Chris's Blog Post for 5/24 and 5/28/11

Aloha From The Magnificent LAIP Intern Team,

Here is my blog for 5/24/11 and 5/28/11. On Tuesday 5/24 we had a productive day in the sun
brushing loads of sediment off of Megsie's cages, placing small algal quadrats in them to collect data about the amount limu present. We also recorded the sediment content in each quadrat square and if there were spongy mangrove mats. In the first picture on the right side, Kirsten, Megsie, Arthur, and Sawako talk about our awesome discoveries while Judy, Leila, and Martin keep busy with cage brushing.

On Saturday 5/28 we had a good work out during the POH work time in the morning. There was a lot of rock lifting and terrific bonding with the pond 's volunteers and refreshing beauty. During the afternoon we had more fun conducting research in the pond's depths. In the second picture to the left, Megsie leads Martin, Sawako, and Leila to start their work. They used small quadrats in Megsie's cages to check algal cover. Their data collection also included sediment content and if mangrove mats were present.

On the other side of the pond, Sherril, Arthur, Kirsten, and Chris were busy at work. They did algal cover sampling with larger quadrats to measure biomass and took sediment cores to measure chlorphyll. In the top right picture, Sherril(our fearless boat driver), Arthur, and Kirsten get our field equipment ready for action. Chris, pictured at bottom left, works away at reporting the number of quadrat squares for each algae species. He also measured the canopy depth in each algae bunch and collected samples. Arthur, pictured at top left, rises from the thick sediment where he also used large quadrats to collect sediment samples for lab analysis.

That's all for now fishpond pioneers. More excitement to come soon!