Smashing Success!

Tuesday, August 9/2011

What a great afternoon to do some sampling of phytoplankton, microphytobenthos, and macroalgae!!!

The interns are eager to start and continue sampling for Sherill's project.

We are checking our map, and checking it twice, literally. As the one loan wolf of each group must wade out into the fishpond first in order to find the proper GPS co-ordinates of our designated station. Alas, we have reached the proper co-ordinates, so let the sampling begin. At each station on the map (about 139 in total) we start by measuring the water depth. Then to sample the phytoplankton, we put a dark bottle (a bottle which doesn't allow light to penetrate through) about 20 cm below the surface, open the lid and let the phytoplankton organisms flow in. The contents of these dark bottles are then filtered through so that just the phytoplankton remains on the filter.

Next, we sample the macroalgae. This requires some finesse with a snorkel and a weight belt. We are interested in the biomass, so to aid in this we did 3 quadrats. For each quadrat we counted how many boxes (out of 25 in total) contain Gracillaria sp., Acanthophora sp., Kappaphycus sp., or mixed algae, or bare sediment. If present we collected a box that contains these species. We must also measure the canopy height of each species if present. Today we find primarily Gracillaria sp. which could be because we are sampling in stations that are very close to the remaining mangroves around the fishpond. Only time will tell.

Next, we sample the microphytobenthos (mpb). Ooo the real fun begins. We get to play around in the mud! To sample the mpb we take 1 quadrat and randomly cored 3 different boxes within that quadrat. To take a sample we took an adapted syringe (which we cut off the end to stick into the sediment) push it as far in as possible and put a rubber stopper on the end to create a suction. Viola we have a core! We then pulled out the syringe and start to push the sediment to the top.

We then put a core section piece, which measured 1 cm tall, and pushed the sediment sample through until it was par with the top of the 1 cm piece. Then we put a slicer through, just under the 1 cm piece. We now have our sample, but wait, alas, we are not quite done yet. We then must subsample. To do this we took a straw and stuck it into the 1 cm piece, with the slicer as the base platform. Then carefully, and thoughtfully, yes I said thoughtfully, we lifted the 1 cm section piece over the straw and carefully put our subsample that was left in the straw into a dark test tube. To do this we huffed and we puffed and we blew into the straw to force the sediment into the test tube.

So that concludes this portion of sampling the PMM (the acronym that I now just made up to stand for phytoplankton, macroalgae, and microphytobenthos) of the fishpond. Although I am sure that acronym has already been said. Stealing my thunder of course.



So...was this day of sampling above our heads?! I think NOT! We came out victorious and successfully sampled and filtered 8 stations in 4 hours. I concur this Tuesday, August 9th to be a smashing success. Pat yourselves on the back interns!

Cages, Coring, and Crabbing, Oh My!

Welcome Fall 2011 Interns!!  Here's a quick recap of our first few days at the fishpond in photos...

Learning how to take cores to measure infauna.

Success - nice delineation!

Mapping out predator exclusion cages.

What did we get?  Using a sieve to collect infauna from the cores.

The road less traveled... really. 

Rinsing cores into the sieve to capture infauna

A formidable foe... and the object of our crabbing quest - Thalamita crenata

Measuring up.  Width, length, gender - just the facts.

Welcome All You Guys to the New Session of LAIP Internship

Hi everyone, welcome back to He'eia Fishpond for the new session of LAIP Internship. This session starts on July 12 and ends on December 10. We are going to continue the algae research and cage experiment like what we did from last session with our new awesome interns.

Last Saturday was a really productive research day since we finished all the core samplings at all 6 sites in the fishpond, which was planned to finish within 3 days-----Yehhhhhhh!! ^o^. Starting from this Tuesday afternoon, we will set the traps for catching predatory crabs at the fishpond, and it will also be fun. If somebody wants to say something or share their wonderful experience with us, you are more than welcome to do so. Let's make this blog one of the most exciting and effective communication ways among us.

