Coral Restoration Foundation 2018 - Intern Updates

[Clampittm]

Hello,

 

My name is Megan Clampitt and I am one of the new interns at Coral Restoration Foundation for the 2018 spring term.  

 

Some background on me, I am originally from Chicago (if you’re experiencing déjà vu, one of the last interns who was giving you updates was also named Megan from Chicago). I graduated from Hartwick College with a degree in general biology and no idea what I wanted to do with it. I moved abroad to Nice, France where I worked as an English teacher for three years. After that, with an expiring visa looming over my head, I did a solo-backpacking trip to Thailand where I got my SCUBA certification, and then down to Australia and New Zealand. After getting certified, I was instantly in love with SCUBA diving and every time I went diving I fell more in love with the underwater world. It was after that trip that I knew I wanted to be involved in marine conservation and I started searching for internships related to coral conservation.

 

The first internship I did was with Coral Restoration Foundation in Bonaire and I absolutely loved it so I was so excited to be continuing working with CRF at the headquarters in Key Largo.

 

We’re finishing up our third week as interns and I’m starting to feel like I understand the swing of things. The first two weeks were orientation and acclimation and working on our independent projects. I’ve decided to do mine on the effect of plastic pollution on coral disease. This week was our first “real” week as interns and I got to participate in a donor snorkel, a dive program and a nursery maintenance dive. It’s been really exciting to get to experience all the different facets of CRF. Although selfishly, my favorite moment from the week was descending into the nursery and getting to see a hammerhead shark!

 

I look forward to keeping you up to date on the going-ons at CRF and please don’t hesitate to ask me questions!

 

Cheers,

 

Megan

[Origami]

Welcome, Megan. And thank you for your update! You've done some traveling and have had some adventures already. That's terrific. I love Nice, though I've only been once and even then only as a tourist. Beautiful city. We have friends in Lyon and, of course, Paris is just magical. It sounds like, with CRF, the adventures are continuing. Keep us posted!

[Clampittm]

Hello! I'm going to try to give you updates every Friday! This Friday was really lovely for us down here in Key Largo. I just got back from spending the day at the wild bird sanctuary which is another non-profit really close to CRF. Our education program manager scheduled this day as a way for us to build a relationship with other non-profits and also as a team-building activity for the staff and interns at CRF. It was a great day! We helped deep clean some of the enclosures for the birds, and added perches to prep one of the enclosure for one of their hawks. We also got to witness some work by the med team on a military macaw. They trimmed her beak and nails and we saw two pelicans released back into the wild. I also particularly enjoyed the 2pm pelican feeding. All the pelicans wobbled over to the feeding bowl as soon as the fish were put in!

 

As far as the rest of the week goes, the wind has continue to huff and puff and has kept us off the water for most of the week. Luckily, we got to go out yesterday and do some routine nursery maintenance. I cleaned some trees and helped frag and fill some of the emptier trees. I spent a lot of time mastering these tasks in Bonaire, so I've gotten quite efficient. Yesterday, we worked just in the Elkhorn section. The weather looks good this weekend, so hopefully the restoration team will get a lot of outplanting done. 

 

Since the boats were cancelled a couple times this week, I had some extra time to work on my independent project. One of the criteria for the interns at CRF is to complete an independent project on a topic of your choice. I'm very passionate about reducing plastic usage and educating people on its detrimental effects on marine life. Currently, I'm trying to reduce my own plastic consumption by doing a plastic free bathroom! It's a lot harder then you'd think!  

 

For my project I'm going to assess the effects of plastic pollution on coral health by building a trawl to measure the amounts of microplastics present at different CRF outplanting sites. I also plan on doing a visual assesment of the amount of debris and thats how I will gauge the health of the corals. This week I've made lots of progress on my project. I went to a talk on microplastics which included a lab to measure the amount of microplastics present in water samples. I also signed up for a coastal cleanup at the end of march and a dive against debris class in a month. I've also started to construct my trawl, which will skim the water behind the boat and gather microplastics! So far the project is coming along great! Hopefully Ill have the trawl done in the next two weeks, but I will keep you updated !

