This time my colleague from Singapore Siti Yaakub wrote up a story on a recent check of the seagrass near Makassar, Sulawesi. With my photo’s next to it. Enjoy it on the Seagrass Online site!
Blog
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Notes from the field: Barang Lompo, South Sulawesi
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Article in Seagrass Watch
I was delighted to be requested to provide an article for Seagrass Watch magazine. The articles is published in the November issue. You can download the issue from their site (my article is on page 6) or download directly from the Seagrass Watch site (big pdf of 22MB). Enjoy the reading! -
The latest experiment on Derawan
Just got back on the mainland. Last month we succesfully set-up a large experiment on Derawan to look at interactive effects of hydrodynamics & turtle grazing on seagrasses. This involved building 30 cages and 15 large underwater wave-bunkers for which we almost used al the sand from the nearby sand spit. To determine the location of the plots we used an unmanned aerial photo plane. A small disaster happened and the plane crashed in the telephone tower, and the plane is now in Switserland for repair. See below for a photo-report of the last month:
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Checklist week 1 fieldwork Indonesia
And were back! To give you an idea of what we did before travelling to our remote fieldwork site, here’s a (simplified) checklist:
- Arrange research & travel permit, KITAS, letters for governors, certificate of good conduct police (10 trips, at least 3 days)
- Give presentation at World Delta Summit & follow EcoDynamic Design workshop
- Buy all research equipment (60 kg) from small shops all around Jakarta,
- transport this on the back of Arifins’ motorcycle and busway to avoid being stuck for ours in Jakarta’s traffic jams
- Book 25 domestic flight tickets
- Get essential soto-ayam & es jeruk nipis,
- Prepare 30 under-water cages at Wawans house
- Introduce Iris & Peter to Indonesia
- Visit the wedding of Arifin’s son that follows Indonesia’s principle: SMP (sesudah makan pulang; finished your food? go home)
- Go to Open Science meeting (Jakarta) and give OSM workshop (Makassar)
- This all with laryngitis under 33 degrees celsius in formal dress.
This time Iris and Peter will join me for their MSc. intership during this last fieldwork period of my Phd. Here they are presenting our new penyu-team merchandise. You can follow Peters’ stories here, and Iris’ on facebook
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CERF fieldwork trip: Manatee!
After a week of CERF-ing (Conference of the Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation) in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, I was totally saturated with new knowledge. So a great time to go out to the field & spend a day searching for Florida seagrasses near Sebastian Inlet. Lori, our guide never saw the seagrass in such turbid & low biomass conditions and even when snorkeling in knee deep water we couldn’t see the seagrass or bottom. BUT I did saw my first manatee in the wild, they came very close to us (± 2m). A cool way to end a conference!
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Translation Science terms & Alternatives
I guess I have to rewrite my paper now.. :
Thanx to by my not-scientist boyfriend that send me the link on Discovermagazine.com
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Paper Published in Journal of Ecology
I am very happy to present to you: the 2nd Paper of my thesis, that has been published online in Journal of Ecology this month: check it out!:
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Last Week Shark bay & Ningaloo NP
After some long days in the field we took in the camp kitchen. Fons and Tjisse worked all night to measure the photosynthetic efficiency of the seagrasses, which resulted in this cool picture:
Check the slide show for a report of our last week of research in Shark Bay. Tjisse, Fons and Leon left after 2 weeks and because we had already finished the research (and our research budget: Australia=super expensive!) Laura & me cool explore Ningaloo reef.
Here we saw a lot of Green turtles mating, and .. Humpback whales.. UNDERWATER 🙂
Now I am back in the Netherlands, and still have a month time to prepare for the 4 months of fieldwork in Indonesia.
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Week 2 Shark Bay
Beautiful seagrass patterns of Sharkbay: Let the fieldwork begin!
The team: Laura, me, Leon, Fons & Tjisse above the seagrass patterns
The seagrass leaves of Amphibolis are still full of red pigment after the winter period and make a really beautiful underwater panorama..We were very lucky with the weather and could work in extremely calm waters. In September the water temperature is between 18 and 20 C and a 5mm wetsuit is still quit cold.Tjisse and Fons are analyzing the photosynthetic efficiency of our seagrass samples until 5 in the morning
Thanx Leon & Laura for additional pictures!
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First Week Sharkbay
Before starting the real work we spend a week preparing the field expedition. This included a medical test, x-rays, discussing our plans with John and Di from UWA (University of Western Australia), arranging a camper, the necessary permits etc. Jennifer Verduin was so kind to host Laura and me in Perth. And we also had a nice evening with Paul and his family.
We surprised the hardware store assistant with a list of the strangest combination of fieldwork equipement, from osmocote to bamboo-sticks, to plaster etc. And bought 800 dollars of food to survive the next 4 weeks in Shark bay.
After arriving in Denham, Sharkbay (a 10 hr drive from Perth), it was time to take a first glimps of the seagrasses:
And the local fauna! Including loads of Dugongs, Sharks, Turtles, Emu’s walking inside mangroves, Kangaroos, and sea snakes later on.
At the look out at Eagle Bluff we saw sharks swimming around the seagrass patches.
Thanx Laura for additional pics!