See you soon at the fishpond, and have a great week!

June 25 - The Grand Finale!

On June 25 we said "A Hui Hou" to our most recent group of awesome LAIP interns: Arthur, Tiana, Leila, Sawako, Martin, Chris, and Kirsten.  The interns gave short presentations to family, friends and colleagues about their research work in the fishpond over the last 6 months.  One of our previous interns, Angela, even stopped by to say hi!  Well done one and all!!  We were even visited by a group of voyaging canoes from our island neighbors to the south.  A great day.  We hope that you will stay in touch and check in on the blog from time to time to see what is happening.

Ioleka'a

Auntie Donnie's was straight-up spiritual. Here are some great pictures of the LAIP wünderkind learning and frolicking in the lo'i.

Everyone did really well on their presentations this weekend; I am so very proud of the work you've done, and I miss you already!

Other pics here: http://fishpondfever.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/ike-aina/

LAIP Journal, Tues Week 21. 9:30AM-6PM

6:55 AM - What excitement and adventure does today hold?? Today began with an early morning trek across the Pali, aboard bus 55 enroute to Windward Mall! Right on schedule and…SHIITAKE! WHEW*** Thank goodness I opted for shrimp instead of Spam© in my lunchbox full of fried rice today when crossing the Pali, otherwise I might be late! (unfunny)
8:40 AM- Ahh yes, here we are at Windward Mall…NOOO!! The van to Coconut Island is leaving!!! *SIGHHHhh I guess I’ll wait for the next one. At least I got into a great chat with a scientist who just got back from Palmyra working on the dying coral down there. (cool)
9:30AM-12:30AM – I’m finally here at Coconut Island in Megsie’s Lab. The sorting of various invertebrates, namely “other worms” (non-polychaetes I think), commences. I count at least 50 non-polychaete worms before I realize how badly I need coffee and music (Thanks for the coffee and I-pod Dj MegaMegz!). Megsie’s sample’s are soaked in formalin with a dye to expose the invertebrates. Our job is to remove these invertebrates from the forest of debris using tweezers (good looks on the straight tweez Leila!) and isolate them in a solution of ethyl alcohol where Snrta. Megs can do her thang. (I hope I got the terms and processes correct.) (interesting, yet monotonous)
~11:30AM 1:00PM– Feeling the effects of just coffee in my stomach. I came across a funky octopus shaped looking organism amidst the sea of worms and sediment. (wired)
1:00PM-2:00PM – BLAAAAAH (fatigued)
2:00PM-6:00PM – LAIP interns arrive! Everyone’s working on their upcoming presentations. Sawako and I found some diagrams we will use for our posterboard, including a mangrove food web, and old pics of He’eia pond. We reaped fruitless efforts using Excel (curse you!) to make a graph of the carbon isotope data of Thalameda and shrimps in the pond. I’m pretty much a zombie strung out on caffeine. (undead)
6:00PM onward – Thanks for the ride to the mall Dr. Lemus! Thanks for waiting for me while I got pizza Martin..I hope you found your desk! (In fine, im fine)

Top: Found a pic of a food web justin time
Middle: The smell of formalin in the lab made Ti throw up the shaka.
Bottom: Q: What kine fish you catch on the internet? A: Fi---sHHHHHHH!

Na Papa'i ma ka loko i'a 'O He'eia!.......Crabs at He'eia fishpond!

Aloha Kakou 'Apau!

Sorry so late!  I recently recieved the crab photos that Megsie took from the fishpond during a couple make-up days a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately I was unable to get the pictures from the first make-up day so these photos were from the days after. 

We went out in the boat to each site and dropped the big crab traps, the next day we went back out to check them.  The day we were checking the big crab traps, we also layed the smaller crab nets to see which type of smaller crabs there were at the different sites.  The only problem with the smaller crab nets was if we weren't fast enough at pulling the crab nets up, the crabs could climb out or through the net.  That happened a few times and they even fell in the boat!

Another exciting day at Paepae 'O He'eia!