[Clampittm]

 

Here is a picture of me using PVC cement to build a part of my trawl!

 

P.s. - sorry its sideways! I couldn't figure out how to correct the orientation!

Edited February 16, 2018 by Clampittm

[Origami]

So, Megan, how will this trawl work? Does it use floats and a sieve of some sort? Will you estimate microplastic density by measuring the (weight of microplastics) / (cross section x length of drag sample)? Will you be doing anything to gauge the distribution of microplastics that make up the collected sample? And is there any effort to determine how the sample is distributed by depth? Just curious.

[Clampittm]

Hello! Great questions! I'm following  this blueprint if you want a more in depth look at the trawl -  https://civiclaboratory.nl/2016/06/29/ladi-trawl/ but essentially it uses PVC pipes wrapped in line to act as the floats, with a wooden mouth and a mesh net. The fabric I'll be using for the net is 250 micron. 

 

I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to measure microplastic density, but I was thinking along the same lines as you. I plan on basing it on weight and length of the drag. I need to do some more literature review to see if there are alternative methods. As far as depth goes, that was something I was already considering since the trawl will only be measuring the microplastics at the surface. I did do some research which stated that due to their buoyancy the majority would be found at the surface but thats why I also wanted to include a visual assessment at depth which obviously won't measure microplastics but will give me some idea of plastic pollution on the reef and also if there is any direct contact or entanglement with the corals. 

 

I'd be interested in looking at the distrubution of microplastics but am worried about time constraints since I've already chosen quite a hefty project. It will depend on how long it takes to construct the trawl and do the assessments needed. I'll also be creating a presentation/dive program on plastic pollution and my research. So, delving further into the makeup of the samples may or may not happen depending on how quickly everything moves along. I do know that Mote marine lab  has the tools to do an analysis and I'd definitely be interested in those results. 

[Clampittm]

Hello,

 

This week was another one where the wind hasn't been cooperating as much! I've made a lot of progress on my trawl. The mouth and the wings are now complete which means I just need to sew the net and then attach everything together. Luckily, there are some CRF volunteers who have a sewing machine so I'm hopeful that I'll have the trawl finished by next week!

 

Also, this week almost all the interns have been working on a project for Artsea which is a big event that's held in Miami with the goal of spreading the message about ocean conservation via educating the youth through art and media. The event will be taking place next Saturday and CRF is sending a team of interns down there to teach kids about corals through an interactive display. Our idea for an interactive display is to build a big boulder coral out of paper machier and then have the kids color and design the individual polyps which we will then attach to the paper mache "skeleton".  There are a couple other interactive activities that have been planned out to educate the kids on corals. It should be a lot of fun!

[YHSublime]

Sounds like a tough life! Following along!

[Clampittm]

Hello again! 

 

So far this week has been great! I got to go out diving twice and am scheduled to dive tomorrow as well which I'm really excited about! Both dives were outplanting dives, which is great because it means more coral is getting out onto the reef! If you're unfamiliar, for outplanting dives we harvest corals from our nurseries by going to the trees and taking either some of the larger coral pieces or fragmenting off a piece of coral to the size we want. We tag them with their genotypes and take them to the reef that will be their new home. Once we get to the reef, we clear away the algae and glue them to the substrate using marine epoxy. Both of these outplanting trips were focused on Elkhorn coral. I would estimate that just from the two trips I went on, we were able to successfully put about 300 corals back onto the reef!

 

While outplanting, one of my fellow interns was banging on her tank and I look over and she was frantically motioning for me to come over. When I swam over to her, I saw two tentacles wrapped around her epoxy pulling it down into a crack. luckily I was able to pry it loose and get the epoxy back but it was pretty funny. The octopus was pretty small, maybe about the size of my hand and the epoxy clump was just about as big as he was!

 

I've also made some progress on my trawl. Luckily, I was able to find a volunteer with a sewing machine and she is helping me to sew the net which is the last piece of the puzzle. Hopefully that will be done by early next week, meaning I could potentially start collecting data at the end of the week if I am out on the water.

[Clampittm]

Hello again,

 

It's been another exciting week here at CRF.  This week we were again focused on our outplanting efforts with the Staghorn corals. I believe we put over 1000 corals back out onto the reefs and have finished (the Staghorn) outplanting for one of our eight reef sites!

