The Saturday Sifters
Today was our first Saturday on San Salvador. It was also the first day, of many I imagine, where the weather dictated our agenda. We spent the morning studying, doing laundry, and thinking of research project topics because of the high winds and intense waves.
The wind did not slow down in the afternoon so we did some science on land. We took cores of the sand at Graham's Harbor across the street from the research center. We took samples at different tidal height and sifted through the sample to search for any animals living in the sediment, known as infauna. Unlike the beach sand back home in Washington, the sandy beaches lacked nutrients leaving us empty handed in our finds with only one ant to show for all our sifting.
Following our sampling of the sand we searched through piles of washed up seagrass on the shore and discovered a whole world of bugs in there. There were isopods, sand fleas, ants, rove beetles and more creepy crawlies.
Then we took a peak at the world unseen between the grains of sand. We sampled four different area to look for microscopic organisms generally known as meiofauna. We used special sifters to draw out the meiofauna and examined the organisms with microscopes (Photo and video included!).
Just before leaving the beach Kate saw some bubbles in the sand and had a strong feeling that there was a creature hiding beneath the sediment. She took a core of the spot and discovered a sylliad polycheate (a little sand worm!). She clearly has a sixth sense!
We will finish off the day with a movie night hopefully featuring life under the sea!
It has been a calmer day, but will help us be ready for our adventures out on the Club Med boat tomorrow. We are told that organisms on the edge of the reef can be very different from all the species we have seen so far!
The wind did not slow down in the afternoon so we did some science on land. We took cores of the sand at Graham's Harbor across the street from the research center. We took samples at different tidal height and sifted through the sample to search for any animals living in the sediment, known as infauna. Unlike the beach sand back home in Washington, the sandy beaches lacked nutrients leaving us empty handed in our finds with only one ant to show for all our sifting.
Following our sampling of the sand we searched through piles of washed up seagrass on the shore and discovered a whole world of bugs in there. There were isopods, sand fleas, ants, rove beetles and more creepy crawlies.
Then we took a peak at the world unseen between the grains of sand. We sampled four different area to look for microscopic organisms generally known as meiofauna. We used special sifters to draw out the meiofauna and examined the organisms with microscopes (Photo and video included!).
Just before leaving the beach Kate saw some bubbles in the sand and had a strong feeling that there was a creature hiding beneath the sediment. She took a core of the spot and discovered a sylliad polycheate (a little sand worm!). She clearly has a sixth sense!It has been a calmer day, but will help us be ready for our adventures out on the Club Med boat tomorrow. We are told that organisms on the edge of the reef can be very different from all the species we have seen so far!
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