So I spent the last few weeks attending conferences (and, actually leave Sunday for another one).  First, I spent time in Norfolk, Virginia, at the Benthic Ecology Meeting.  While there, I saw many good presentations, and learned many new things.  First, I learned that my former student Kate . . . → Read More: What I’ve Learned:]]>

The Peterson Lab Family. Photo by Rebecca Kulp

So I spent the last few weeks attending conferences (and, actually leave Sunday for another one).  First, I spent time in Norfolk, Virginia, at the Benthic Ecology Meeting.  While there, I saw many good presentations, and learned many new things.  First, I learned that my former student Kate Lavelle (well she was an undergrad who worked on my project), who is now completing her Master’s work at the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, gets to do awesome things in submersibles! I went to a bunch of talks regarding trophic ecology – including ones about predation as well as non-consumptive effects, and luckily my talk was on the first day in the Trophic Ecology session.  I talked about using back of the envelope calculations to get an idea whether or not we would expect to see scallops on the bottom based on predator density and habitat complexity.  I think it went well.  But the one thing I took home from that talk was hope you don’t have to talk at the same time as Emmet Duffy, as it is my understanding that about everyone else at the conference was at his presentation.  I saw a couple of cool talks about species interactions and their importance in the context of ocean acidification, including one by my labmate, the illustrious Amber Stubler.  I also saw a very interesting talk by Paul Gribben from Australia about a species of seagrass which actually leads to enhanced predation on clams.  Weird! I also attended plenty of seagrass and restoration talks.  And of course, the Film Festival, which you can watch all the videos here.

Then I headed to Seattle for the National Shellfish Association meeting.  That was pretty good as well, but between 3 days of talks previous to that and the jet-lag from flying across the country, it was hard to absorb any information.  I was able to catch a few interesting plenary talks, including one by Ray Hilborn and another by Bruce Menge.  Otherwise, I went to a lot of restoration talks, most of which focused on oyster reefs, which were useful since it seems like I might be doing some of that this summer in Shinnecock Bay.  There, I essentially gave the last talk of the conference, about multiple predators and impacts of habitat complexity, which I think went well.  I also learned that Seattle is very hilly, more-so than I would have imagined, but it also has a really awesome bar called the Taphouse Grill, which had 160 beers on tap! Overwhelming! But all in all, a good trip.

Now, I have to prepare my presentation for the United States chapter of the International Association of Landscape Ecology meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, which I give next Monday morning! Uggg! Why did I think it was a good idea to give 3 different presentations at 3 different conferences in a 3 week span? I guess it’s kind of my going away party, as I am planning on graduating this summer.  July defense!

Beneath the Waves Film Festival: 2012 Intro Video from Triakis Films . . . → Read More: Can’t wait to watch these! Benthics!]]>

Beneath the Waves Film Festival: 2012 Intro Video from Triakis Films on Vimeo.

Bottom of the falls

Look at me!

Then in the last 2 days I have put in 7 dives, 4 outside the reef and 2 in the lagoon and . . . → Read More: Logging some Bottom Time]]> Lets see, Thursday we went to the Dunn’s River Falls as a break from the daily grind here at the marine lab.  That was a lot of fun.

Bottom of the falls

Look at me!

Then in the last 2 days I have put in 7 dives, 4 outside the reef and 2 in the lagoon and one on the other side of Discovery Bay.  I have seen many cool things, collected cool shells, so its been pretty fun.  I had some issues with my camera at the Rio Bueno dive yesterday, so my pictures didn’t come out so well, although I was lucky to get a few shots.

Peek-a-boo

Anemone Shrimp

Anemones!

Today we did 2 dives on the fore-reed and 2 within Discovery Bay.  Outside the reef I logged over 2 hours of bottom time, and took many, many pictures.  More anemone shrimp, lionfish, gastropods, and lots more.  Enjoy!

Some star

Another goby of some sort

Flamingo's toungue!

LIONFISH!

Today, sea was almost like glass, did . . . → Read More: 3 dives and no sea sickness]]> So yesterday was a little rough… I mean the weather wasn’t terrible, but there was still some swell from the days of wind previous.  So during our safety stop, I was feeling it a little bit, so I only did the one dive and took an early boat ride back.

Today, sea was almost like glass, did 2 dives outside on the fore-reef,  and then one inside the lagoon.  Saw some cool things – invasive lionfish, big schools of creole wrasses, bluehead wrasses, giant queen cocnh, and lots of other fish.  However, this site was fairly impacted, so not so much live coral as the reef I saw yesterday.  Oh well.  Was still fun to get 2 dives in outside and not feel like total crap.  And diving in the lagoon was cool, despite it being so shallow, it was nice to be able to lay down and just look.  In the lagoon, we saw inking sea hares, a peacock flounder, yellow ring sting ray, little crabs, another sharptail eel, spiny lobster, and lots more fish.  So cool.

I haven’t loaded my pictures from today yet, but I’ll leave you with a few more photos from earlier in the week/weekend.

Enjoy!

French Grunt

Some sort of small bass, dunno the name

Indigo Hamlet

Common octopus?

Lesser electric ray

Mating sea hares

Lizardfish!