 

I also helped spread community awareness by going to an event that spoke about the proposed bill for offshore drilling in the Atlantic. At this event we watched a series of short films that spoke about how an oil spill will affect different members of the community and some of the different effects it has on ocean life. Then a member from Oceana spoke about their organization and our education manager and one of our interns did a presentation on CRF - who we are and what we do. It was a really interesting event!

 

As far as my trawl goes, I'm still working with the volunteer to sew the net! It's taking a little bit longer than I originally anticipated. At this point Laura, the volunteer, has finished the main part of the net and just has to add the ripstop nylon hem. So, I'm hoping that next week I'll get to collect data! I'm very excited to try it out in the water?

 

Do you have any questions for me? Is there anything specific you'd like to know about CRF or the internship?

 

Let me know! I'd be happy to answer!

[gmerek2]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Clampittm]

Last week was a great week! I finally finished the net on my trawl. Now, all thats left to do is attach all the pieces together. We just have to grab one more piece from the hardware store to attach the PVC pipes to the wooden mouth but it will definitely be done sometime this week! It looks really great so far and everybody is very excited to see how it works in the water!

 

We also had some different tabling events last week where we talked about what CRF is doing and who we are. The weather was also great last week so we got to continue outplanting! We actually outplanted some Staghorn which was very exciting because up until last week we were focusing on Elkhorn. Other exciting news for me is that several of the other interns and I are working on our divemaster qualifications. We had a meeting about it last week and will start working towards it this week!

 

Finally, if any of you wanted to come see us in action in Key Largo, April 28th would be a great time to come! That is the day for our sixth annual gala which is our biggest fundraising event for the year. All the staff and interns will be present and this year we are delighted to welcome special guest Richard Vevers who is from the hit netflix documentary chasing coral. He also founded the ocean agency. I'm very excited to get to participate in the Gala! I can't wait, it should be really fun!  Here is the website if anybody is interested -  https://gala.coralrestoration.org/ and please let me know if you have any questions or want more details

[Origami]

Hey, Megan, how exactly do you all outplant corals? What's the technique? How do you select outplanting sites? Are the sites near existing stands of corals of the same species? What sort of record keeping is involved?

[Clampittm]

Hello! 

 

Those are excellent questions! We use marine epoxy to outplant the corals. First, we collect them from the nursery when they've reached the appropriate size and then transport them to the reef site. Once they're there, we clear the substrate of algae and use marine epoxy to attach the coral to the reef. 

 

As far as determining outplanting sites - at one point all reefs in the keys were dominated by Elkhorn and Staghorn corals. We chose 20 different reefs in 2017 for our 50,000 coral NOAA project. We chose the sites based on past success, popular dive sites, distance, previous populations, etc. For 2018, we've narrowed those 20 sites to 8 and are going to focus on completely restoring those reefs.

 

A few reefs do have small wild colonies in existence but the Florida reef tract as a whole has lost 90% of coral coverage which is why our work is so important!

 

Record keeping is also very importat because our corals are listed under the endangered species act. We're required to measure the corals at regular interval, take phots, record GPS points and keep track of which genotypes we are planting where. Recently, we've started looking into photomosiacs to improve efficiency with our monitoring!

 

Does that properly answer your question?

[Origami]

Does that properly answer your question?

It does. Tell me, is there any ongoing effort to encourage genetic variation in the outplanted sites? While there is reproductive capacity in coral fragmentation, the much larger promise is in sexual reproduction and successful settlement of planula. It would be beneficial if there were enough genetic variation in the population to support the more resilient reproductive method.

[Clampittm]

That's actually something that we realize is very important and are making efforts to ensure that there is genetic variation. We realize the stressors that are going on today and understand that it may not be those same stressors in the future - so we are trying to ensure that there is as much genetic variation as possible. 

