The program started out on Tuesday, August 13th, with an informational presentation on bonefish and flats ecology. Zach and Justin also spent a bit of time that first day teaching students the basics on flyfishing where they had the chance to practice casting, some of them for the first time! That afternoon we headed over to Great Cistern to do an introduction on methodology and how to use the seine net. We saw lots of turtles, a shark and caught some shad (mojarra), crabs, shrimp, and other fun stuff in the seine net. 

The second day we tagged 20 bonefish around Crossing Rocks, about 12 miles south of the Marls. Clint Kemp from Black Fly Lodge in Schooner Bay took us out with two of their flats boats for a beautiful day on the water. After tagging and doing a little fishing, he took us over to the Black Fly Lodge to check out their facilities. It was very quaint and personal lodge, right on the newly developed Schooner Bay. Clint was a wealth of information on not only what it’s like to be a top notch fly fishing guide, but also some of the background on the development of the unique “Live, work, and play” community of Schooner Bay. 

Check out their website:

Black Fly Lodge - http://www.blackflylodge.com/ 

Schooner Bay - http://www.schoonerbaybahamas.com/

For the last day, we headed out flyfishing to get more practice using the fly rods and to catch a few bonefish. We went out in Cherokee Sound with local guide Buddy Pinder and found LOTS of bonefish. Those spooky Cherokee bones are known to be tough to catch, but we did have two students get the chance to catch two bonefish that morning! Once the tide got a little high for fishing, we had lunch at the Pinder’s house in Casuarina. Students then learned to make their own flys to take home and use next time they are out fishing! 

Check out Buddy Pinder at:

www.worldwidefishing.com

skeeterone@coralwave.com

It was a great week out on the flats. Students got a well rounded experience on the importance of bonefish in the coastal flats ecosystem. They also learned first hand the value of bonefish in the flyfishing industry where in the Bahamas, $141 million dollars is produced annually. We hope to have a few future flyfishing guides come out of the bunch! Big thanks to our guides, Clint and Buddy, as well as researchers, Zack and Justin, who helped make the experience unforgettable for our students.

We look forward to collaborating with Friends of the Environment next year for the next Abaco flats program!

Check out Friends of the Environment at:
http://www.friendsoftheenvironment.org/

The flats week students not only worked alongside our Flats researchers all through the week, but also had the opportunity to go bonefishing with some of the local fishermen of Rock Sound and Savannah Sound. In doing this, they got a taste of some of the local ideas in conservation of the mangrove flats ecosystem and protection of bonefish as well as other species that spend all or just part of their life there.

The Shark week students spent a good amount of time in the field setting longlines and drum lines for juvenile lemon sharks and their predators. They were very successful in tagging and recapture of juvenile lemons, having caught 7 in one day at a nearby creek. They were also able to use their findings to relate to other juvenile lemon shark studies from the Bimini Biological Field Station.

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On the last day, both shark and flats presented to their fellow campers and researchers on some of the information they had learned and collected through the week. The day concluded with a trip down island to check out the Rock Sound caverns, Ocean Hole Park, the giant banyan trees, ending at a Bahamian style dinner at Sharil’s in Deep Creek. The week was a busy one full of fun, friendships, and most importantly learning about the mangrove flats ecosystem!

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In addition to being part of a multi-million dollar catch-and-release fishery, bonefish (Albula vulpes) are an essential component of tropical marine ecosystems and an integral part of Bahamian culture. A variety of activities are currently threatening the future of the bonefish, including global climate change.

Water temperature is the “master” environmental factor influencing the biology of fish. Water temperature exerts more control over fish than any other single abiotic factor as it influences nearly all biochemical, physiological, and life history activities. The advent of small thermal loggers that can be surgically implanted in fish has provided the opportunity to reconstruct the thermal history of fish over an entire year. Using a swim tunnel Liane will also be investigating the role of temperature on bonefish swimming energetics and metabolic rates.

Given the ecological and economic importance of coastal areas, coupled with the influence of thermal phenomena such as El Niño and the impact of global warming in these ecosystems, a lack of information demands a broader investigation into the thermal physiology and ecology of fish. This data will be modeled to examine the consequences of different climate change scenarios on bonefish. Liane believes this area of research has great potential to address novel questions regarding bonefish conservation and management.

