Subtidal again

Over the past couple of days we did our first eight research dives in the Galapagos. I was really excited to finally get back in the water (after being dry for 10 days...snorkelling doesn't really count) and start working. The water temperature here has been around 24-27ºC/75-80ºC which is the coldest I have ever seen in the tropics. But coming from 7ºC/45ºF dives in New England, it was marvelous.

Starting the day with what Jon calls "stuffing your advisor into his wetsuit"

Unlike my New England research sites, all Jon's sites in the Galapagos are only accessible by boat, so our underwater time is much more limited. So we aim to get as much out of our underwater time as possible, which means we are usually doing multiple things on each dive. Jon does his long-term monitoring of permanent wall transects and corals at each site, while Leslie and I work on our individual (starfish and Hexaplex snail) projects.

Working the permanent transect at the Guy Fawkes site.

Leslie taking shell measurements of Hexaplex snails. Plastic calipers courtesy of Sal and the Three Seas Program :)

I finally met one of the focal species of my project up close, face-to-aboral surface. Pentaceraster cumingi, the Panamic cushion star, is a large and fairly abundant seastar that hangs out mostly on the sand, rubble and rock-sand interfaces underwater. I'll be collecting observational data on its size distribution and feeding, and also running caging/tethering experiments to figure out its effects on other organisms in the ecological community. I started on this stuff yesterday - more on this in another post.

Mr. Pentaceraster says hi.

And of course, every research dive has its share of distractions. But the ones in the Galapagos are a lot more flamboyant than the ones in New England...

o hai. im in ur transectz, scaring ur fishz