 

We've also seen sexual reproduction occur in our outplanted corals - proving that there is not only increased coral coverage due to our work but also these corals that we have put out are thriving

 

:D

[Origami]

Hey, crazy question. But have you seen any evidence there at CRF of frags spawning on the coral trees? If so, and since the trees are somewhat manageable in size, I wonder what possibility there might be of putting some sort of netting in place prior to spawning to capture fertilized ova. After all, the relatively small size of the trees with respect to the open ocean that surrounds them probably severely limits fertilization success rates. Concentrating the gametes in some fashion might bring the rate up a little to improve reproductive success. Just an off-the-cuff idea....

[Clampittm]

Sorry about my late reply! But in response to your question, the corals in our nursery spawn annually. Our nursery is a "living laboratory" for researchers from across the country. They come to collect gametes  to learn more about coral reproduction. We are then able to apply that knowledge to our restoration efforts. Our outplanted corals also spawn on the reef - which is the ultimate goal!

[Clampittm]

Hello,

 

It's been a busy week for me at CRF. As, I mentioned previously we have our gala coming up!  Here's the link to our website if you wanted some more information https://gala.coralrestoration.org/ . I've been working very closely with Martha,  our Chief Development Officer,  to help acquire and organize all the items for the live and silent auction. It's turned out to be a very big project, as I have to speak with the donors about donating, follow up on acquiring the item, picking up or organizing drop offs of the item  in addition to making sure all the paperwork and information is complete and accurate. It's been very interesting to see the development side of a non-profit and to gain that experience. I can't wait for the gala!

 

In addition, I've been helping with our social media and communications team by running the facebook and am in charge of writing one of the biweekly editions of our newsletter - the coral chronicles.  My land days have not been boring!

 

I also got to help do some maintenance work in the water which I actually didn't have a chance to do in Bonaire. I helped some of our restoration associates move trees, check the knots and of course, tree cleaning. I didn't get a chance to use my trawl this week because the wind was uncooperative and dives were cancelled the day we were meant to go out but I'm hopeful that next week it'll get its first run!

[Clampittm]

Hello,

 

The other interns and myself have had a very busy couple of weeks! There have been lots of events that we've been going to - the main one being Tortuga Music Festival in Fort Lauderdale. We had different shifts sitting at the table and explaining what we do as an organization and it was a very cool festival. The volunteer coordinator was telling us that the festival is very focused on conservation and wouldn't be offering any straws or plastic water-bottles - instead they had water refill stations set up throughout the festival grounds. It was a great initiative.  I went to the festival on the first day and really enjoyed talking with the other conservation groups who were there. 

 

Our gala is about two weeks away now, so I've still been learning a lot about donations and the financial side of nonprofits through helping martha gather the donations. I've really enjoyed it even though its been a lot of work. 

 

I finally got to take my trawl out and it was very exciting! We did a test run to make sure that everything would go as planned. We trawled for about ten minutes and it was very successful. We were able to collect microplastics.

[Origami]

I finally got to take my trawl out and it was very exciting! We did a test run to make sure that everything would go as planned. We trawled for about ten minutes and it was very successful. We were able to collect microplastics.

That's got to be really encouraging, Megan! Congratulations. Hopefully, you'll get a good set of runs in and collect lots of useful data. 

[Clampittm]

Hello hello!

Last Saturday was our gala and after all the hard work and preparation we put into the event it was so amazing to experience it firsthand! I personally, had such an amazing time! During the event, there was still a lot of running around and behind the scenes work that went into it but I also got to mingle with all the guests and hear their positive feedback regarding the event. I also had the chance to speak to Richard Vevers briefly which was really inspiring.

 

As far as my project goes, I'm working on making a presentation that shows how plastic pollution is affecting us right here in the Keys. I didn't get as far as I had originally planned on my project due to weather conditions but I am still happy with the end result. I'm proud that I constructed a working trawl and it was able to collect microplastics. I also participated in several community events such as cleanup dives and mangrove cleanups that really showed firsthand how serious this problem is and how prevalent it is right here in our community. 

 

We only have one more week left of the internship, so this next week will be a lot of time on land to finalize our projects. 

 

I don't know if I've mentioned but I will be staying on for another semester! The next semester of the internship starts May 21st and runs through the end of August. I'd really like to focus my efforts on restoration work during this time and I already have some ideas as to what projects I could work on.