Two students from Carleton University in Ottawa, Felicia St-Louis and Petra Szekeres, will be on The Island School campus until June 19th collecting data for their research on the thermal biology of the checkered puffer fish (Sphoeroides estudineus) and bonefish (Albula vulpes). Over her short visit this past February, Felicia was able to validate intra-muscular cortisol injections as a method of increasing blood cortisol (i.e. a stress hormone) to ecologically relevant levels in the checkered puffer for her MSc project. She is examining the effects of short-term cortisol elevation on the thermal biology of the puffers in the lab as well as in the field. By building a thermal profile of Page creek and releasing puffers tagged with thermal logging iButtons within the creek for a one month period, she will be able to compare habitat preferences between control and cortisol-dosed puffers. Determining the effects of additional environmental challenges such as temperature, on the physiology and behaviour of animals is relevant to understanding the thresholds for survival and predicting the associated ecological consequences. Felicia expects to shed some light on the physiological, behavioural and ecological effects of environmental change on coastal marine wildlife. Petra’s undergraduate research stems from the Florida cold snap of 2010 that resulted in over a million dead game fish including tarpon, snook and bonefish. The sublethal physiological and behavioural effects of the cold shock on bonefish were unknown. She is therefore, evaluating the consequences of a short term cold shock on bonefish. The physiological aspect of her study consists of taking a small blood sample, which will be analyzed for cortisol, lactate and glucose concentrations, pH and hematocrit. The behavioural aspect of her study consists of simulating response to a predation event as characterized by the distance they swim and the time it takes to exhaust the fish. This project hopes to achieve a framework for the sublethal consequences of cold shock in bonefish with regard to their stress levels and predator avoidance behaviour.

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So everyone has heard of climate change/global warming- increased anthropogenic CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere shifts annual global climate, which then leads to other catastrophic events within the Earth’s ecosphere. An increase in oceanic temperature and acidity is among the most pressing and readily apparent effects of climate change. Past research has shown fish of tropical reefs to be particularly sensitive to changes in ocean temperature and pH. In the flats department, we aim to determine whether common teleost occupants of tropical mangroves exhibit a similar sensitivity to such changes. Using bonefish (Albula spp.), checkered puffers (Sphoeroides tetudineus), juvenile yellowfin mojarra (Gerres cinereus), and juvenile yellowtail snapper (Ocyurus chrysurus), we aim to determine the Critical maximum and minimum temperature and pH at which each species looses equilibrium (“goes belly up”). With the help of visiting students from the Maine School of Science and Mathmatics, we have already determined the critical maximum temperature for puffers, mojarra, and snapper by observing behavior of test subjects while gradually increasing the ambient temperature. With our recently engineered water-cooling system, we plan on determining critical minimum temperature this week! Once completed this study will help us to predict the phenotypic plasticity of these mangrove species in response to rising oceanic temperatures and acidity.

By C.J., Noah, Hannah, Ellen, Heather, and Chris D.

The Flats Research team recently traveled by boat to Kemp’s Creek to catch bonefish. Our research group is studying bonefish, among other species, because there have been very few studies on them.  This is surprising, considering the important ecological role played by bonefish, as well as their appeal for sport fishing in the Bahamas. Bonefish are mainly found in shallow flats ecosystems, since this is where they hunt for prey. At low tide, however, bonefish tend to swim into open ocean. Recognizing that bonefish would be making this transition during the change in tides, we headed to Kemp Creek to collect some for our research.

The process by which we caught the bonefish was a method known as seining.  This method involves setting up a large net that covers the opening where the creek meets the ocean.  Many fish enter tidal creeks during high tide to forage for food.  We purposefully set the net during a time when the tide was leaving the creek, because the bonefish would be following the tide and retreating into deeper waters at this time. As the fish left the mouth of the creek, they were caught in the seine net that impeded their exit.  We also used an additional “booster” method to lure as many bonefish into the net as possible:  those who weren’t holding the net stood in a line that stretched the width of the creek, and slowly walked towards the net while splashing and making as much noise as possible to scare the fish into the seine net.  The net-operators then immediately closed the net into a circle surrounding the fish.  Using smaller dip nets, we then did our best to catch all of the bonefish that had been trapped. After collecting all of the bonefish from the net, our “by-catch” – which included a lemon shark, a cow fish, and many barracuda – was safely returned to its habitat in the creek.