Rocks we observed the fish diversity on a natural reef. Turtle Rocks is a natural reef. This particular reef is a series of rocks stretching a mile in length and around 79 yards wide. This reef is a coral reef full of brain, fire, red star, purple porites coral and an abundance of sea fans also inhabited the reef. We are researching the diversity of natural reefs vs. artificial reefs, such as shipwrecks. To prepare for our snorkel we paired with our buddies and were given a dive slate. We used our dive slates to record all the fish we identified.

On our dive, we saw an amazing amount of fish, rays and even a shark. Some fish that we saw were Gray Snapper, Stoplight Parrotfish, hogfish, squirrelfish, damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Banded Butterfly fish, a Nurse Shark, Spotted Eagle Rays, a Spotted Moray Eel and two octopi. Our dive of the natural reef proved to us that natural reefs are home to a bounty of fish & marine creatures alike.

We would like to compare the fish diversity in natural and artificial reefs. Do you have any ideas for methods for collecting data? What data should we collect to determine a difference in diversity between natural and artificial reefs?

Brock Malenke
M.C. Hannon