Day 3/4 Benthic Surveys and Seagrass cores!

 

Little update for the blog! Yesterday we went to a mangrove forest and surveyed their height, diameter, and canopy width. This was a nice little break since it was super shaded in our area! 

Today we did benthic surveys where we saw HUGE BEAUTIFUL sea urchins!! I risked a lot to get a good quadrant but anything for research!

Later on we went and did seagrass cores, which was a lot harder than Matich made it look, but we figured it out eventually. After lunch we processes them by rinsing them off and piecing them back together. Then we had to separate the different parts of the seagrass and weigh it wet. Now we have seagrass in the dehydrator to weigh it again later! While some people finished up seagrass cores, a couple of us went and setup litter traps in Mangrove spots to survey for how many leaves fall between now and next week!

We're all tired but I know we're all having a blast and I'm glad to be here with such a great group of people!