Cuba

CP101 Reef Fish, Benthic Communities and Manatees in the Southern Isla de la Juventud APRM (Expedition 1)

Volunteers on this project will be mainly based in the Colony Hotel with day trips out on the research boats, except for the time they are working on the more distant reefs when they will be based on the Felipe Poey Research ship for a few nights at a time. Those who are not already dive trained will spend the first week completing a PADI Open Water dive training course.  Those already dive trained will spend part of their first week on the Felipe Poey ship helping with the stereo video transects and benthic video transects.  The remaining part of the first week will be based back at the Colony Hotel and helping with the transect, point counts and side scan surveys for manatees.

In week 2, all students will be completing a Caribbean reef ecology course based at the Colony Hotel but with day trips on one of the research ships with in-water practicals to help training in the identification of the reef fish and coral species likely to be encountered.  A major part of this course will concentrate on learning how to analyse the stereo video and the benthic video data.

For weeks 3 and 4, the students will be split into 3 groups that will rotate.

Manatee Survey

Those joining the manatee surveys will be briefed by the scientists on the survey techniques and manatee ecology.  Data are gathered by daily 30-minute point counts and transects from the research boat. In the narrow mangrove channels and lagoons, side scan sonar surveys are used to identify the position of any manatees. The GPS position of all manatee sightings over the 7-week survey period are logged. Environmental data (salinity, temperature, aquatic vegetation) will be collected at each site to determine the importance of freshwater upwellings and vegetation communities in affecting the distribution of manatees. Indirect evidence of manatees like faecal samples will be reported and collected for further analyses.

Reef Monitoring

Whilst in this group, the students will be staying overnight on the Felipe Poey research ship.  During the day the students will be helping with the stereo-video surveys of the reef fish communities.  In addition, they will be diving with the teams recording benthic communities from video transects and helping with collecting data on the shark monitoring project.

Stereo video data analysis

For this third group, the students will be based in the hotel and will be involved in analysing the footage which is displayed on a computer screen with the footage from the left and right videos synchronised.  All species filmed need to be identified and the length estimated by clicking on the screen on the front and tail of each fish on the left screen and again on the right. The software then calculates the length of the fish, and this needs to be recorded in an Excel table against each species name.  Only fish within the 2.5m x 2.5m x 50m study cuboid are recorded.

In addition students in this group will aid with the classification and preservation of vertebrate and invertebrate samples for the University of Havana reference collection. This will involve heading out in the morning to collect samples whilst snorkelling. These samples will then be taken back to the hotel and the students taught how to classify and preserve the specimens. The samples collected will be used for genetic and taxonomic studies at the University.