"The Research Plan" -- what I am going to be doing on Palmyra

While I have been preoccupied learning about Palmrya and refining my packing list, I wanted report on the purpose of my trip.  Here is slightly edited version of the description Doug sent me of our research goals:

The primary goal of the trip is to get recruitment tiles in place on the forereef for a new experiment that is aimed at investigating how the microengineering influence of parrotfish affects rates of coral recruitment and coral survival. We have 180 tiles that have been cast with "bites" made to simulate the bites of the two largest parrotfish at Palmyra: Steephead parrotfish (Chlorurus microrhinos) and Bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum).

Photo by Richard Ling of Steephead parrotfish asleep in nighttime coloration 

Photo by Richard Ling of two Bumphead parrotfish 

The tiles have about even coverage of bites and flat surface area. We will be caging half of the tiles to prevent the large parrots from accessing the tiles. We are hypothesizing that coral recruits will prefer to settle in the bite scars created by these parrotfish because 1) they provide small physical refuges from benthic scouring herbivores 2) they will do better once settled in these scars and 3) the advantage conferred by the divots will be muted in the cage treatment. The trick is going to be getting enough recruits on the tiles to rigorously test these hypotheses. With that in mind we are attaching 180 tiles across three sites. Half will be in cages and half will be uncaged. We actually need to start by building the cages first thing when we get to Palmyra. We will be using 5x5 cm plastic construction fencing to build the cages. When we get enough cages ready for deployment at our first site (30), then we will get out on the offshore boat to install these on the forereef. Rates of recruitment are highest on the forereef, hence our choice of this part of the reef. We need to drill a guide hole in the reef with a pneumatic drill and then anchor the plates using a screw into a socket that seats in the hole.

The second mission of the trip will be to get some more shark tags out. We have been working with Giulio de Leo, Fio Micheli, The Nature Conservancy and others on a project to try to estimate the population size of the two major species of reef sharks at Palmyra – the grey reef and blacktip reef shark. We are using standard numbered marking tags to work on the population size science and this will be a work in progress for the next two years. We are also using SPOT tags to try measure long-range movement of grey reefs between atolls. We put out 8 SPOT tags in May and we will put out 3 this trip.

I’m not sure how long the installation of the tiles will take. If that goes quickly that will give us more time for the shark work. I’m hoping we won’t need more than a day or two for the shark work. If the weather/boat gods aren’t with us, then we may need to save the shark work for a future trip.  If we are way ahead of schedule and get tiles and SPOT tags out then there are a half dozen side projects that have been simmering away that we can do more to help into maturity. We are only allowed out on the boats from 8-6ish, but we can do all we can do with that daylight. We will probably try to build cages afterhours until we get caught up – I don’t think/hope it will take too long to make 90.

It should be a fun 3+ weeks. We will be on island with teams from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UC Santa Barbara  - all good guys.