August Sampling

We had another great day out on the reef today.  The students collected water quality data, did some seining, measured the reef structure settlement and we even snorkeled a little!  Unfortunately we had some rather high turbidity today, so the photos are rather poor, but we still saw some great creatures.  My prediction that we would catch a sea horse came true, and in fact two have now been caught, as well as a tiny juvenile spadefish.  We observed a lot of very large blue crabs perched on the biogenic reef and some "doublers", mating crabs, as well.  Interestingly, today we caught more fish off the reef for the first time, due to large accumulations of sea grass and algae around our off-reef area that are offering refuge to many fish including silver perch, northern kingfish, northern pipefish and an abundance of small blue crabs.  I am also wondering if the presence of so many large predatory blue crabs on the reef has motivated the fish to find other refuge.  While snorkeling up close to the reef we could see that oyster spat have settled on the reef surface creating more surface area and adding to the ecosystem services of the reef by filtering the water.  Overall the reef is still carpeted with various algae, and encrusted with barnacles and now oyster spat, while large blue crabs lurk around the legs and underside and fish use the space around the structures for hiding places.  It has become a seasoned fouling surface and we hope to see more species next month!